Book shines a clearer light on Theodor Herzl

Herzl’s Vision: Theodor Herzl and the Foundation of the Jewish State Shlomo Avineri, translated by Haim Watzman  BlueBridge (2014)

Some historians provide such sharp perspective and clear insight, the reader feels as if he has seen the world from a high mountain through haze-free light and cloudless sky. Ideas and new notions fill the foreground. Crisp details come alive despite the distance of time. Such is the skill of Shlomo Avineri of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. And such is the feeling he imparts to his readers in Herzl’s Vision (BlueBridge 2014).

Theodor Herzl is perhaps the pre-eminent, iconic figure of modern, political Zionism. The story of his life has been well chronicled. And yet, Avineri has found a new way to deepen our understanding of modern Zionism’s most famous advocate.

In Herzl’s Vision, Avineri writes about the evolution of Herzl’s thinking, primarily during the nine-year period when the young, Vienna-based journalist stepped emphatically, seemingly from nowhere, onto centre stage of world diplomacy. How did he get there? Avineri tells us. 

The aim of his book, Avineri writes, is to “transform the canonical image of the larger-than-life person into a real, living human being.” The book “tries to focus mainly on Herzl’s intellectual and spiritual odyssey and to bring out his own doubts, false starts and wrong turns as well as his evident achievements. It is this route that turned Herzl from a private and marginal individual into a Jewish political leader and transformed Zionism from an esoteric, if not cranky idea, into a player on the international scene. For Herzl, this was also a process of self-discovery and self-education.”

Avineri’s vast experience as a historian, teacher, political scientist and high-level public servant are in full evidence throughout the work. He has mined the rich vein of some 1,500 pages of Herzl’s hand-written diary, along with Herzl’s published works, to uncover new insights about the man.

Writing deftly and concisely, Avineri dives into the deep end of Herzl’s churning mind and stirring Jewish heart. Herzl was appalled at the level of violence of parliamentary life in France, at the racially based theories of anti-Semitism being passed off as science in enlightened Austria and Hungary, at the ubiquitous scapegoating of the Jew throughout Europe and of the sheer physical peril faced by many Jews of eastern Europe at the turn of the last century.

The plight of the Jews of Europe worried Herzl constantly. He describes this worry in his diary: “As the years went on, the question bored into me and gnawed at me, tormented me… In fact, I kept coming back to it whenever my own personal experience – joys and sorrows – permitted me to rise to broader considerations… The Jewish question naturally lurked for me around every turn and corner.”

 It was not – as is commonly thought –the trial of Alfred Dreyfus that crystallized for Herzl the driving obsession to safeguard the Jewish People. Rather, as Avineri points out, it was “Herzl’s long analysis of the failure of emancipation and the rise of German and Austrian anti-Semitism, that led him to his radical conclusions.”

 Avineri goes into great detail explaining Herzl’s two seminal works, The Jewish State, published in 1895, and Altneuland, in 1902. These works had a profoundly transformative impact upon the Jewish world. Avineri excerpts liberally from both works, provides a full précis of their key messages, and discusses their substantive and literary failings and strengths. More importantly, he assesses the works based upon their reach into a far-off, still imaginary Jewish future.

It was especially the appearance of The Jewish State that galvanized hopes among Jews in eastern and western Europe and in North Africa. A new sovereign era for Jews, they believed, was dawning over the next horizon.

Avineri painstakingly describes Herzl’s exhausting activism on behalf of the establishment of a Jewish state. He founded the World Zionist Organization, convened the famous annual conferences, lobbied Jewish philanthropists, met with industrialists and businessmen, and petitioned European government officials, heads of state, emperors and even the Pope.

He represented no government, and yet every leader with whom he met, treated him as the spokesperson for the Jewish People. By virtue of the tirelessness and unwavering focus of his effort, Herzl became a “world-historical figure.” Singlehandedly, he placed the Zionist cause on the agenda of European diplomatic discourse.

According to Avineri, Herzl never lost hope in his cause, despite the many setbacks. For example, after a discouraging session with Baron de Hirsch of Paris, “another, more realistic man would have given up. Another man, less determined, might have despaired. But Herzl responded differently.” After the disastrous decision to place the Uganda option on the agenda of the Sixth Zionist Conference in 1903, the resultant rift with the delegates from Russia and the meek attempts to patch up their differences, Herzl “did not give up. He set out in January 1904 for a meeting in Rome with the king of Italy. During this trip, he also obtained an unplanned audience with the Pope.”

But Herzl’s remorselessly gruelling schedule took its toll. He died on July 3, 1904, at the age of 44. Tens of thousands attended his funeral in Vienna. Tens of thousands more mourned him throughout the Jewish world.

Early on in his campaign for a Jewish homeland, Herzl described his hope of a national home for the Jewish People as a “work of infinite grandeur.” Indeed it was. Indeed it still is.

Though the world is reluctant to admit this fact, we can see its truth in the full light of the more than 100 years that have elapsed since the publication of The Jewish State in 1895.

To be sure, the State of Israel, as Herzl had foreseen, is flawed and imperfect. It strives to be better, but its attention and resources have been diverted from the very first moment of its national life. 

But, like Theodor Herzl, the people of Israel do not give up. They have not yet lost their hope that they will succeed in securing and improving their country for the sake of all its inhabitants.