The telegraph was available in Herzl's day, and he no doubt made good, and perhaps even extensive, use of it. It is, after all, a useful tool for journalists to send their stories to their newspapers. The telegraph closed the communication gap (which people probably didn't know existed until it was closed). For the first time, information could be transmitted faster than it required someone to carry it. My guess is that a great deal of the organizing of the various Zionist Congresses relied on the telegraph. And perhaps more than this, the realization that it really was possible to connect between people led to a feeling that it was possible to move them as well.

What's more, a comparison of the culture that sprang up around the telegraph with our "new" internet culture is rather fascinating. Tom Standage's 1999 book, The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the 19th Century's Online Pioneers, holds a number of perhaps unexpected comparisons. Among these are "online" affairs and marriages conducted via the telegraph, elaborate scam scemes, and as was to be expected, the promise of a new era of peace ushered in by a techonology that brings people together. Perhaps it's not too far-fetched an idea that part of the impetus for the ingathering of the exiles was a feeling of bringing people closer via tools such as the telegraph.

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