Click for 360 tour
Nearly a century separates Lessing
and Mendelssohn from Theodor
Herzl (1860–1904), yet he is part of
the same quest for full citizenship for Jews. An emancipated Jew in Vienna, Herzl’s experience of late nineteenth-century antisemitism convinced him that
emancipation had failed and that Jews had to devise an alternative.
Herzl envisioned a Jewish state that, in stark contrast to Europe, would be a beacon of toleration and equality. It
would embrace Jewish pluralism, while
also welcoming Gentiles: “We shall let
every man find salvation ‘over there.’”
While Herzl repudiated Europe’s failed
emancipation, he retained a profound
commitment to the ideal. He envisioned a
complete emancipation that Jews would
fashion for themselves.
Alfred Dreyfus
Rennes Council of War: The Dreyfus Trial Before the Rennes
Council (7 August–9 September 1899)
Paris: P. -V. Stock, 1900
Center for Jewish History, Gift of Sid Lapidus
As a journalist in France, Herzl became extremely upset during
the Dreyfus affair, in which a Jewish army officer was falsely
accused and convicted of espionage. The only solution to the problem of the Jews, he decided, was to create a Jewish
state. Although Dreyfus was ultimately pardoned (in 1906), the
episode revealed that emancipation would be an incomplete
and ongoing process.
Read the full text
Theodor Herzl
Der Judenstaat: Versuch einer modernen Lösung der
Judenfrage (The Jews’ State: An Attempt at a Modern
Solution to the Jewish Question)
Vienna: M. Breitenstein, 1896
Center for Jewish History, Gift of Sid Lapidus
Herzl published this work, Der Judenstaat, to galvanize his
fellow Jews into action. He asserts that emancipation itself
caused antisemitism, since it failed as a movement. He
concludes that Jews cannot continue to live among other
nations since their presence inevitably gives rise to hostility.
Herzl’s answer was for Jews to organize a mass migration to a
territory of their own.
Read the full text
Theodor Herzl
Der Baseler Congress [The Basel Congress]
Vienna: Die Welt, 1897
Center for Jewish History, Gift of Sid Lapidus
Herzl convened the first international Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, on August 29, 1897.
In his opening
address Herzl says, “We are to lay the foundation of the
home which is to shelter the Jewish nation. ... We have
nothing to do with conspiracy, secret intervention, or indirect
methods. ... We wish to place the Jewish question on the
agenda and under the control of public opinion.”
Read the full text
Herzl’s Study
Vienna: Verlag “Zion”
Courtesy of The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary
Herzl wondered where the Jews’ State should be, but he gave
no definitive answer. In fact, one of the most acrimonious
and divisive debates in early Zionism came when Britain
raised the possibility of a Jewish homeland in Uganda. The
Sixth Zionist Congress (Basel, 1903) ultimately endorsed
Palestine, but not before many Zionists had seceded to form
a rival movement, Territorialism, committed to finding a
territory anywhere in the world.