Theodore Herzl was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1860. He was raised in an assimilated Jewish family that celebrated Christmas. He moved to Vienna, Austria, where he studied for the bar exam and later in 1884 was awarded a doctorate of law from the University of Vienna. However, instead of practicing law, he chose the dual career of journalist and playwright. His Judaism was not much of a factor in his life. In 1894, when Herzl was 34, an earth-shattering event in France transformed his life forever. He was sent there to cover the trial of Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus was a French Jewish Army captain accused of treason, for selling military secrets to Germany. It soon became obvious to Herzl that the charges against Dreyfus were erroneous and that he was innocent. As a Jew, Dreyfus had become the scapegoat for the frustrations of the people of France, which had just suffered defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. The Dreyfus trial had unleashed a wave of anti-Semitism in France. Herzl, whose Jewish connections were weak, nonetheless saw in the Dreyfus affair a harsh reminder of the poisonous persistence of anti-Semitism. He concluded that Jews could never be integrated fully into their adopted countries. They would always be considered outsiders. They could never feel safe from persecution except in a land that they could claim as their own. Hundreds of other Jews also saw the Dreyfus affair as evidence of incurable, widespread anti-Semitism. Yet, few, like Herzl, believed that we needed a special Jewish homeland. Soon, thereafter, Herzl wrote his first major book, Der Judenstaat- The Jewish State. Here he outlined his program of political Zionism. He wrote that the solution to the problem of Jewish vulnerability was a Jewish state. This state would be legally recognized and sanctioned by most of the world’s super powers. He even proposed the transfer of Jewish populations from around the world to that ...
