Theodor Herzl

Theodor Herzl , of its Hebrew name Benjamin Ze' ev (May 2nd 1860 with Budapest - July 3rd 1904 with Edlach), is a journalist and writer Juif Hungarian of expression German E.

Founder of the movement Zionist with the Congress of Basle in 1897, he is the author of Der Judenstaat ( the State of the Jews ) in 1896 and founder of the Fonds Jewish national for the purchase of grounds in Palestine.

Youth

Theodor Herzl was born in the Jewish district from Budapest, capital of the Hungary characterized by its extremely diversified cosmopolitanism. The city shelters a many Jewish population, which accounts for 25% of her inhabitants. Also certain anti-semites named the city “Judapest”.

Theodor Herzl (or Hungarian Twador, Wolf Theodore in German) grows in a middle-class family very close to the Grande synagog of Budapest. The family practices a Judaïsme which one could describe as progressist. His/her father, resulting from the immigration of the oriental party of the Austro-Hungarian empire, is defined itself as reformist and remains a partisan of the assimilation of the Jews within their lands of welcome.

Professional life

Doctor in Right of formation, Herzl starts by writing parts of Théâtre then becomes Journaliste and leaves to Paris as correspondent 1891 to 1896. He returns then to Vienna and becomes literary director of largest and of the most prestigious daily newspaper Viennese, the Neue Freie Presse .

The Dreyfus business and Zionism

It was at the beginning if little tried by the Zionism which it did not hesitate to write the following lines by making the report for its newspaper of a part of Alexandre Dumas wire, the Woman of Claude , where certain Daniel encouraged the Jews to return to the ground of their ancestors:

“ the good Jew Daniel wants to find his lost fatherland and to again bring together his/her dispersed brothers. But sincerely such a Jew must know that it would hardly render service to his in their making their fatherland historical. And if one day the Jews went back there, they would realize as of the following day that they do not have large - thing to be shared. They are enracinés since long centuries in new fatherlands, are dénationalisés, differentiated, and the little of resemblance which still distinguishes them holds only with oppression that everywhere they had to undergo ”.

The Business Dreyfus and the demonstrations anti-semites which accompany it are thus for him a clap of thunder, from now on it considers absolutely necessary the constitution of one permanent shelter for the Jewish people , thesis which it included in its book: " the State of Juifs" ( Der Judenstaat ).

The implementation of the project

To conclude its project of state for the Jews, it decides to launch an international campaign and to call upon all people likely to help it. It thus successively will approach the Baron Edmond de Rothschild which already started to buy grounds in Palestine since 1882, of Maurice de Hirsch. He asks for letters of support for important characters of the time like the pope Pie X, the king Victor-Emmanuel III of Italy or Cecil Rhodos.

In April 1896, it goes to Istanbul in Turkey and to Sofia in Bulgaria to meet Jewish delegations. With London, the group of the Macchabées accommodates it coldly, but it receives a mandate of framing on behalf of the Zionists of East End of London. During six months following, this mandate is approved by all the Jewish organizations Zionists world. Its partisans, initially very few, work night and day then, inspired the following the example of Herzl.

In 1897, with personal high expenses, it founds in Vienna the weekly magazine Die Welt and plans the first Congrès Zionist of Basle. He is elected president, station which he occupied until his death in 1904. In 1898, it begins a series of diplomatic initiatives in order to obtain a support for a Jewish country. It is received by the emperor Guillaume II of Germany on several occasions, then again by the Othoman emperor on November 2nd, 1898 in Jerusalem. It takes part in the First conference of $the Hague, or it profits from a cordial reception by many other State.

In May 1901, it meets for the first time, Abdülhamid II, the Sultan of Turkey, to negotiate the gift of the grounds of Palestine but this one answers him: " I prefer being penetrated by iron that to see lost Palestine. "

In 1902-03, Herzl is invited to testify before the British royal Commission on immigration from abroad. This occasion enables him to be found in close contact with the members of the British government, in particular with Joseph Chamberlain, at the time Secretary of State to the colonies, by the intermediary of which it negotiates with the Egyptian government a charter for the installation of the Jews in the area of Al Arish, in the peninsula of the the Sinai, being next to the south of Palestine.

Following the failure of this project, which led it to the Cairo, it receives in August 1903, via L.J. Greenberg an offer on behalf of the British government in order to facilitate the establishment of a large Jewish colony of settlement, with self government and under British sovereignty, in East Africa.

In same time, the movement Zionist is threatened by the Russian government. The shortly after the Pogrom of Kichinev in 1903, it goes to Saint-Pétersbourg and is received by Sergei Witte, then Minister for Finance, and Viatcheslav Plehve, Minister of Interior Department, notorious Antisémite, and incidentally author of the false anti-semite of the “Protocoles of Wise of Sion”.

With this occasion, Herzl presents proposals for the improvement of the Jewish situation in Russia. He proposes in Plehve a true alliance: “ Support my project, I will remove you from your Jewish revolutionists " . It publishes the Russian declaration, and presents the British, known offer under the name of " Project Uganda " in front of the sixth Congress Zionist (Basle, August 1903), which gains the majority (295: 178, 98 abstentions), with him on the question of studying this offer, in spite of the very bad reception of the offer by the Russian delegation.

In 1905, after investigation, the congress Zionist decides to decline the offer of the United Kingdom and begins to create historical Ground a Jewish state of Israel.

Died in 1904, Herzl had required to be buried in Palestine when the Jewish people would have founded an independent State there. August 17th, 1949, its body, like that of his/her parents, Yaakov and Jeannette and its Pauline sister are buried with the Herzl Mount. In September 2006, the skins of his/her Hans children and Pauline were transferred there from Bordeaux. His/her daughter junior, Trude Norman is killed in a death camp Nazi and its remainders were never found. The body of the only son of Trude, Stephen Theodore Norman, committed suicide in 1946 in Washington, will be transferred there on December 5th, 2007.

The world Organization Zionist

See the article detailed on the History of the Zionism

In 1897, Herzl joins together with Basle, with the assistance of max Nordau, the first Congrès Zionist. Bases of the world Organization Zionist are established and it will chair it until its death, in 1904.

Quotation

“ Today, I founded the Jewish State. If I said it publicly, one would laugh me with the nose, but in five years perhaps and fifty years, surely, one will include/understand. ” (after the congress of Basle, 1897) Newspaper.
“ For Europe, we will form over there an element of the wall against Asia as well as the outpost of civilization against cruelty. ” (the State of the Jews, Paris, the Discovery, 2003, p. 47)

Works

the State of the Jews , followed Test on the Zionism by Claude Klein, under the title of Of the State of the Jews in the State of Israel , the Discovery, 2003, ISBN
New old country: Altneuland preceded by Return to Altneuland: the crossing of Utopias Zionists by Denis Charbit, Editions of the Glare, 2004, ISBN 284162093X

Places paying homage to him

In Paris, the place Theodor Herzl was inaugurated the July 5th 2006, in the 3rd district, with the intersection of the streets Turbigo and Réaumur (Arts subway and Trades), in the presence of Bertrand Delanoë, Maire PS of Paris, Pierre Aïdenbaum, Maire PS of the 3rd district and Charg3e d' affaires of the Embassy of Israel.

The Plate of the 3rd district contains 5 lines: PLACE THEODOR HERZL ' JOURNALIST AND WRITER INSPIRING OF THE JEWISH NATIONAL HEARTH

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