Zhitlowsky attended the First Zionist Congress convened at Basle in 1897. He was against founding a Zionist party. He believed in the necessity for a League for Jewish Colonization, a league that would appeal to all those opposed to Herzel's political Zionism. A day after the Congress, Zhitlowsky addressed the delegates and guests on Yiddish and the purposes of the Yiddish publishing house Zeit Geist, which had been founded by a group of Jewish intellectuals and revolutionaries. In this speech were first laid the foundations of Yiddishism, which subsequently became deeply rooted in Eastern Europe and America. He came into close relations with the Bund which published his pamphlet "Zionism or Socialism?" in 1898.