Zionism and Israel - Biographies Theodor Herzl

Theodor Herzl

In 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army, was falsely accused of treason.  Mobs shouted “Death to the Jews” in France, the home of the French Revolution and the emancipation of the Jews. Herzl became convinced that the Jews needed a country of their own.

Herzl concluded that anti-Semitism was a stable and immutable factor, which assimilation would not solve. Despite ridicule from Jewish leaders, he published The Jewish State (Der Judenstaat) in 1896. Herzl claimed that the Jews could gain acceptance in the world only if they stopped being an anomaly among nations. He asserted that the scattered Jews are one people. Their plight could be transformed into a positive force by the establishment of a Jewish state guaranteed in international law - "volkerrechtig" -- with the consent of the great powers. Echoing Rabbi Yehudah Alkalai and a few other Zionist forerunners, Herzl saw the Jewish problem as an international political issue.

Herzl proposed to collect funds from Jews around the world by a company which would work toward settling Jews in Palestine. and securing a state. Eventually this idea was transformed into the Zionist Organization, the Jewish National Fund and other organizations.   The Jewish State and Herzl's novel,  Altneuland (Old New Land) published in 1902,  pictured a Jewish social utopia in Palestine. It would be a pluralist, technologically advanced, secular society with equality for Arabs.   Altneuland became a symbol of the Zionist vision in the Land of Israel.

Herzl's ideas were rejected in Western Europe. Herzl was turned down by Jewish magnates such as Baron Hirsch and Baron Rothschild. Herzl then appealed to the people, organizing  the First Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland, on August 29­31, 1897. The congress was historic not just for founding the Zionist movement, but because it was the first time an organized body , representing at least the Jews of the Western world, had been convened since the exile nearly 2000 years ago.  Herzl's ideas found mass support from the poor Jews of Eastern Europe and Russia. At Basle, the Zionist movement resolved to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law.” The World Zionist Organization was established, and Herzl was elected president. Herzl wrote in his diary, "At Basle, I founded the Jewish state.. If not in five years, then certainly in fifty, everyone will realize it.”

Herzl presided over six Zionist Congresses between 1897 and 1903, setting up the Jewish Colonial Trust, the Jewish National Fund and the movement's newspaper Die Welt. After Herzl's death, the movement continued to meet every year except during war. In 1936 the center of the Zionist movement moved to Jerusalem.

In his quest for great power backing, Herzl traveled to Palestine and Istanbul in 1898 to meet with Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. They turned him down. Herzl then met with Joseph Chamberlain, the British colonial secretary and others, who offered, not Palestine, which Britain did not have, but possibilities of settlement in Cyprus or  in east Africa, in Uganda.

The Kishinev pogrom in 1903 and the devastation of Russian Jewry, witnessed  by Herzl during a visit to Russia, moved Herzl to propose   that the Russian government assist the Zionist Movement to transfer Jews from Russia. He proposed the British Uganda offer as a temporary refuge - a "night shelter"  for the Jews of Russia, at the Sixth Zionist Congress in 1903. Herzl made it clear that this program would not affect the ultimate aim of Zionism, which was settlement in "Eretz Yisrael" - Palestine. Nonetheless, the proposal aroused great anger, particularly, and surprisingly, among the Russian delegates, the very people whom Herzl had sought to help. The proposal was finally rejected in part because the British themselves had withdrawn it. Though alternative homes such as Uganda were never considered by Zionists as more than a temporary measure, anti-Zionists have falsely seized on these initiatives for national homes outside Palestine as "proof" that Jews have no special tie to Palestine.  The contrary is true. Prior to the Zionist movement, various Jewish thinkers and philanthropists had proposed "national homes" in the United States or South America. However, though Baron Hirsch set up colonies in Argentina, the idea never captured the imagination of the people. The hearts and minds of the Jews were always set on "the Holy Land."

Herzl died in Vienna in 1904, of pneumonia, but the essential part of his work was done.  In 1949, Herzl's  remains were brought to Israel and buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

Herzl became the symbol of Zionism. His  picture dominates Israeli government and Zionist offices. His name is commemorated in the names of towns, schools and streets. Every fair sized town in Israel has a Herzl street. On the other hand, foes of Zionism caricature the picture. For Arabs and other anti-Zionists, Herzl is the symbol of "Zionist Colonialism." For ultra-orthodox Jews, he is the symbol of secularism. An ultra-orthodox anti-Zionist MK once declared in the Knesset, "May Herzl turn over in his grave.

The Israel government has declared that his birthday is to be marked each year i on the twelfth day of the Hebrew month of Iyar, exactly one week following Israel independence day.

Herzl's work made possible what others had only dreamed about. He said "If you will, it is no legend."  He was the midwife of a movement that was to fulfill the age-old impossible  dream of the Jews, to be a free people once again in their own country.

Ami Isseroff

Notice - This biography is copyright ©2005-6 by Ami Isseroff and the Zionism-Israel Information Center.  You may cite parts of this biography for nonprofit use in promoting Zionism,  giving credit to http://www.zionism-israel.com Zionism and Israel Information Center and linking to this page. Please do not copy our original materials to your Web site.

More Israeli and Zionist Biographies The Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Zionism and Israel

External Zionism Links

This site provides resources about Zionism and Israeli history, including links to source documents. We are not responsible for the information content of these sites. These links are NOT intended to be an exhaustive reference about Zionism, but the list will keep growing...

Please tell us about your favorite links and we will review them for inclusion.