's Conversion to Author(s): Henry J. Cohn Source: Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Apr., 1970), pp. 101-110 Published by: Indiana University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4466575 Accessed: 27-11-2015 11:51 UTC

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This content downloaded from 130.237.165.40 on Fri, 27 Nov 2015 11:51:42 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Theodor Herzl'sConversion to Zionism

by Henry J. Cohn

On January 5, 1895 Theodor Herzl witnessed the military degradationof Alfred Dreyfus. On May 14, 1895 the city council of chose as its mayor Karl Lueger, leader of the antisemiticparty of United Christians; was plungedinto political crisis for over a year, while confirmationof this appointment by the Emperorremained in the balance.About the beginningof May 1895, Herzl was seized by the idea which led him early in June to begin composinghis book, The JewishState, in which he proposedthe organizedexodus of Jews to an auton- omous territoryof their own, not necessarilyPalestine. Standardaccounts of his sudden conversionto this Zionist solution for the Jewish problem stress the im- mediate shock of the trial and condemnationof Dreyfus, but underestimatethe backgroundof virulentantisemitism in Herzl's adopted home town, Vienna. This article seeks to reverse the emphasis in evaluatingthe tangled skein of motives influencingthe founderof Zionism. With very few exceptions,almost any recent book or article which alludes to Herzl'sconversion to Zionism,whether it is aboutJewish, French, or Austrianhistory, and whetherwritten by a Jew or a non-Jew,ascribes a leadingrole to the Dreyfus Affair.All are agreedon its paramountinfluence; variations occur only in assessing the directnessof that influence.Despite the time lag of three months between the degradationof Dreyfus and the beginningof May, when Herzl first drafteda letter seeking an interview with the philanthropistBaron Hirsch for the purpose of outliningthe ideas later amplifiedin The JewishState, many authorshave seen that work as an instant response to Herzl's experienceof the Paris crowd baying for the blood of Dreyfus.' Others, while not mentioningthe Paris mob, ascribe an immediacyto the impactmade on Herzl by the trial of Dreyfuswhich amountsto a quite similarinterpretation.2

1 See, for example, Hannah Arendt, "From the Dreyfus Affair to France Today," in Essays on , ed. by Koppel S. Pinson (2d ed.; New York 1946), p. 213; Josef Patai, Star over Jordan: The Life of Theodor Herzl (New York 1946), p. 56; Arthur Hertzberg, ed., The Zionist Idea: A Reader (New York 1959), p. 202; Norman Bentwich, The Jews in our Time (London 1960), p. 44; James Parkes, A History of the Jewish People (London 1964), p. 184; Barbara Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World before the War, 1890-1914 (London 1966), p. 184. 2 See, for example, Adolf Boehm, Die Zionistische Bewegung (2 vols.; 2d ed.; Vienna 1935), vol. i, p. 157; Max Grunwald, Vienna (Philadelphia 1936), p. 451; Cecil Roth, A Short History of the Jewish People (3d ed; London 1948), p. 410; Robert F. Byres, Antisemitism in Modern France, vol. i: The Prologue to the Dreyfus Af,air (New Jersey, 1950), p. 99; Malcolm 101

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Very few scholars have made qualifications to, or expressed doubts about, this point of view, and their arguments have undeservedly been submerged in the continuing flood of contrary opinions. Alex Bein, author of the standard biography of Herzl, was much more cautious in his formulation than many other writers who afterwards relied on his book; for Bein it is only true in a limited sense that "Herzl could say later that the Dreyfus affair had made him a Zionist": it had caused him to become more deeply conscious of his Jewishness, but the question remained of how he should express that reaction.3 At the time of the first Dreyfus case, Herzl . . . telegraphedlong despatches on the events when they occurred, but no word about Dreyfus appearsin his account of how he came to the Zionist idea, when he sought to analyze the process in his diaries only four months after the degradation scene. In truth there was no Dreyfus Affair to impress him in 1895; there was only the arrest and condemnation of an officer who chanced to be a Jew. Observers, Herzl among them, were quick to suspect that Dreyfus was innocent and that nevertheless "the Jew must be burnt." But not until 1896, well after the Jewish State had been written, did evidence of foul play begin to come to light and the anti-Semiticimplications unfold. Even though Herzl expressly stated in 1899 that the Dreyfus case had made him a Zionist, it was at best an appropriatemyth, a dramaticforeshortening of the facts.4 Such arguments must have even greater force now that Herzl's diaries have for the first time been published in full, in an English translation which contains hundreds

Hay, Europe and the Jews (Boston 1960), originally published under the title The Foot of Pride (Boston 1950), pp. 209-10; Ludwig Lewisohn, ed., Theodor Herzl: A Portrait for this Age (Cleveland 1955), p. 52-53; Cohen, Theodor Herzl: Founder of Political Zionism (New York and London 1959), pp. 65-67; The Standard Jewish Encyclopaedia (1959), p. 893; Max I. Dimont, Jews, God and History (New York 1962), p. 397; Leslie Derfler, ed., The Dreyfus Affair: Tragedy of Errors? (Boston 1963), p. ix; Andre Chouraqui, L'Alliance Israelite Universelle et la renaissance juive contemporaine, 1860-1960 (Paris 1965), p. 141; Barnet Litvinoff, The Road to (London 1965), p. 65; Arthur J. May, The Hapsburg Monarchy, 1867-1914 (Cambridge, Mass. 1965), p. 181; Douglas Johnson, France and the Dreyfus Affair (London 1966), p. 224; Friedrich Heer, Gottes erste Liebe: 2000 Jahre Juden- tum und Christentum. Genesis des osterreichischen Katholiken Adolf Hitler (Munich 1967), pp. 202, 231-32; Frank Field, The Last Days of Mankind: Karl Kraus and his Vienna (London 1968), pp. 45, 64; Martin Gilbert, Jewish History Atlas (London 1969), map 60, no. 5. 3 Alex Bein, Theodor Herzl: Biographie (Vienna 1934), p. 190; idem, Theodor Herzl: A Biography, abridged trans. by Maurice Samuel (Philadelphia 1941), pp. 116-17. Josef Fraenkel, "Simon Dubnow and the History of Political Zionism," in Simon Dubnow: The Man and his Work, ed. by Aaron Steinberg (Paris 1963) argued more specifically that "Herzl's statement: 'The Dreyfus affair in Paris, which I witnessed in 1894, turned me into a Zionist' ... really meant . . . that the Dreyfus affair had been, so to speak, the final link in the chain of events. . . . Herzl's ideas were not suddenly conceived and formulated; they took years to evolve and ripen like fruit on a tree" (pp. 153-54). This statement may also be found in Josef Fraenkel, Dubnow, Herzl and Ahad Ha-am: Political and Cultural Zionism (London 1963), pp. 18-19. See also idem, Theodor Herzl: A Biography (2d ed.; London 1948), pp. 44, 52; Abram L. Sachar, A History of the Jews (4th ed.; New York 1960), p. 353; Howard M. Sachar, The Course of Modern Jewish History (London 1958), p. 270. Carl E. Schorske, "Politics in a New Key: an Austrian Triptych,"Journal of Modern History, vol. xxxix (1967), pp. 374-77, stresses the importance of the elections in Vienna for Herzl's change of mind, but also assigns considerable weight to the Dreyfus Affair. 4 Marvin Lowenthal, ed., The Diaries of Theodor Herzl (New York 1956), p. xix; cf. Alex Bein, "Herzl und der Dreyfus-Prozess," Die Stimme (Vienna), Oct. 5, 1934, p. 7.

This content downloaded from 130.237.165.40 on Fri, 27 Nov 2015 11:51:42 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Herzl's Conversionto Zionism 103 of passages,some of them severalpages long, which were omittedfrom the original Germanedition of 1922-23.5 The startingpoint for any discussionof the connectionbetween the Dreyfus Affair and Herzl's conversionto Zionismis the frequentlycited article on Zionism which he is generallypresumed to have publishedin the North AmericanReview in 1899, althoughin fact it never appearedin that periodical;the original manu- script has disappearedand a Germanversion was first publishedin 1920.6 There Herzlwrote: I was turnedinto a Zionistby the DreyfusCase. Not the presentone in Rennes [August7 - September19, 1899],but the originalone in Paris,of whichI was a witnessin 1894.... For the Jews thereis no other help and salvationthan to returnto theirown nationhoodand settlein theirown land and territory.That is whatI wrotein my book TheJewish State in 1895under the shatteringimpression of thefirst Dreyfus Case.7 It was understandablefor Herzl to write in such terms about the first Dreyfus case while attendingthe retrialat Rennes; the Dreyfus Affair had meanwhilebecome a raging political issue and had induced many other Jews to adopt Herzl's Zionist ideals.At the beginningof the previousyear, however,in a shortbiographical sketch in ,Herzl had given a brief account of his four years in Paris and his compositionof The Jewish State without ever mentioningDreyfus.8 The diary which he began to keep in the first days of June 1895 opens with a detailed discussion of his interest in the Jewish problem since 1881 or 1882, an interest which culminatedin a sudden realizationof the Zionist solution: "It took at least thirteen years for me to conceive this simple idea. Only now do I realize how often I went right past it."9 His stay in Paris since 1891 is described not as a period of heightenedemotions or of reactions to the Dreyfus case (which is not

5 Theodor Herzl, The Complete Diaries, ed. by Raphael Patai and trans. by Harry Zohn (5 vols.; New York and London 1960). Hereafter cited as Diaries. 6 Dr. Alex Bein, Director of the Zionist Central Archives in Jerusalem, has kindly supplied the following information to me in a letter of Dec. 10, 1967: "According to the correspondence of Herzl with Professor Richard Gottheil, the President of the Federation of American Zionists, Herzl sent the manuscript to Gottheil in September 1899. It should have been published in December 1899; later the publication date was postponed until February 1900. In the meantime the North American Review passed into the hands of new owners, and it seems that eventually the article was not published in the North American Review. When Leon Kellner first published the article (in German) in Herzl's Zionistische Schriften, he appears to have had before him a manuscript from which he could conclude that the article had been written by Herzl for publication in the North American Review. This manuscript is, however, not in the Herzl archives which are preserved by us. Kellner obviously did not know that the article was not published in the North American Review in 1899." Jacob de Haas, Secretary of the Federation of American Zionists, could write in 1904: "Herzl has not confessed to what particular incident the publication of his 'Jewish State' in the winter of 1895 [sic] was due. He was in Paris at the time and no doubt moved by the Dreyfus Affair." See his 'Theodor Herzl," The Jewish Encyclopaedia,vol. vi, p. 370. 7 Theodor Herzl, Gesammelte Zionistische Werke, ed. by Leon Kellner (3 vols., 3d ed.; Berlin 1934), vol. i, pp. 374, 376. My translation. 8 Theodor Herzl, "An Autobiography," Jewish Chronicle, Jan. 14, 1898, pp. 20-21. A German version is found in Herzl, Gesammelte Zionistische Werke, vol. i, pp. 13-14. Cf. Bein, "Herzlund der Dreyfus-Prozess." 9 Diaries, vol. i, p. 40 (June 7, 1895).

This content downloaded from 130.237.165.40 on Fri, 27 Nov 2015 11:51:42 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 104 JEWISH SOCIALSTUDIES discussedat all), but as one of reflection,of taking a more historicalview of anti- semitism,of puttinginto perspectivethe emotionalresponses to antisemitismwhich he had previouslyexperienced: In Paris... I reached a higher, more disinterestedview of anti-Semitism,from which at least I did not have to suffer directly. In Austria or in Germany I must constantly fear that someone will shout "Hep, hep!" after me. But here I pass through the crowd unrecognized.10 He describedhow his feelings became strongerduring a short visit to Vienna in the summerand autumnof 1894. During that autumn-in Vienna-he first con- ceived the plan of writingon "The Situationof the Jews" and wanted to visit east Europeanand, later, westerncountries where they had suffered,and Palestinetoo, though as yet he had no Zionist intentions:"All my faithfulreports were to bring out the misfortuneof the Jews and to show that they were human beings whom people revile without knowingthem."l A few weeks before beginningthe diaries, however, "I proceeded from the idea of writing a novel to a practical program... ,12 This may have been the moment of conscious conversion,about the beginningof May, althoughit occurredafter a long period of gestation.In any case, it was by two distinctstages that Herzl abandonedhis positionof successivelyrecommending assimilation,socialism, and baptism as solutions to the Jewish problem. First he spurnedhis earlier nostrumsby turningto favor open discussionof the question, placingthe Jewishproblem for the firsttime in the forefrontof his interests;and only later did he adopt a Zionist program.The first stage is marked by his play The New Ghetto,which depictedantisemitism in the aristocracyand the businessworld. The idea for it came to him in Paris ten days before the arrestof Dreyfus became public knowledge.On October 19, 1894 Herzl was having his bust made by the Viennese sculptor Samuel Friedrich Beer. When the conversationturned to the Jewishquestion and the growthof antisemitismin theirnative Vienna, Herzl became veryexcited and left the studio;on the way home he had the inspirationfor his play.13 Six monthslater he describedthis episodein a letterto HeinrichTeweles: [In Paris] I gained a freer and higher attitude towards the anti-Semitismof my farawayhomeland. And once I was at the sculptorBeer who made my bust. During one of the sessions I describedto him the modem Jew and his conditions.And in do- ing so I became engulfed in the white heat of great eruptions.When I left, the whole play shot upwards in me like a granite pillar; I began to write it the next day and finished within three weeks ... 14 The antisemitismof Europe in general and of Austria in particular,seen all the more clearlyfrom the distanceand relativecalm of Paris,prompted the composition

10 Ibid., vol. i, p. 5. 11 Ibid., vol. i, p. 12. 12 Ibid., vol. i, p. 13. 13 Leon Kellner, Theodor Herzls Lehrjahre (1860-1895) (Vienna and Berlin 1920), pp. 148-49; Bein, Herzl, p. 174 (1934 edition); pp. 101-102 (1941 edition). 14 Herzl to Teweles, May 19, 1895, cited in Alex Bein, "Some Early Herzl Letters," Herzl Yearbook, vol. i, (1958), p. 304. The original German letter may be found in Kellner, Herzls Lehrjahre,p. 153.

This content downloaded from 130.237.165.40 on Fri, 27 Nov 2015 11:51:42 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Herzl's Conversionto Zionism 105 of The Ghetto. All the evidence suggeststhat The Jewish State had its genesis in the same setting.The second stage of Herzl'sdevelopment towards Zionism opened at an indeterminatedate severalweeks before, on June 5, 1895 at the latest, when he began makingnotes preparatoryto writingThe lewish State. The diary entries for the next few months contain not only a flood of ideas pre-figuringthose later to appearin his book, but also Herzl'simpressions of contemporarymanifestations of antisemitism.The numberand natureof these entries are the best availablein- dicationof his thoughtson the conditionof the Jews duringthe weeks after he had acceptedthe Zionistsolution. It is not unreasonableto supposethat Herzl'saccept- ance of that solution had been influencedby the same preoccupationswhich re- mainedwith him for a period of months shortly afterwards.He makes several re- ferences to the ubiquity and seriousnessof antisemitismthroughout Europe (an aspect of his consciousnesswhich previouscommentators have frequentlynoticed): Things cannot improve, but are bound to get worse-to the point of massacres. Governmentscan't prevent it any longer, even if they want to. Also, there is so- cialism behindit.15 Six days later Herzl expecteda social revolutionin one Europeancountry, probably France,at the expense of bankersand Jews, the expropriationof Jewishproperty in Russia, and emergencylaws directed againstthem in Germany.16On June 28 he explainedto Albert Rothschildthat he was approachingthe Kaiser because "I am simply tryingto get at anti-Semitismwhere it originatedand still has its center: in Germany."l7Early in July he noted reportsof antisemitismin Prussiaand Hungary, and the calamitieswhich had befallenthe Jews of Rumania;"every day I pay close attentionto the sufferingsof our brethrenin all countries."18 Whilewriting The JewishState Herzl was concernedabove all with the serious- ness and pervasivenessof antisemitism.The questionremains whether this awareness was triggeredoff or heightenedmore by the DreyfusAffair than by Herzl'spersonal experienceand knowledgeof antisemitismin Vienna. The diariesat this time, while not mentioningDreyfus, are more preoccupiedwith antisemitismin Vienna and Austriathan in all otherEuropean countries put together.l9 In the evening I dined with the Schiffs. Their in-laws from Vienna were visiting them. Well-to-do, educated, depressed people. They moaned softly about anti- Semitism, to which I continually steered the conversation.The husband expects a new St. Bartholomew'sNight. The wife believes conditions could hardly get any worse. They argued about whether it was good or bad that Lueger's election as mayor of Vienna had not been ratified.20 Three days later he wrote askingthe Chief Rabbi of Vienna,Dr. MoritzGiidemann, "to drawup an accuratereport of everythingthat you know about the presentmoral

15 Diaries, vol. i, p. 38 (June 7, 1895). 18 Ibid., vol. i, p. 131. 17 Ibid., vol. i, p. 190. is Ibid., vol. i, pp. 195-96, 202, 207, 205-206. 19 Cf. with Hugo Gold, Geschichte der Juden in Wien: Ein Gedenkbuch (Tel Aviv 1966): "Unabhangigvom Wiener Antisemitismus ... schrieb Theodor Herzl den 'Judenstaat'" (p. 40). 20 Diaries, vol. i, p. 46 (June 8, 1895).

This content downloaded from 130.237.165.40 on Fri, 27 Nov 2015 11:51:42 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 106 JEWISH SOCIALSTUDIES and political situation of the Jews, not only in Vienna and Austria-Hungary, but also in Germany, Russia, Rumania, etc."21Herzl was especially interested in . . vital statisticsof the Jews in the above-mentionedcountries (births, marriages, deaths, listed by occupation); observabletrends in change of residence (e.g., from Galicia to Lower Austria); whether and to what extent these changes of locality were caused or impeded by anti-Semitism;a brief survey of typical major and minor persecutionsof Jews that have come to your attention (persecution in par- liaments, newspapers,at rallies, on the street); signs of the increase or decrease of anti-Semitism,and in what proportion;official and unofficial anti-Semitism;hostil- ity towards Jews in schools, offices, closed and open professions.22 Giidemann refused to comply with Herzl's request; in his memoirs written in 1913 he reminisced that at the time he had "never for a moment interpreted Herzl's in- tention to help the Jews as anything more than a kindly journalistic gesture in defence of the Jews of Vienna, who were at that time suffering from rising Antisemitism."23 Of course, as Joseph Fraenkel remarks,24 Herzl intended action on behalf of the whole Jewish people, not just the Jews of Vienna, but it remains significant that his correspondent was so impressed with Herzl's specific concern for the Jews of Vienna as to draw such a false conclusion from it. On June 14 Herzl noted further complaints of antisemitism by a Viennese Jew25 and six days later "things were getting worse and worse" in Vienna;26back on June 13 he had expressed the fear that "In Austria people will let themselves be intimidated by the Viennese rabble and deliver up the Jews."2 Further news of Austrian antisemitism prompted the comment on July 8: "And this sort of thing is repeated in a thousand places every day-yet people fail to draw any conclusions from it."28One of Herzl's many letters to Rabbi Giidemann explained: The reason I am writing you today is the recent anti-Semiticriots in Vienna. I am very closely following the movement in Austria as well as elsewhere.These are but trifles. Things are going to get worse and more out of control ... in the midst of this bleak situation in which the Austrian Jews find themselves I should like to hold out to you hope for some relief....29 In September the city council elections in Vienna were a complete victory for the antisemitic cause. The movement is not really a noisy one. For me, who am used to the clamor of popular agitation in Paris, things are even much too quiet. I find this calm more sinister.30

21 Ibid., vol. i, p. 76. 22 Ibid., vol. i, p. 77. 23 Josef Fraenkel, "The Chief Rabbi and the Visionary," in The Jews of Vienna, ed. by Josef Fraenkel (London 1967), p. 121. 24 Ibid. 25 Diaries, vol. i, p. 101. 26 Ibid., vol. i, p. 125. 27 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 131-32. 28 Ibid., vol. i, p. 197. 29 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 201-202 (July 15, 1895). Later that month he called Linz "a capital of anti-Semitism"and was alarmed by the appearance of antisemitic inscriptions at Zell-am-See. See ibid., vol. i, pp. 215, 220. 30 Ibid., vol. i, p. 243 (Sept. 20, 1895).

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When a passer-by called Lueger "our Fiihrer," "... these words showed me more than all the declamationand abuse how deeply anti-Semitismis rootedin the hearts of these people."31Two monts later Herzl believed that the refusal of the Austrian governmentto confirmLueger's election as mayor of Vienna was a grave mistake likelyto lead to even morevirulent antisemitism.32 Herzl's alarm was by no means without foundation.After a period of un- certainty in the 1880's, the Austrian antisemiticparties achieved their greatest political triumphsin the 1890's, at a time when, as a result of immigrationfrom easternEurope, the numberof Jews in the capital had risen from about 6,000 in 1860 to well over 100,000.33Antisemitism, instead of being merely a widespread popularprejudice and a set of ideas propagatedby a few litterateurs,had become one of the main planks in the programof political parties riding the crest of en- thusiasticpopular support.Dr. Karl Lueger, leader of the Christian-SocialParty, had gatheredthe various antisemiticgroups into the "UnitedChristians." This al- liance carried him with increasing majoritiesthrough a series of elections and eventually,in 1897, into officeas mayorof Vienna,the most importantelective office in Austria.Whereas Lueger enjoyed the supportof the lower clergy of the Catholic Churchin Austria,its bishops actuallysought a papal injunctionagainst his party. Since it was papal policy after the first Vatican Council to weaken the episcopate and bind it to Rome by upholdingthe Catholic "people"against the bishops and theologians,Leo XIII gave Lueger and his party the papal blessing and his warm approvalin February1895.34 Shortly afterwards, on April 1, the municipalelections in Viennacame to an end with a majorityfor Lueger'ssupporters on the city council; six weeks later the council'shotly contestedelection of Luegeras deputymayor was followed by the resignationof the Liberal mayor and Lueger'ssuccession, though he failed as yet to obtain imperial confirmationas mayor. The crisis had been buildingup duringthe periodwhen Herzlbecame convinced that the Zionistsolution for the Jewish problemwas justified.He had actuallybeen in Vienna on a short visittowards the end of March,during the courseof the elections.35 Considerableadditional contemporary evidence points to the association in Herzl's mind of the political antisemiticmovement in Vienna with his formulation and early propagationof the Zionist idea. On November 26, 1895 he expounded his views to the "Maccabeans"in London at a meeting attendedby Asher Myers, editor of the Jewish Chronicle.Myers asked Herzl for a resume of his argument, which appeared in the Jewish Chronicle on January 17, 1896. In his editorial

31 Ibid., vol. i, p. 244. 32 Ibid., vol. i, p. 269 (Nov. 10, 1895). Similarly in the next year, "Yesterdays election to the Vienna City Council again proves me right. Since September the anti-Semitic vote has again increasedenormously." See ibid., vol. i, p. 307 (Feb. 28, 1896). 33 Peter G. J. Pulzer, The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria (New York 1964), pp. 10, 128, 171-88; see also the brief accounts by Oskar Karbach, "Die politi- schen Grundlagen des deutsch-bsterreichischenAntisemitismus," Zeitschrift fur die Geschichte der Juden, vol. i (1964), pp. 1-8, 103-16, 169-78; Gold, op. cit., pp. 34-40. 34 Pulzer, op. cit., pp. 181-84; Friedrich Heer, Der Glaube des Adolf Hitler: Anatomie einer politischen Religiositdt (Munich 1968), pp. 84-85. 35 Bein, op. cit., pp. 117-18. (1941 edition).

This content downloaded from 130.237.165.40 on Fri, 27 Nov 2015 11:51:42 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 108 JEWISH SOCIALSTUDIES Myers significantlycommented that "the present phase of Austrian anti-Semitism mustbe graveindeed if such heroicremedies suggest themselves as not only advisable but also as practicable."36Herzl noted in his articlethat persecutionwill exist even in the most highly civilizedcountries, "... Franceitself is no exception ...,"7 but this was hardly to place the emphasison French antisemitism.The Jewish State, completedin manuscriptby mid-Januaryand first publishedon February14, 1896, did not mentionthe Dreyfuscase and describedantisemitism in France as no more than a social irritant.Although Herzl belittledthe value of distinguishingbetween differentdegrees of antisemitism,he neverthelessplaced its Austrianmanifestation in the foregroundof the Europeanpersecutions: The formsof persecutionvary . . . accordingto the countriesand socialcircles in whichthey occur.In Russia,imposts are leviedon Jewishvillages; in Rumania,a few personsare put to death;in Germany,they get a goodbeating occasionally; in Austria,Anti-Semites exercise terrorism over all publiclife; in Algeria,there are travellingagitators; in Paris, the Jews are shut out of the so-calledbest social circlesand excluded from clubs.38 Herz's diaries for the next years, 1,630 printedpages in the full edition, mention CaptainDreyfus only eleven times. Seven of these are merelypassing allusions, and the three fullest referencesto the Dreyfus case all bear out in various ways the interpretationadvanced in this article. On November 17, 1895 Herzl recorded a conversationhe had had with FrenchJews who rejectedhis ideas for a Jewishstate. Whenone of them,the vice-presidentof the AllianceIsraelite Universelle, ... emphasizedhis Frenchnationality, I said: 'What?Don't you and I belongto the same nation? Why did you wince when Lueger was elected? Why did I suffer whenCaptain Dreyfus was accused of hightreason?'39 This passage implies that Lueger's election was the calamity which struck Herzl to the heart, althoughhe suffered also at the accusationagainst Dreyfus, which was the more cruel blow for MonsieurLeven. Two years later in Vienna, Herzl commentedon "the Dreyfus affairwhich, strangelyenough, is active again at this particulartime-just as it was three years ago, at the time when I was writingThe New Ghetto."40Here surely was a time when one would have expected Herzl to describe the Dreyfus Affair as the catalyst which had induced him to write The Jewish State, but instead he associatedit with a play for which, as we have seen, he had developedthe centraltheme before there was a Dreyfuscase. PerhapsHerzl's recollectionswere already becoming blurred under the impactof interveningdevelop- ments in both the Zionistmovement and the DreyfusAffair. In the followingyear, FriedrichSchiff of Paris came to him after holding out for three years againstthe idea of a Jewish State, but Schiff was now convertedas a result of the baiting of

36 "Herzl's First Publication in the Jewish Cause," Herzl Yearbook, vol. iii, (1960), p. 91. 37 Ibid., p. 95. 38 Theodor Herzl, A Jewish State: An Attempt at a Modern Solution of the Jewish Question, ed. by Louis Lipsky (New York 1946), p. 85. Cf. Theodor Herzl, Der Judenstaat: Versuch einer modernen Losung der Judenfrage (3d ed.; Leipzig and Vienna 1896), p. 21. s9 Diaries, vol. i, p. 273. 40 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 601.

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Dreyfus;41 the Dreyfus case in its earlier stages had not produced such an effect on him. In this context it is worth remarking that Max Nordau was another early Zionist who, like Herzl, later confused the reasons which had inspired his first Zionist enthusiasms by superimposing on them his subsequent concern for Dreyfus. His memoirs, written by his wife, affirmed that "was die zionistische Uberzeugung am tiefsten im Herzen Max Nordaus verankerte, war sicherlich der erste Dreyfuspro- zess," but immediately went on to discuss at length his reactions not to the first Dreyfus case, but to the progress of the Affair after 1896 and especially in the years 1898-99.42 In 1902 there appeared the first extensive article on Zionism in a distinguished international encyclopaedia, Lucien Wolf's contribution to the Encyclopaedia Bri- tannica. It was the work of a former collaborator of Herzl's who had become cool towards Zionism, but the Zionist press, although occasionally critical, was on the whole satisfied with its accuracy.43Wolf was perfectly clear in his mind about what had prompted Herzl to make his stand: The electoral successes of the antisemitesin Vienna and Lower Austria in 1895 had impressedhim with the belief that the Jews were unassimilablein Europe and that the time was not far distant when they would be once more submittedto civil and politicaldisabilities.44 Not very different from this analysis by an English non-Zionist historian who was soon to become an anti-Zionist, was that of the Semitic scholar and President of the Federation of American Zionists, Professor Richard Gottheil, writing for The Jewish Encyclopaedia three years later: It was at this time [the rise and extension of anti-Semitismthroughout Europe] that Theodor Herzl, brooding over the strong rise of anti-Semitismin his own Austrian home and in Paris, in which city he was then living, wrote his "Judenstaat."45 The opinions of contemporaries personally acquainted with Herzl support the evidence of his own published works and diaries. Although it would be impossible to trace every nuance in his thinking,46it seems reasonable to assume beyond much doubt that when, in the course of time, he became more deeply aware of the strength and the indelible nature of antisemitism throughout Europe, this realization was brought home most forcefully and transmuted into the Zionist idea by his personal

41 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 649 (Aug. 11, 1898). In his interview with the Kaiser in October 1898 Herzl merely referredto details of the Dreyfus case. See ibid., vol. ii, pp. 730-31. 42 Max Nordau, Erinnerungen,ed. by Anna Nordau (Leipzig and Vienna 1928), pp. 198- 216. Cf. Anna Nordau and Maxa Nordau Max Nordau: A Biography (New York 1943), pp. 118-19; Meir Ben-Horin, Max Nordau: Philosopher of Human Solidarity (London 1956), pp. 173-81,242-44. 43 Josef Fraenkel, Lucien Wolf and Theodor Herzl (London 1960), pp. 18-19. 44 Lucien Wolf, "Zionism," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 10th ed., vol. xxxiii (1902), p. 929. This passage appeared unaltered in the more readily accessible 11th ed., vol. xxviii (1911), p. 988. 45 Richard J. H. Gottheil, "Zionism," The Jewish Encyclopaedia, vol. xii (1905), p. 671. Compare this with what the Secretary of the Federation of American Zionists wrote in the same source, quoted in n. 6 supra. 46 The change in his political ideas also coincided with the "hollowing out of his personal life" regardinghis unhappy marriage.See Schorske, "AustrianTriptych," p. 375.

This content downloaded from 130.237.165.40 on Fri, 27 Nov 2015 11:51:42 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 110 JEWISH SOCIALSTUDIES knowledgeof, and passionate interest in, the growth of political antisemitismin Vienna. His stay in Paris-for all the deep rumblingsof antisemitismthat were to be heard there as well-gave him a sense of detachmentwhich made the situation of the Jews in the rest of Europe appear even more alarming,but it also allowed the opportunityfor contemplationwhich bore fruit in the Zionist idea. As yet the Dreyfus case had not become the Dreyfus Affair. The earliersensational activities of the antisemiticjournalist Edouard Drumont47 and the notoriousPanama scandals of 1892 had been if anythingmore disturbingsymptoms of antisemitismthan the Dreyfuscase-until, however,the controversyover it flaredup in 1897. Not Paris, but Vienna, as seen from Paris, providedthe antisemitismwhich in 1895 injected urgencyinto the developmentof Herzl'sthoughts on the Jewishproblem. That very same city of Vienna providedthe journalisticmilieu in which Herzl had cultivated the propagandistictalents later to be so essentialfor launchinghis Zionistcampaign, and by the end of 1896 it harboredthe first of the Zionist societies in the Herzlian mold. If Vienna was the cradleof moder politicalantisemitism, in many respectsit was also the cradle of moder politicalZionism.

47 On June 12, 1895 Herzl wrote: "I owe to Drumont a great deal of the present freedom of my concepts, because he is an artist": by depicting the antisemitic view of the Jewish problem as a totality, Drumont had helped Herzl to arrive at a clear solution. See Diaries, vol. i, p. 99; Bein, Herzl, p. 82 (1941 edition).

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