197
Israel’s flag, adopted in 1948, is
derived from a design produced for the
First Zionist Congress. It is inspired
by the tallit, or blue-bordered prayer
shawl, and the Star of David.See also: God’s covenant with Israel 168–75 ■ Faith and the state 189
■ Ras Tafari is our Savior 314–15
JUDAISM
into the culture of their adopted
countries as a way to overcome the
persecution they had suffered. In
much of western Europe and the
US, emancipation had allowed
middle-class Jews, in particular,
to integrate into society.
One such Jew, the journalist
and writer Theodor Herzl, firmly
believed in Jewish assimilation,
until he experienced extreme
anti-Semitic feeling in France,
an ostensibly liberal country. He
came to realize that ghettoization
and anti-Semitism were inevitable:
Jews tended to gravitate to places
where they were not likely to be
persecuted, but once they had
immigrated in significant numbers
to these places, anti-Jewish feeling
arose, and persecution followed.
Similarly, even where Jews had
tried to blend in with the local
community and behave as loyal
citizens, they were still treated as
aliens and driven into isolation.
He concluded that the solution
to these problems lay not in
assimilation, but in the large-scale
separation of Jewish people into
one place. Anti-Semitism could not
be defeated or eradicated, but
could be avoided by establishing
a Jewish nation state.A Jewish homeland
In Herzl’s short book The Jewish
State, published in 1896, which
he described as a “proposal of
a modern solution for the Jewish
question,” he set out the argument
for establishing a Jewish homeland.
The obvious choice for this was
the Land of Israel, then a part of
Ottoman-ruled Palestine. This
proposal marked the beginning
of modern Zionism as a political
movement, rather than a theological
aspiration. The following year,
1897, Herzl set up an international
conference, the First Zionist
Congress, at which it became clear
that the political will for a Jewish
state existed, and was achievable
if Jews in sufficent numbers were
to put pressure on the international
community for its foundation. A
phrase from Herzl’s novel Old New
Land was adopted as the Zionist
movement’s rallying cry: “If you
will it, it is no dream”. ■Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl was born in
1860 in Pest, part of modern-
day Budapest. He moved to
Vienna with his family when
he was 18. There he studied
law, and, in 1839, after a brief
legal career, he moved to
Paris. Here he worked as a
correspondent for the Neue
Freie Presse (New Free Press)
and as a theater writer.
After reporting on the
Dreyfus Affair of the 1890s,
in which a Jewish officer
was framed for treason by
the military, he concluded that
the establishment of a Jewish
homeland in Zion, the Land
of Israel, was essential. He
outlined his arguments in The
Jewish State and elaborated
on them in his novel, Old New
Land. Herzl worked tirelessly
to promote the ideals of
Zionism: he organized the first
congress of Zionism in Basel,
Switzerland, in 1897, and was
president of the World Zionist
Organization until his death
in 1904. In 1949 his remains
were moved from Vienna
and reburied in Jerusalem.Key works1896 The Jewish State
1902 Old New LandI consider the Jewish
question neither a social
nor a religious one...
It is a national question.
Theodor Herzl