Only a small minority remained unimpressed by this success. It was, indeed, easier to see its pitfalls from the outside. As early as 1891, Ahad Ha'am, who later became the leading light of “Cultural Zionism,” published in Ha-Melitz, a Hebrew journal that was edited in Odessa, an essay entitled “Slavery in Freedom.” This was a raging attack on the Jews of the West who were, according to him, boasting their successful emancipation while disregarding their “spiritual slavery.” A few years later, indeed, Zionism was slowly emerging in Germany, too, relying on the same assumptions concerning the crisis of emancipation and focusing on its implications. But the vast majority of German Jews in fin de siècle Germany had lovingly accepted the combination of legal emancipation and economic cum cultural success. Only the minority, consisting of Zionists and non-Zionists alike, was not ready to compromise. It was this minority that continued to harshly criticize the position of the Jews, their life, and their ideals. While most chose to be content with their personal and collective success, the minority, at the margin, continued to view the situation anxiously, with their ears and eyes wide open. They were the ones who heard the voices of the antisemites, read their writings, listened to the sounds of hostility, and became acutely conscious of the dangers.

Herzl's Zionism clearly indicated a turn to the inner Jewish sphere to seek a solution to antisemitism.