Theodor Herzl in the context of "World Zionist Organization"

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⭐ Core Definition: Theodor Herzl

Theodor Herzl (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904) was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist and lawyer who was the father of modern political Zionism. Herzl formed the Zionist Organization and promoted Jewish immigration to Palestine in an effort to form a Jewish state. Due to his Zionist work, he is known in Hebrew as Chozeh HaMedinah (חוֹזֵה הַמְדִינָה), lit.'Visionary of the State'. He is specifically mentioned in the Israeli Declaration of Independence and is officially referred to as "the spiritual father of the Jewish State".

Herzl was born in Pest, then part of the Kingdom of Hungary, to a prosperous Neolog Jewish family. After a brief legal career in Vienna, he became the Paris correspondent for the Viennese newspaper Neue Freie Presse. Confronted with antisemitic events in Vienna, he reached the conclusion that anti-Jewish sentiment would make Jewish assimilation impossible, and that the only solution for Jews was the establishment of a Jewish state. In 1896, Herzl published the pamphlet Der Judenstaat, in which he elaborated his visions of a Jewish homeland. His ideas attracted international attention and rapidly established Herzl as a major figure in the Jewish world.

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In this Dossier

Theodor Herzl in the context of Zionism

Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in late 19th-century Europe; it primarily seeks to establish and support a Jewish homeland through the colonization of the Palestine region, which corresponds to the Land of Israel in Judaism and is central to Jewish history. Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible.

Zionism initially emerged in Central and Eastern Europe as a secular nationalist movement in the late 19th century, in reaction to newer waves of antisemitism and in response to the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment. The arrival of Zionist settlers to Palestine during this period is widely seen as the start of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The Zionist claim to Palestine was based on the notion that the Jews' historical right to the land outweighed that of the Arabs.

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Theodor Herzl in the context of Israel Zangwill

Israel Zangwill (21 January 1864 – 1 August 1926) was a British author at the forefront of Zionism during the 19th century, and was a close associate of Theodor Herzl. He later rejected the search for a Jewish homeland in Palestine and became the prime thinker behind the territorial movement.

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Theodor Herzl in the context of Der Judenstaat

Der Judenstaat (German, lit.'The Jew State' or 'The Jews' State', commonly rendered as The Jewish State) is a pamphlet written by Theodor Herzl and published in February 1896 in Leipzig and Vienna by M. Breitenstein's Verlags-Buchhandlung. It is subtitled with "Versuch einer modernen Lösung der Judenfrage" ("Proposal of a modern solution for the Jewish question") and was originally called "Address to the Rothschilds", referring to the Rothschild family banking dynasty, as Herzl planned to deliver it as a speech to the Rothschild family. Baron Edmond de Rothschild rejected Herzl's plan, feeling that it threatened Jews in the Diaspora. He also thought it would put his own settlements in Palestine at risk.

It is considered one of the most important texts of modern Zionism. As expressed in this book, Herzl envisioned the founding of a future independent Jewish state during the 20th century. He argued that the best way to avoid antisemitism in Europe was to create this independent Jewish state. The book encouraged Jews to purchase land in Palestine, the historic homeland of the Jews, although the possibility of a Jewish state in Argentina is also considered as in that country's constitution Article 25 said that: the immigration of Europeans will be welcomed.

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Theodor Herzl in the context of Zionist socialism

Labor Zionism (Hebrew: ציונות סוציאליסטית, romanizedtziunut socialistit) is the left-wing, socialist variant of Zionism. For many years, it was the most significant tendency among Zionists and Zionist organizations, and was seen as the Zionist faction of the historic Jewish labour movements of Eastern Europe and Central Europe. Labor Zionism eventually developing local movements in most countries with sizable Jewish populations. Unlike the "political Zionist" tendency founded by Theodor Herzl and advocated by Chaim Weizmann, Labor Zionists did not believe that a Jewish state would be created by simply appealing to the international community or to powerful nations such as the United Kingdom, Germany, or the former Ottoman Empire. Rather, they believed that a Jewish state could only be created through the efforts of the Jewish working class making aliyah to the Land of Israel and raising a country through the creation of a Labor Jewish society with rural kibbutzim and moshavim, and an urban Jewish proletariat.

Major theoreticians of the Labor Zionist movement included Moses Hess, Nachman Syrkin, Ber Borochov, and Aaron David Gordon; and leading figures in the movement included David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, and Berl Katznelson. Labor Zionist parties, most notably Mapai and its successor, the Israeli Labor Party, dominated Israeli politics during the state's first three decades.

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Theodor Herzl in the context of Kishinev pogrom

47°02′15″N 28°48′16″E / 47.0376°N 28.8045°E / 47.0376; 28.8045

The Kishinev pogrom or Kishinev massacre was an anti-Jewish riot that took place in Kishinev (modern Chișinău, Moldova), then the capital of the Bessarabia Governorate in the Russian Empire, on 19–21 April [O.S. 6–8 April] 1903. During the pogrom, which began on Easter Day, between 40 and 49 Jews were killed, 92 were gravely injured, over 500 were lightly injured and 1,500 homes were damaged. American Jews began large-scale organized financial help, and assisted in emigration. The incident focused worldwide attention on the persecution of Jews within the Russian Empire, and led Theodor Herzl to propose the Uganda Scheme as a temporary refuge for the Jews. A second pogrom erupted in the city in October 1905.

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Theodor Herzl in the context of Zionism as settler colonialism

Zionism has been described by its founders and early leaders, as well as by many scholars, as a form of settler colonialism in relation to the region of Palestine and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Zionism's founders and early leaders were aware and unapologetic about their status as colonizers, with early leading Zionists such as Theodor Herzl, Max Nordau, and Ze'ev Jabotinsky described Zionism as colonization. The paradigm of settler colonialism was also later applied to Zionism by various scholars and figures, including Patrick Wolfe, Edward Said, Fayez Sayegh, Maxime Rodinson, Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky.

The settler colonial framework on the conflict emerged in the 1960s during the decolonization of Africa and the Middle East, and re-emerged in Israeli academia in the 1990s led by Israeli and Palestinian scholars, particularly the New Historians, who refuted some of Israel's foundational myths and considered the Nakba to be ongoing. This perspective contends that Zionism involves processes of elimination and assimilation of Palestinians, akin to other settler colonial contexts similar to the creation of the United States and Australia.

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Theodor Herzl in the context of Zionist

Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in late 19th-century Europe; it primarily seeks to establish and support a Jewish homeland through the colonization of Palestine, which roughly corresponds to the Land of Israel in Judaism—itself central to Jewish history. Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible.

Zionism initially emerged in Central and Eastern Europe as a secular nationalist movement in the late 19th century, in reaction to newer waves of antisemitism and in response to the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment. The arrival of Zionist settlers to Palestine during this period is widely seen as the start of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The Zionist claim to Palestine was based on the notion that the Jews' historical right to the land outweighed that of the Arabs.

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Theodor Herzl in the context of Herzliya

Herzliya (/hɜːrtsˈljə/ hurts-LEE-yə; Hebrew: הרצליה, pronounced [heʁts(e)liˈja] / [eʁtseˈlija]) is an affluent city in the central coast of Israel, at the northern part of the Tel Aviv District, known for its robust start‑up and entrepreneurial culture. In 2023, it had a population of 108,650.

Named after Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, Herzliya covers an area of 21.6 km (8.3 sq mi). Its western, beachfront area is called Herzliya Pituah and is one of Israel's most affluent neighborhoods and home to numerous embassies, ambassadors' residences, company headquarters, and houses of prominent Israeli business people.

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