Herzl, Theodor

(1860-1904)

   The founder of modern political Zionism, Herzl was the driving force in the creation of the political ideology and the worldwide movement that led to the establishment of Israel. Born in Pest, Hungary, on 1 May 1860, he was an assimilated Jew who later moved from Hungary to Austria. He studied law but became involved in literature and wrote short stories and plays. He worked as the Paris correspondent of the Viennese daily newspaper Neue Freie Presse from 1891 to 1895. Growing anti-Semitism in France contributed to Herzl's interest in the Jewish problem. As a journalist, he observed the trial of Alfred Dreyfus and was affected by the false accusations leveled against the French Jewish army officer and by the episodes of anti-Semitism that accompanied the trial and the disgrace of Dreyfus.

   Herzl wrote Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), published in Vienna in 1896, in which he assessed the situation and problems of the Jews and proposed a practical plan for the establishment of a Jewish state for resolution of the Jewish Question. Herzl argued: "Let the sovereignty be granted us over a portion of the globe large enough to satisfy the rightful requirements of a nation; the rest we shall manage for ourselves." Subsequently, Herzl traveled widely to publicize and gain support for his ideas. He found backing among the masses of east European Jewry and opposition among the leadership and wealthier segments of the western Jewish communities.

   On 23 August 1897, in Basle, Switzerland, Herzl convened the first World Zionist Congress representing Jewish communities and organizations throughout the world. The congress established the World Zionist Organization (WZO) and founded an effective, modern, political, Jewish national movement with the goal, enunciated in the Basle Program, the original official program of the WZO: "Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law." Zionism rejected other solutions to the Jewish Question and was the response to centuries of discrimination, persecution, and oppression. It sought redemption through self-determination. Herzl died in Austria on 3 July 1904 and was buried in Vienna. In August 1949, his remains were reinterred on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.