Herzl was born on May 2, 1860, in Budapest, Hungary, Austrian Empire (now in
Hungary), into a middle class Jewish family. Herzl attended a scientific
oriented German language school, but because of local anti-Semitism, moved in
1875 to another school that was attended mostly by Jews. The family moved to
Vienna, Austria, then the capital city of Austria-Hungary, where Herzl attended
the university gaining a doctorate in law, in 1884. He worked for short periods
in Vienna and Salzburg, but abandoned a career in law practice and dedicated
himself to writing, especially plays; some of them enjoyed a fair amount of success.
In 1889, Herzl married Julie Naschauer, daughter of a well-to-do Jewish
businessman in Vienna and had three children.
Having been appointed the Paris correspondent of the Neue Freie Presse, a
leading liberal Viennese newspaper, Herzl arrived in Paris, along with his wife
in the fall of 1891, only to discover that France was haunted by the same
anti-Semitism that he encountered in Austria. While in Paris, Herzl became
preoccupied by politics. The Dreyfus affair convinced him that there should be
only one solution to the Jewish question: mass emigration of Jews from Europe
and the establishment of a Jewish homeland, preferably in the Land of Israel.
His thoughts and ideas crystallized in an essay that initially he intended to
send to the Rothschilds, but he published his proposals in 1896 as Der
Judenstaat ("The Jewish State"), a book that changed the course of the
Jewish history. Herzl's ideas were received warmly especially in Eastern Europe
countries where masses of persecuted Jews were eager to find a way out of the
situation. The Hovevei Zion ("Lovers of Zion") movement called on Herzl
to assume the leadership of the movement. In 1897, the First Zionist Congress
convened in Basel, Switzerland, and the Zionist movement was established. Herzl
was chosen as life president of the World Zionist Organization. He also founded
Die Welt, a Zionist weekly. Altneuland ("Old New Country"),
Herzl's second book, a visionary novel describing the life in the future Jewish
State to be established in the Land of Israel, was published in 1902.
During the following years, Herzl traveled extensively throughout Europe and the
Middle East and conducted a long series of political meetings with prominent
European leaders of the time trying to enlist them to the Zionist cause. He
sought the support of the German Emperor, the King of Italy, and the Pope, tried
to persuade the Sultan of Turkey to allow Jewish autonomy in the Land of Israel,
and met the Russian ministry with the aim of convincing him to stop the violence
against the Jews of Russia. The most sympathetic offer of support came from
Great Britain. However, the Fourth Zionist Congress of 1903 rejected a British
proposal calling for the establishment of a Jewish autonomy in East Africa that
Herzl inclined to accept as a provisional refuge for the Jewish population of
Eastern Europe. A year later, his heart condition aggravated and shortly
afterwards, he died of pneumonia in a sanatorium in Edlach, Austria, on July 3,
1904 (20 Tammuz). Herzl was buried in Vienna and his funeral were attended by
large crowds of bereaved Jews from all over Europe. In August 1949, following
his will, the newly established State of Israel re-interred his remains in
Jerusalem, on Mount Herzl, which was named in his honor, and 20 Tammuz has been
declared a national memorial day in Israel.
HFG
Bibliography:
HERZL, Theodor. Complete diaries. Edited
by Raphael Patai. Translated by Harry Zohn. 5 v. (vi, 1961 p.) illus. New York:
Herzl Press [1960]
HERZL, Theodor. The Jewish state.
(translated from German). Pp. 160. New York: Dover Publications, 1988.
HERZL, Theodor. Old New land ("Altneuland")
(translated from German by Lotte Levensohn; with a new introduction by Jacques
Kornberg.) Princeton, NJ: M. Wiener, 1997.
ELON, Amos. Herzl. iv, 448 p., [24] p. of
plates: illus. New York: Schocken Books, 1986, c1975.
ELON, Amos.
Hertsel (Hebrew translation by Ivri, G. Aryokh and Amos Elon).
471 p., [8] p. of plates : illus., Tel Aviv: Am oved, 1977
Links:
The Jewish Community of Budapest
The Jewish Community of Vienna
Alfred
Dreyfus
Max
Nordau
