Der Judenstaat: Versuch Einer Modernen Lösung Der Judenfrage
1896
Der Judenstaat: Versuch Einer Modernen Lösung Der Judenfrage
1896
In 1896, a Viennese journalist published a slim pamphlet that would reshape the political landscape of the twentieth century. Theodor Herzl had witnessed the Dreyfus affair in Paris, watching a Jewish army officer be drummed out of the French military on false charges, and concluded that assimilation was a fantasy. Jewish emancipation across Europe, he argued, was a polite fiction; whenever convenient, nations would turn on their Jewish citizens, and no amount of integration would save them. The only viable solution was a state of their own. Der Judenstaat presents Herzl'sargument with the precision of a legal brief and the fervor of a man who believed he had witnessed the end of one era and the beginning of another. He addresses the practical questions other utopians ignored: where would this state exist, how would it be funded, how would Jews organize their departure from countries that no longer wanted them? He considers Palestine and Argentina, outlines economic models, and insists that this is not a dream but an engineering problem waiting for Jewish will to solve. The text is a foundational document of political Zionism, the moment when a scattered people's longing for homeland became a concrete plan for statehood.
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“Whole branches of Judaism may wither and fall, but the trunk remains,””
— Theodor Herzl
“Every man will be as free and undisturbed in his faith or his disbelief as he is in his nationality. And if it should occur that men of other creeds and different nationalities come to live amongst us, we should accord them honorable protection and equality before the law. We have learnt toleration in Europe. This is not sarcastically said; for the Anti-Semitism of today could only in a very few places be taken for old religious intolerance. It is for the most part a movement among civilized nations by which they try to chase away the spectres of their own past. LAWS””
— Theodor Herzl
“Travellers do not produce railways, but conversely, railways produce travellers.””
— Theodor Herzl
“Der ganze Plan ist in seiner Grundform unendlich einfach (...): Man gebe uns die Souveränität eines für unsere gerechten Volksbedürfnisse genügenden Stückes der Erdoberfläche, alles andere werden wir selbst besorgen.””
— Theodor Herzl
“We are a people”
— Theodor Herzl
“Jews must remove themselves from Europe and create their own state.””
— Theodor Herzl
“criminals more readily than any other State would do, till the time comes””
— Theodor Herzl
“Practical' people are as a rule nothing more than men sunk into the groove of daily routine, unable to emerge from a narrow circle of antiquated ideas.””
— Theodor Herzl
“I also hold a settling of questions by the referendum to be an unsatisfactory procedure, because there are no simple political questions which can be answered merely by Yes and No. The masses are also more prone even than Parliaments to be led away by heterodox opinions, and to be swayed by vigorous ranting. It is impossible to formulate a wise internal or external policy in a popular assembly.””
— Theodor Herzl
