Herzl: Theodor Herzl and the Foundation of the Jewish State

(Paperback)

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The first biography in more than a generation of the father of modern political Zionism and in effect the state of Israel.

Drawing extensively on his diaries as well as his published works, this intellectual biographical follows Herzl's transformation from a private person into the founder and leader of a political movement which made the quest for a Jewish state into a player in international politics. Contrary to the conventional view which saw the Dreyfus affair as the trigger for Herzl's loss of belief in the promise of Jewish emancipation, Avineri shows how it was the political crisis of the Austro-Hungarian Habsburg Empire, torn apart by contending national movements, which convinced Herzl of the need for a Jewish polity.

In response to the wide resonance for his 1896 THE JEWISH STATE, Herzl convened the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, which established the World Zionist Organization with its representative and elected institutions; this in turn became the foundation for Israel's democratic political system. In his efforts to gain international support for a Jewish state, Herzl met with the Ottoman Sultan, the German Emperor Wilhelm II, Pope Pius X, British, Russian and German ministers, as well as an enormous number of other government and public opinion leaders of most European countries. By the time of his early death in 1904 at the age of 44, Herzl succeeded in putting Zionism on the map of world politics, no longer an esoteric idea held by a small group of Jewish intellectuals in Eastern Europe.

Reviews

The great strength of Avineri's immensely readable biography is to deliver Herzl in all his tortured complexity and - something not always given its due - the philosophical clarity of his diagnosis of what had befallen the Jews in the modern age and what might be done about their predicament - FINANCIAL TIMES

Turning the idea of Jewish nationhood into an organised movement was Herzl's work of genius, which is expounded by Avineri with scholarship, sensitivity and wisdom - THE JC.COM

What ... Shlomo Avineri, a professor of political sciences at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, offers is a different perspective on Herzl's life. Professor Avineri largely relies on Herzl's own writings, especially his obsessively written diary, rather than so much on secondary sources as many other books do. This device has the advantage of explaining Herzl's thoughts, as well as his actions - INDEPENDENT

Author Bio

Shlomo Avineri is a renowned Israeli political theorist and public intellectual. He is Professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He served as Director-General of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. His books, which have been translated into many languages, include The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx, Hegel's Theory of the Modern State, Moses Hess: Prophet of Communism and Zionism and The Making of Modern Zionism.

He held visiting appointments at, among others, Yale, Cornell, University of California, Oxford, the Central European University in Budapest as well as the Brookings Institution and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is the recipient of the ISRAEL PRIZE, the country's highest civilian decoration. He translated Marx's EARLY WRITINGS into Hebrew and wrote the historical Introduction to the 3-volume Hebrew edition of Herzl's DIARIES.

Haim Watzman has translated and edited many important Israeli books by some of the country's leading journalists, scholars and writers - among them David Grossman, Tom Segev and Amos Oz. His fiction and essays appear regularly in his 'Necessary Stories' column in The Jerusalem Report. He is also the author of two books of his own: Company C: An American's Life as a Citizen-Soldier in Israel and A Crack in the Earth: A Journey Up Israel's Rift Valley, and is currently completing the manuscript of a collection of short stories about the Israeli army. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife, Ilana. His website is http://southjerusalem.com.