Herzl

Theodor Herzl (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904) was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist, playwright, and political theorist who is regarded as the father of modern political Zionism. His work reframed Zionism as a political movement aimed at securing a Jewish homeland, as a response to rising anti-Semitism in Europe.

Born in Pest (then part of the Austrian Empire, now Budapest) to a middle-class Jewish family, Herzl studied law at the University of Vienna and began a career in journalism and literature. His experience as a correspondent covering the Dreyfus Affair in Paris in the 1890s convinced him that anti-Semitism would persist and that cruder assimilationist strategies were unlikely to protect Jews. This realization led him to advocate for a Jewish state as a solution to anti-Semitic persecution.

Herzl's most enduring contributions were organizational and diplomatic. In 1896 he published Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), outlining a plan for a sovereign Jewish state. The following year he convened the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, which established the Basel Program and founded the World Zionist Organization to coordinate political and practical efforts toward homeland settlement in Palestine.

Later years saw Herzl promoting diplomatic partnerships and fundraising to advance the Zionist cause. He died in 1904 in Edlach, Austria, from tuberculosis. His ideas and leadership helped shape the modern Zionist movement and influenced the eventual establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. In 1949 his remains were reinterred on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, a site named in his honor.