ABSTRACT
The factors that contributed to Brandeis' becoming an active and ardent Zionist are still somewhat of a puzzle to historians. Everyone is more or less in agreement as to when this occurred. Brandeis first publicly announced his sympathy for Zionism in an interview published in The American Hebrew on December 2, 1910 (a similar version was published in the Boston Jewish Advocate on December 9) and he became actively involved in the Zionist movement when he chaired a public reception for the Zionist leader Nahum Sokolow on March 30, 1913. 1 But the influences that transformed Brandeis from a Jew who had remained aloof from the Jewish community into a prominent Zionist leader are both unclear and very much in dispute.
