Then there was the rather large contingent of theocratic Jews, who, in contrast to the Orthodox, supported the creation of a Jewish state, but only if it were constructed as a religious state and based on Jewish law. These so-called Religious Zionists, conspicuously absent from the first meeting of the World Zionist Congress, which met in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897, ultimately formed their own religious parties, which to this day remain opposed to the secular nationalism upon which Israel was founded.
