Thedore Herzl

The development of Zionism through out history has been a long and winding road. Some of the ideas seem to hit dead ends and some of the ideas that seem to do some good had no solid backing, be it either financially or politically. One man had a dream and had enough ambition to go forward with his plan to bring his people out of the ghettos and try to give them an equal footing with the rest of the world. He didn’t want any special handouts, he wanted his people to fend for themselves in a place they could call home, somewhere where they weren’t unwanted guests, but somewhere where they could show pride and intelligence without fear of prosecution. This man was Theodor Herzl. Theodor was a very brave soul for he went on with his dream and never let anyone or anything defer him from it. He always worked hard and even sacrificed many things in his life to make sure that his dream became a reality.

Herzl had a great vision when it came to his people; there was a lot of prosecution of the Jews in the late 1800’s. The world was very anti-Semitic and most Jews were not allowed to freely express their ideas or interests to the states and countries that they were apart of. This is the main social issue that caused Herzl to dedicate his life to the advancement of Zionism and of the Jewish people. Before he became a political activist he was fairly well known for his columns in local papers discussing things that pertained to society, not just Jewish society, such as books and plays. That is why most Zionists were quite taken back when they first saw his book about how Zionist and Jews should go about becoming their own sovereign people; the book was titled Der Judenstaat. Herzl was quite nervous about the book release to the masses because this was his first public stance on this idea, he was known as a great and gifted writer but even his close friends did not see him as an ideologist. Herzl expressed that the ideas in his book could change the history of the Jewish people, he would later find out that he was fairly accurate in this statement.

In his book Herzl states that that he is not making any new ideas, he is only restoring ancient idealisms and restoring the Jewish state. He wrote with a very powerful meaning, he also wrote very swiftly and firm in his words, an example of his words are “In this pamphlet I will offer no defense of the Jews, everything that sentiment can possibly say in their defense already has been said, Jewish question lives everywhere Jews take it with them, wherever they go.” Herzl was a very radical thinker, at one time in 1893 he envisioned the mass baptisms of Jews, he wanted to appeal to the pope to help Jews against anti-Semitism, and his idea was that he would lead Jews to covert to Christianity. He abandoned the above mentioned plan and started a new one which led to his book.

Herzls envisioned a great and promising future for his people and was very active in trying to get his ideas off the ground. His first attempt was to ask his more financially well off of his Jewish brothers. He especially courted Baron Von Hirsch to loan money to Jewish people so that they were able to move to the promise land. After that defeat it would have been extremely easy for Herzl to go home defeated but he continued his fight by retooling his ideas.

His next idea for the Jewish state was that he did not require all Jews to join, if certain Jews were already assimilated in their community then they need not join this movement but they too would benefit because the ones that would join would help to tear down the anti-Semitic felling that the world had. He knew that in order for the above to happen that the Jewish community would need their own land, a place where they could call home. Once they obtained the land they would first send the Jewish peasants to the land to develop it. They would cultivate the soil, build roads and bridges, and basically lay the foundation for the rest of the Jewish community. Next the intellectuals would move in they would lay the political foundation for the country by preparing two main agencies that would take care of its countries people. The agencies were: first was the Society of Jews, this organization would provide a scientific plan and also political guidance. The next organization that Herzl envisioned was the Jewish Company; this organization was modeled from great trading associations throughout the world. They would carry out organization of trade and commerce and care for the affairs of emigrants. The Jewish Company would be a joint stock company with its center hub in London. In this new society the priests and rabbis would have the highest honor thrust upon them but they would be unable to deal with law in any way. His vision was that their land becomes a democratic monarchy.

Herzl