Theodor Herzl was born on May 2, 1860 in Budapest Hungary.
He was the founder of the political form of Zionism which was a movement to
establish a Jewish homeland. In his pamphlet, “The Jewish State”, he proposed
that the Jewish question was a political question to be settled by a world
council of nations. He organized a world
congress of Zionists and became its first president. He believed it was up to
the civilized nations of the world to try and solve the Jewish question.
Herzl traveled all over the
world trying to organize the Jews in support of his program. He went to England to organize there. He spoke to many world leaders trying to get
them to grant a charter that would allow a Jewish settlement. His life was
devoted to the Zionist cause and he even created a Zionist newspaper. Many Jews
believed that to fight anti-Semitism as a social problem that Jews would need
to abandon their Jewish way of life and be more like the people they lived
with. But Herzl believed that the answer
was not to just fit in but to be able to live in their own state.
Herzl was not the first to
believe that the Jews needed to set up a Jewish state. But Herzl was able to
get people interested and enthusiastic about it and gained the respect of many
people in his time. Although he died on July 3, 1904 more than 40 years before
the State of Israel was created, he was a major figure that had much to do with
making Zionism into a political movement. When Herzl died near Vienna
at age 44, he was buried in Vienna but his wish
was to be someday buried in Jerusalem. In 1949 after the creation of Israel the Jewish state, he was buried on a hill
west of the city now known as Mount
Herzl.
If he had not fought for
Zionism then there would be no country called Israel today. I feel happy because now
there is a place for me and my family to live together. It is amazing how he
did so much for us, the Jews, at such a young age.
