The Jewish State

by Theodor Herzl, Jerold S Auerbach (Foreword by)

Overview

Quality, well-presented hardcover edition of a historical classic, suitable for libraries, bookshelves, gifting, and appreciation of its immeasurable global impact--featuring an all-new introduction. Few books have changed human history as did Theodor Herzl's 1896 tract advocating the founding--even the inevitability--of a Jewish state. The new edition from Quid Pro Books adds a Foreword by Jerold S. Auerbach, Professor Emeritus of History at Wellesley College and recognized as a leading scholar in the U.S. on Judaism in America and Israeli history. Auerbach's extensive introduction brings home the importance and complexities of this historic work, of this visionary man. • Founder of the World Zionist Organization and an Austrian intellectual, Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) recognized that Jews would never be truly assimilated in any country they settled in, even over the course of centuries, and could only find a home in their own nation. More than that, creating a new Jewish state would provide the opportunity to evolve it under advanced Western democratic ideals and structures. "The earth resounds with outcries against the Jews," Herzl wrote, "and these outcries have awakened the slumbering idea." The idea was a "very old one: the restoration of the Jewish State."? The old idea was given a new voice and Utopian contours by Herzl. • Translated to English in this 1904 version (from the 1896 original, "Der Judenstaat") and supplemented further with notes and a preface by Jacob De Haas in 1917, this version recounts steps that Herzl and others had taken after 1896 toward persuading world leaders of the necessity of creating a Jewish homeland in what is present-day Israel. Adding the 2014 introductory essay by Professor Auerbach, the Quid Pro Books edition is a modern, professional presentation with accurate republication of an early and accepted translation of this historic work. • Part of the History & Heroes Series from Quid Pro Books.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610272865
Publisher:	Quid Pro, LLC
Publication date:	01/19/2015
Pages:	112
Sales rank:	703,211
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.44(d)

About the Author

Theodor Herzl (2 May 1860 - 3 July 1904) was a Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer 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. Though he died before its establishment, he is known as the father of the State of Israel.
While Herzl is specifically mentioned in the Israeli Declaration of Independence and is officially referred to as "the spiritual father of the Jewish State",[3] i.e. the visionary who gave a concrete, practicable platform and framework to political Zionism, he was not the first Zionist theoretician or activist; scholars, many of them religious such as rabbis Yehuda Bibas, Zvi Hirsch Kalischer and Judah Alkalai, promoted a range of proto-Zionist ideas before him.
As the Paris correspondent for Neue Freie Presse, Herzl followed the Dreyfus affair, a political scandal that divided the Third French Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. It was a notorious antisemitic incident in France in which a Jewish French army captain was falsely convicted of spying for Germany. Herzl was witness to mass rallies in Paris following the Dreyfus trial. There has been some controversy surrounding the impact that this event had on Herzl and his conversion to Zionism. Herzl himself stated that the Dreyfus case turned him into a Zionist and that he was particularly affected by chants of "Death to the Jews!" from the crowds. This had been the widely held belief for some time. However, some modern scholars now believe that due to little mention of the Dreyfus affair in Herzl's earlier accounts and a seemingly contrary reference he made in them to shouts of "Death to the traitor!" that he may have exaggerated the influence it had on him in order to create further support for his goals