Hertzl, Theodor

NAME: Herzl, Theodor

ACHIEVEMENTS: Founded Zionism

NICKNAME/ALIAS: None

DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: May 2, 1860, Budapest, Hungary

DATE AND PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: July 3, 1904, Edlach, Austria. Aged 44

DISCIPLINE: Zionist

FIELD: Politics

LANGUAGE: German

PARENTS: Jacob Herzl; Jeannette Diamant

SIBLINGS: Pauline

SPOUSE: Julie Naschauer

CHILDREN: Son Hans, Daughters Pauline and Trude

EDUCATION: Israelite Community Elementary School, Pest; Technical School,

Pest; Gymnasium, Pest; University of Vienna

MAJOR WORK: "The Jewish State"

LIFE AND TIMES:

Herzl’s childhood hero was De Lesseps*, builder of the Suez Canal.

At university Herzl flirted with German nationalism and joined a student fraternity group, Albia, that supported the idea of an Austrian union with Prussia. When he was 22, Herzl was repelled by Eugen Duhring's "The Jewish Question", a book which advocated that Jewish people be excluded from all professions and from German society.

Duhring also attacked Ferdinand Lassalle, who was a Jewish campaigner for social justice and considered a German patriot. For Herzl and many Jews of his generation, Lassalle was a role model.

As an anti-traditional skeptic about Jewish religion, Herzl felt that Jews should mix and assimilate in their adopted countries. Herzl moved to France to become a newspaper reporter. He was quickly assimilated into literary society and was a close acquaintance of writer Alphonse Daudet, who was strongly anti-Semitic. But the anti-Semitism of the French began to disturb Herzl, and he came to the opinion that anti-Semitism could not be overcome by Jews integrating into the society.

Herzl began to agonize over the Jewish condition, but vacillated as to what the solution should be. He thought for a while that socialism was the answer, because it would bring democracy and eradicate the power of the traditional, established anti-Semitic forces. He then thought that anti-Semitism was a good thing, because it would force the Jews to assimilate. But gradually he came to believe that the anti-Semitism around him was so ingrained that there was nothing Jews could do about it.

In October, 1894, he wrote "The New Ghetto" , a play which criticized anti-Semitism, but painted a negative picture of Jews as a degenerate race. Herzl insisted the play be performed anonymously. Arthur Schnitzler, the playwright, helped. Herzl said later that writing the play was to have been his catharsis, but that it led him further into the Jewish dilemma. By 1895, Herzl had made up his mind to get actively involved in the movement

to found a Jewish national state.

The idea of a Jewish state was not new. Napoleon had thought about establishing a Jewish state in Israel. British politician Disraeli*, born a Jew but christened an Anglican, wrote a Zionist novel, "Tancred". Moses Hess*, a friend of Karl Marx, had published "Rom und Jerusalem" which advocated the formation of a Jewish state. Leo Pinsker wrote a pamphlet after the Russian pogroms of 1881 called "Auto-Emanzipation", which appealed to the Jews in the west to help establish colonies in Palestine.

Herzl started his Zionist campaign inauspiciously in Paris in June,1895. Carrying statistics and other data to prove the Jews needed their own homeland and an organization to help procure it , Herzl went to see Baron Maurice de Hirsch, the extremely rich founder of the Jewish Colonial Association, which settled Jews from Russia and Romania on the North and South American continents, in particular Argentina. But the Baron wouldn't listen.

With the notes he had written to present his argument to the Baron, Herzl wrote "The Jewish State', published in 1896, in Vienna, where Herzl now was editor of the Neue Freie Presse. The work argued that the Jewish question was a political one, not a religious or social one, and as such, it should be discussed by other nations. His views were popular in Eastern Europe though many friends disagreed with him.

Herzl traveled to Constantinople, hoping to see the Sultan (he didn’t) about land in

Palestine for the Jews. Hundreds of Jews greeted him when his train stopped in Sofia, Bulgaria, and acclaimed him as their leader.

Herzl talked to the Rothschild’s* and wrote to Wilhelm II of Germany. He established the Zionist newspaper, "Die Welt", a weekly paper in Vienna. He went to London, where he met writer Israel Zangwill*, who eventually took over from him as Zionist leader.

In 1897, Herzl organized a world congress of Zionists in Basel. It attracted about 200 delegates from varying social classes and various religious persuasions, from Orthodox Judaism to Christianity, to atheism. Herzl received a tremendous ovation when he addressed the congress. He proclaimed, "Zionism is the return to Judaism, even before the return to the land of Israel."

At the end of the three-day Congress, delegates agreed on "The Basel Program", which stated that "Zionism aspires to create a publicly guaranteed homeland for the Jewish people in the land of Israel". The Zionist Organization was set up and Herzl was made President.

Herzl negotiated with the Sultan of Turkey, but failed to get a charter allowing Jewish mass settlement in Palestine. In 1901, the Jewish National Fund was established at the Fifth Zionist Congress in Basel. In 1902, Herzl visited Britain and proposed to the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration that a Jewish settlement be allowed in British territory in the Sinai Peninsula. The British proposed Uganda, in East Africa. Herzl agreed, but the Zionist congress of 1903 objected strongly.

By 1904, Herzl's health had deteriorated and in 1904 , he died at age 44 of heart trouble. According to his wishes, he was reburied in Jerusalem in 1949 after the creation of Israel as a Jewish state. The place of his burial, on a hill west of the city, is called Mount Herzl.

ASSESSMENT: Herzl founded the Zionist political organization and worked for the establishment of a Jewish national state.

EXTRA CONNECTIONS: He was anticipated by Lazarus*

ONELINER: Theodor Hertzl, founder of Zionism

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Beller, Steven, Herzl, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1991