Theodor Herzl

Theodor Herzl, also known as Teodoro Herzl in Hispanic countries (Hebrew: בנימין זאב הרצל‎, Binyamin Ze'ev Herzl; in Hungarian Herzl Tivadar; Pest, May 2, 1860 - Reichenau an der Rax, July 3 1904), was an Austro-Hungarian journalist, playwright, political activist and writer of Jewish origin, founder of modern political Zionism. Herzl created the Zionist Organization and promoted the return and immigration of the Jewish diaspora to the present territory of Israel, then under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, in an effort to form a Jewish state. Although he died before its establishment, he is known as the father of the State of Israel.

While Herzl is specifically mentioned in Israel's Declaration of Independence and is officially known as "the spiritual father of the Jewish state", that is, the visionary who gave political Zionism a concrete and workable platform and framework, he was not the first Zionist theoretician or activist; scholars, many of them religious such as rabbis Yehuda Bibas, Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, and Yehuda Hay Alkalai, promoted a range of proto-Zionist ideas before him.

Biography

Herzl was born in 1860 in the Kingdom of Hungary, in Pest County (today the eastern part of the city of Budapest, which then constituted two separate cities), next to the Great Synagogue of Budapest. He grew up in a German-speaking Jewish family from the city of Zemun, located on the Military Frontier (present-day Serbia), representative of the emerging Jewish bourgeoisie in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He grew up in a comfortable, liberal and secular environment.

He studied at a Jewish school until he was ten years old, when he was sent to a secular school that he had to drop out of because of its anti-Semitism. In this way, he was enrolled in an evangelical (Protestant) school, in which he had no problems with anti-Semitism, since most of the students were Jews. Following the untimely death of his sister, Paulina, in 1878 the family moved to Vienna, then the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where he studied (from 1878 to 1884) and obtained a doctorate in law from the University of Vienna in 1884. He worked in this profession for a short time in Vienna and in Salzburg, but after a year he devoted himself almost exclusively to literature, dramaturgy, and journalism.

During his youth, he attended an association called the Burschenschaft, which aspired to German unification, under the motto "Ehre, Freiheit, Vaterland" (Honor, Freedom, Homeland ) and his early work did not focus on Jewish life. Herzl was an assimilated Jew. His works were serialized, descriptive and non-political novels.

His first job was as a non-salaried employee of the courts in Vienna and Salzburg. He aspired to become a judge, but his Jewish condition did not allow it. He later he combined forensic practice with his activity as a writer, playwright and journalist. He also wrote successful comedies for Viennese theaters.

In 1891 he turned to journalism; He was the Paris correspondent of the influential liberal newspaper in Vienna, Neue Freie Presse (1891-1895), an important newspaper of reference in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, representative of the Austrian liberal current.

Dreyfus Affair

Theodor Herzl in 1878, in his years of journalist.

Theodor Herzl in Basel in 1897.

As a correspondent in Paris, he noted and analyzed the growth of anti-Semitism, and began to become emotionally involved in the "Jewish problem", to which until then he had not paid much attention. At first he held assimilationist theses, but the Dreyfus Affair in 1894 —a notorious anti-Semitic process that occurred in France, in which a Jewish captain in the French army, Alfred Dreyfus, was unjustly accused of treason, accused of spying for Germany— was a point for him. of inflection of assimilationism towards nationalism since, in his own words, attending the Dreyfus process and the anti-Semitic agitation that was generated around that case was what made him definitively a Zionist.

Herzl, as a correspondent for Neue Freie Presse, was one of the few journalists allowed to attend Dreyfus's demotion ceremony. Two weeks earlier he had been in the courtroom and witnessed the announcement of the captain's guilty verdict. The prisoner was forced to cross the courtyard, which he did while claiming his innocence. The crowd then responded with racist slogans and, as he left the building, Herzl witnessed the demonstrations in Paris after the trial, chanting: Death to Dreyfus! Death to the Jews!.

The deep anti-Semitic atmosphere led Herzl towards a new conceptual horizon: he began to reject his early ideas about Jewish emancipation and assimilation to believe that the Jewish people should withdraw from Europe and create their own state.

In June 1895, he wrote in his diary:

In Paris, as I have already said, I have acquired a freer attitude towards anti-Semitism... Above all, I recognize the emptiness and inutility of trying to 'combat' anti-Semitism.

Zionist leader

His new Zionist vision was presented in full in his book entitled Der Judenstaat: Versuch einer modernen Lösung der Judenfrage ("The Jewish State: Essay for a Modern Solution of the Jewish Question"), that was published in February 1896, where he proposed that the solution to the "Jewish problem" was the creation of an independent and sovereign Jewish State for all the Jews of the world, that this was a matter of international politics and that it should be assumed as such. The text, more a manifesto than a doctrinal work, proposed a political and practical plan that offered a modern and exciting vision for the nascent Jewish nationalism, whose main goal was the creation of a modern country for the Jewish people.

Early on, when he realized the need for a Jewish state, he failed to capture the attention of wealthier and more influential Jews such as Baron Hirsch and Baron Rothschild. At first, the text was not very well received: in the liberal and assimilationist Jewish circles of Central and Western Europe it was considered just another chimera. Nor was he liked in the synagogues, where he was perceived as contrary to religious teachings. On the other hand, his ideas were enthusiastically received by the Jewish masses, who regarded him as a modern Moses.

In The Jewish State he wrote:

The Jewish question persists where Jews live in considerable numbers. Wherever it does not exist, it is carried along with Jewish immigrants. We, of course, are dragged to places where we are not persecuted, and our appearance leads to persecution. This is the case, and it will be inevitable, everywhere, even in highly civilized countries - see, for example, France - provided that the Jewish question is not resolved at the political level. The misfortune of the Jewish people is now transporting and sowing the seed of anti-Semitism in England, and they have already introduced it to America.

From April 1896, when the English translation of Der Judenstaat appeared, Herzl became the leading spokesman for Zionism. Herzl completed his brief and began to engage in intense diplomatic activity in order to win support for the Zionist cause internationally.

He visited Istanbul in April 1896, where he tried to persuade the Sultan of Turkey to cede part of Ottoman Syria to him in order to create a Jewish state in exchange for financial support. He was welcomed in Sofia, Bulgaria, by a Jewish delegation. In London, he was received coldly, but was given the leadership mandate of the London Zionists. Within six months of that term, he was endorsed throughout the Zionist Jewish community, and Herzl traveled constantly to draw attention to his cause. His supporters, few in number at first, worked day and night, inspired by his example.

He established his headquarters in Vienna, from where he spread his activity towards the Jewish community, which began to perceive him as a modern and worldly leader, who could channel the latent nationalism of large Jewish sectors.

Theodor Herzl by boat arriving at the coast of Palestine in 1898

According to some sources, including Israeli revisionist historian Benny Morris, Herzl's approach to immigration and land purchase made it inevitable that conflict would arise between the settlers and the population of the former Ottoman Empire, predominantly Arab: the population of the territory assigned to them could only interpret the organized and politically motivated immigration and acquisition of territory that Herzl noted in his diaries in 1895, as dispossession and displacement; Efraim Karsh, Professor of War Studies at King's College London, has repeatedly pointed out inaccuracies in Morris's work, and on this subject indicates that the citation to the newspapers of Herzl omits several sentences, decontextualizing the meaning; He also says that Herzl does not mention the Arabs or Palestine in the paragraph and that in fact his forecasts at that time were more aimed at South America, specifically Argentina.

When we occupy the territory, we must offer immediate benefits to the state that receives us. We must carefully expropriate private property in the state that has been assigned to us. We will try to move the poor population along the border, seeking employment in transit countries, while denying employment in our country. The owners will come next to us. Both the expropriation process and the elimination of poverty must be carried out in a discreet and prudent manner. We allow the owners to believe that they are deceiving us, selling us the most expensive things than they really are worth. But we won't resell anything... We must sell only to Jews, and every exchange of real estate must be made only among Jews. It is not necessary to say that we must respectfully tolerate the people of other religions and protect their property, honour and freedom with the most severe coercion measures. This is another area where we must show the whole world a magnificent example... There must be many unmovable owners in individual areas (which will not sell us their property), we must simply leave them there and develop our trade towards other areas that belong to us.

(in italics the omitted phrases whose lack, according to Karsh, decontextualize the original text.)

In 1897, at considerable personal expense, he founded in Vienna Die Welt ("The World"), the first official Zionist organ. That same year he organized the First Zionist Congress in Basel (Switzerland). There he was elected president (a position he held until his death in 1904), and in 1898 he began a series of diplomatic initiatives aimed at rallying support for a Jewish country. He was received by the German Emperor on several occasions, was again received in audience by the Ottoman Emperor in Jerusalem, and attended the 1899 Peace Conference in The Hague, enjoying a warm reception by many other statesmen.

Between 1902 and 1903 Herzl was invited to testify before the British Royal Commission on foreign immigration. The affair brought him into close contact with members of the British government, in particular, with Joseph Chamberlain, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, through whom he negotiated with the Egyptian government to establish statutes of settlement for the Jews in Al 'Arish, in the Sinai Peninsula.

In 1902 he published his work Altneuland (The Old New Earth) where he would present the future Jewish State as a utopia of a modern, democratic and prosperous nation.

Death and Burial

Guard of honor by the coffin of Herzl in Israel.

Herzl died in Edlach, Lower Austria in 1904 of heart failure at the age of 44. His will stipulated that he should have a simple burial, without speeches or flowers and added: I want to be buried in the cemetery next to my father, and rest there until the Jewish People lead me to Eretz Israel . In 1949 his remains were transferred from the Döbling Cemetery in Vienna to Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

In the context of the discussion on UN General Assembly Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism with Racism, Emilio Rabasa, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, visited Herzl's grave and said: " [...] there is no discrimination in Zion and where there is no discrimination, there can be no racist state [...], we have witnessed absolute tolerance in this country".

Herzl is the main symbol of Zionism and the father of the State of Israel. His image is present in official Israeli offices and his memory is kept in cities, schools and streets (practically every Israeli city has a Herzl Street).

Resolutions of the first Zionist Congress in Basel

• Theodor Herzl organized it and was elected president.
• They adopted a national anthem (Hatikvaand a flag.
• The purchase of land was organized and kibutz was formed (one of the main ideas of socialist Zionism).
• Diplomatic relations began with the Ottoman Empire for the transfer of German Jews to Palestine, which did not bear fruit and later with the United Kingdom, which were possible after World War I, although they were conspiringly interpreted, as Germany had war debts with the United Kingdom.