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Theodor (Binyamin Ze’ev) Herzl
(1860-1904)
"“In Basle I founded the Jewish state . . . Maybe in five years,
certainly in fifty, everyone will realize it.”"
Theodor (Binyamin Ze’ev) Herzl, the visionary of Zionism, was born in
Budapest in 1860. He was educated in the spirit of the GermanJewish
Enlightenment of the period, learning to appreciate secular culture.
In 1878 the family moved to Vienna, and in 1884 Herzl was awarded a
doctorate of law from the University of Vienna. He became a writer, a
playwright and a journalist. The Paris correspondent of the
influential liberal Vienna newspaper Neue Freie Presse was none other
than Theodor Herzl.
Herzl first encountered the anti-Semitism that would shape his life and the fate of
the Jews in the twentieth century while studying at the University of Vienna (1882).
Later, during his stay in Paris as a journalist, he
was brought face-to-face with the problem. At the time, he regarded the Jewish problem
as a social issue and wrote a drama, The Ghetto (1894), in which assimilation and
conversion are rejected as solutions. He hoped that
The Ghetto would lead to debate and ultimately to a solution, based on mutual
tolerance and respect between Christians and Jews.
The Dreyfus Affair
In 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army, was unjustly
accused of treason, mainly because of the prevailing anti-Semitic atmosphere. Herzl
witnessed mobs shouting “Death to the Jews” in France,
the home of the French Revolution, and resolved that there was only one solution: the
mass immigration of Jews to a land that they could call their own. Thus, the Dreyfus
Case became one of the determinants in the genesi
s of Political Zionism.
Herzl concluded that anti-Semitism was a stable and immutable factor in human society,
which assimilation did not solve. He mulled over the idea of Jewish sovereignty, and,
despite ridicule from Jewish leaders, published
Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State, 1896). Herzl argued that the essence of the Jewish
problem was not individual but national. He declared that the Jews could gain
acceptance in the world only if they ceased being a nation
al anomaly. The Jews are one people, he said, and their plight could be transformed
into a positive force by the establishment of a Jewish state with the consent of the
great powers. He saw the Jewish question as an inter
national political question to be dealt with in the arena of international politics.
Herzl proposed a practical program for collecting funds from Jews around the world by
a company to be owned by stockholders, which would work toward the practical
realization of this goal. (This organization, when it was
eventually formed, was called the Zionist Organization.) He saw the future state as a
model social state, basing his ideas on the European model of the time, of a modern
enlightened society. It would be neutral and peace-
seeking, and of a secular nature.
In his Zionist novel, Altneuland (Old New Land, 1902), Herzl pictured the future
Jewish state as a socialist utopia. He envisioned a new society that was to rise in
the Land of Israel on a cooperative basis utilizing scie
nce and technology in the development of the Land.
He included detailed ideas about how he saw the future state's political structure,
immigration, fundraising, diplomatic relations, social laws and relations between
religion and the state. In Altneuland, the Jewish state
was foreseen as a pluralist, advanced society, a “light unto the nations.” This book
had a great impact on the Jews of the time and became a symbol of the Zionist vision
in the Land of Israel.
A Movement Is Started
Herzl's ideas were met with enthusiasm by the Jewish masses in Eastern Europe,
although Jewish leaders were less ardent. Herzl appealed to wealthy Jews such as Baron
Hirsch and Baron Rothschild, to join the national Zioni
st movement, but in vain. He then appealed to the people, and the result was the
convening of the First Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland, on August 2931, 1897.
The Congress was the first interterritorial gathering of Jews on a national and
secular basis. Here the delegates adopted the Basle Program, the program of the
Zionist movement, and declared “Zionism seeks to establish a
home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law.” At the Congress the
World Zionist Organization was established as the political arm of the Jewish people,
and Herzl was elected its first president.
Herzl convened six Zionist Congresses between 1897 and 1902. It was here that the
tools for Zionist activism were forged: Otzar Hityashvut Hayehudim; the Jewish
National Fund and the movement's newspaper Die Welt.
After the First Zionist Congress, the movement met yearly at an international Zionist
Congress. In 1936 the center of the Zionist movement was transferred to Jerusalem.
Uganda Isn't Zion
Herzl saw the need for encouragement by the great powers of the aims of the Jewish
people in the Land. Thus, he traveled to the Land of Israel and Istanbul in 1898 to
meet with Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and the Sultan
of the Ottoman Empire. When these efforts proved fruitless, he turned to Great
Britain, and met with Joseph Chamberlain, the British colonial secretary and others.
The only concrete offer he received from the British was
the proposal of a Jewish autonomous region in east Africa, in Uganda.
The 1903 Kishinev pogrom and the difficult state of Russian Jewry, witnessed firsthand
by Herzl during a visit to Russia, had a profound effect on him. He requested that the
Russian government assist the Zionist Movement
to transfer Jews from Russia to Eretz Yisrael.
At the Sixth Zionist Congress (1903), Herzl proposed the British Uganda Program as a
temporary refuge for Jews in Russia in immediate danger. While Herzl made it clear
that this program would not affect the ultimate aim o
f Zionism, a Jewish entity in the Land of Israel, the proposal aroused a storm at the
Congress and nearly led to a split in the Zionist movement. The Uganda Program was
finally rejected by the Zionist movement at the Seve
nth Zionist Congress in 1905.
Herzl died in Vienna in 1904, of pneumonia and a weak heart overworked by his
incessant efforts on behalf of Zionism. By then the movement had found its place on
the world political map. In 1949, Herzl's remains were brou
ght to Israel and reinterred on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
Herzl's books Der Judenstaat (“The Jewish State”) and Altneuland
(“Old New Land”), his plays and articles have been published
frequently and translated into many languages. His name has been
commemorated in the Herzl Forests at Ben Shemen and Hulda, the
world's first Hebrew gymnasium — “Herzlia” — which was established in
Tel Aviv, the town of Herzliya in the Sharon and neighborhoods and
streets in many Israeli towns and cities.
Herzl coined the phrase “If you will, it is no fairytale,” which
became the motto of the Zionist movement. Although at the time no one
could have imagined it, Zionism led, only fifty years later, to the
establishment of the independent State of Israel.
End<{{{
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