Trudy Gold
Dr. Herzl of Budapest, Vienna, and Paris
Trudy Gold - Dr. Herzl of Budapest, Vienna, and Paris
- And good, good afternoon everybody from not beautiful London. Can I have the first slide, please, Lauren?
[Lauren] Yep, give me one second.
Thank you. And today, of course, the title- No, go back, go back. No, wait a minute, that’s the one I want. Theodore Herzl, yes, yes. And of course, the title of today’s presentation is, “Theodore Herzl of Budapest, Vienna, and Paris”. Now, as we’ve spoken, his notion is, that the majority of events are more or less determined, but there’s always that 10% leeway. And once in a while, a person comes along who, by the force of his personality, who by the force of his charisma, actually changes the world. And I think Theodore Herzl was one of those men. He lived to be 44 years old. He didn’t turn his notions to the Zionist movement until 1894. So between 1894, and he’s still not completely committed until 1904. In under 10 years, he changed the Jewish world. Now, let’s be careful, he didn’t invent the term Zionism, that was invented by Nathan Birnbaum. We talked about that last week. He wasn’t a particularly profound writer on Zionism. There were people like Pinsker, like Achad Ha-Am, Smolenskin, who in many ways were much more profound in their analysis of the Jewish people, because he didn’t come from a religious background. But the point about Theodore Herzl, he was a man of action, and he actually made political Zionism happen. What he managed to do was to create a castle in the air, and he persuaded thousands of people to join it, very much like his hero, Benjamin Israeli. So who was Theodore Herzl. Now, can we see the next slide, please? Yes. Here you have him as a boy with his family. He was born in Dohány utca, you see him with his mother, his father, and his sister Pauline.
And he was born in Dohány Street next to the Great Synagogue. And you can see him as a young boy there. Can we see the synagogue, please, if you don’t mind, Lauren. Yeah, that is the Dohány Street Synagogue. It’s one of the biggest synagogues in the, in Europe. I’ve actually been there many times. It’s absolutely extraordinary. And he wrote later on, this is him in, this is him in one of, in his diaries, he kept a diary. I was born in 1860 in Budapest, in a house near the synagogue where laterally, the rabbis denounced me from the pulpit in very sharp terms, because I’m trying to obtain from the Jews more honour and greater freedom, freedom than they have at present. I went to the primary school of the Budapest Jewish community. My earliest recollection of that school consists of the caning, which I received from the masters, because I didn’t know the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. At the present time, a great many school masters want to give me a caning because I recollect too much of the Exodus. So that is tongue, cheek, very much tongue cheek Herzl. So he’s born in Budapest. He’s born in the Dohány in Dohány Street. Now, what do we know about his family? Well, to start with, his father was a relatively successful merchant. His father had a, his grandfather had come from the outskirts of the Hapsburg Empire.
And his grandfather knew of the work of a man called Alkalai. You know, back in the 1840s, there were a couple of rabbis who looked to create a new solution from the Jews. They both rabbis, Kalisha and Alkalai. They both lived in the borderlands. They were aware of all the national divisions of Hungary, but they were completely within the Jewish tradition. They said, just as someone must prepare for the coming of the Messiah. So what we want to do is to set up schools in Palestine. We want his, it were to prepare. So we know that his grandfather at the back of his brain did actually have some sort of notion of Zionism. So important to remember that. Now, so he’s the second child of Jeanette and Jacob Herzl. Now, Jeanette was the daughter of a very wealthy merchant. They were German speaking, probably the, probably they’re both of Sephardi and Ashkenazi origin. His mother taught, his mother taught him a love affair with German culture. Remember, they’re living in Budapest, the second city of the Hapsburg Empire. And he is born seven years before the Joint Crown is created in 1867. And one of the issues about Jews in Budapest, in Prague, and I’ll be dealing with this later on, is that they turned to German culture, later on that’s going to cause problems for the Hungarians. With the Hungarians and with the Czechs, they turned immediately to the culture that they thought was the superior culture, and his mother, Janette, who is a very cultured woman, she taught him to love the German language. By the time he was eight years old, he could quote whole reams of Goethe . That was the world she introduced him to.
He was not Bar mitzvah, he was confirmed. So the family, even though his grandfather had been a religious man on both sides, this is the very much the regular pattern, the religious, they moved to the city, the father becomes a successful merchant. And now the children, they can have the world and they can have the world of European culture. What is also very interesting about about Herzl for anyone who wants to study him, is he kept a diary. He kept a diary from childhood. We know a lot about his young life. He very much admired Ferdinand de Lesseps, the extraordinary engineer who created both the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal. He had this dream that one day he would be an engineer. However, he was much more drawn to the arts. He wrote a lot of poetry. He loved literature, he loved all the humanities. And above all, he was in love with the nature of building beauty goodness. And through building he believed, and I’m quoting, “That Jews could shape, shape off their shameful Jewish characteristics, which had been caused by centuries of oppression.” So tragedy struck when his sister was a young, his sister was 21 years old, she contracted typhus, and tragically she died. Now, the father was already intending to go and live in Vienna, but it was obvious that their mother just couldn’t bear to be in the city where her beloved daughter had died. And Herzl was very close to his sister. So what you have now, he’s now the only child of bereaved parents. They go to Vienna. And of course, like many young, clever men, what does he do? He enrols at the university. And at the university he joins a duelling club. He joins a student fraternity Alba.
And what I’m going to do now is read a comment from a man we’ve already discussed Arthur Schnitzler on Herzl, because remember, they knew each other at the university. And this is the brilliant Schnitzler on Herzl. “One of the Jewish students who belonged to the German national fraternity was Theodore Herzl.” Now remember we’ve already discussed this, how Jewish students at the university, how students at the university, where would their aspirations lie? Since the unification of Germany in 1870, 71, many of the German Austrians Gentiles, they turned of course to German culture. They wore the Kaiser’s favourite flower. They didn’t carry the Austrian colours. And in fact, Herzl joined one such fraternity. And this is how Schnitzler describes him. “I can remember seeing him with his blue students cup and black walking stick with the ivory handle, an FWC engraved on it, parading in step with his fraternity brothers. They eventually expelled him, or as the students called it, bounced him, was undoubtedly the first motivation that transformed this German nationalist student, the spokesman in the academic debating hall where he had stared at each other contemptuously one evening at a meeting without having known each other. Personally, it seems perhaps the more enthusiastic than convinced Zionists as were as how he now lives on posterity.” So that Schnitzler later on, in fact, the two of them did become close friends because Herzl we’re going to find out, was also a very important writer. Now, just to recap on that, he had joined Albia back in 1881. And only four years earlier, the fraternity had adopted the black, red and gold insignia of German nationalism in opposition to the colours of Austria. He adopted the name Tancred.
Now, this is very also a clue because it was the hero of one of Disraeli’s novels. And this is a quote from Tancred. “So what was beneath the surface in Herzl, the vineyards of Israel ceased to exist but the eternal law enjoins the children of Israel still to celebrate the vineyard, the vintage, A race that persists in celebrating their vintage, although they have no fruits together, will again regain their vineyards.” He was well aware of Israeli Zionism. He in later on in 1897, he actually urged the, because he writes about it in his diary, he urged one of the editors at the Neue Freie Presse to write a series of character studies on the leading exponents of the Zionist idea. And he included Disraeli George Elliott and Moses Hess. But that’s much later on. I’m now going to read you not something he wrote, referring back to his youth. He’s well aware of the nascent anti-Semitism. If you remember, liberalism crashed in the Hapsburg Empire after 1870. After 1873, you’re seeing more and more nationalism. And of course it’s focused on the university. Now Herzl is incredibly good looking. He’s incredibly sensitive. He is a now an only child. He’s very beloved. And he is aware of the hostility towards him because he’s a Jew and he’s looking for answers. And this is what he writes about how he was feeling at the time. So in 1896, he wrote this, “A few years ago, I wanted to solve the Jewish question, at least in Austria, with the help of the Catholic church. I wish to gain access to the Pope and say to him, ‘help us against the anti-Semites and I will start a great movement for the free and honourable conversion of Jews to Christianity.’”
It’s fascinating also, this is what he actually wrote in 1882 when he is still at the university, the only way to solve the Jewish question is to promote a general improvement of the physical and metaphorical profile of the nation. The cross-breeding of the Western races with a so-called Oriental on the basis of a common state religion. That is the great to be desired solution. What does that tell us about Theodore Herzl? He’s carrying the burden. He is not religious. Remember he isn’t even been Mitzvah’d, he’s just been confirmed, he wants to be part of it all, and yet he’s aware of antisemitism, and yet he’s in love with German culture. And it’s a real prescription for Freud, isn’t it? Now what happens is, what happens is this, in 1883, and I’ve mentioned this to you before in another context, Richard Wagner dies. He is the greatest symbol of German nationalism in the German speaking world. And there are processions all over the empire and all over Germany itself. Wherever German speakers are, they’re, he is the great cultural figure of the 19th century. And of course, he and his court are notoriously anti-Semitic. So on one of these marches, one of his brother officers in Albia actually made an anti-Semitic speech. And that so incensed Herzl, he offered his, he offered his resignation. What hurt him is they accepted it. Now, that didn’t turn him into the new ideas, but the point is it must have had a profound impact on him. He was aware of anti-Semitism in Budapest, and now in Vienna, he’s also aware of anti-Semitism. Can we go onto the next slide, please?
Yeah, the family moved to Leopoldstat that is the quarter where the majority of Jews in Vienna live. And of course it’s where Freud lived. The two of them never met, but they did exchange letters because Freud’s, Freud’s sister was very friendly with one of Herzl’s daughters. And Freud wrote some very complimentary things about Herzl. So he’s living in the Leopoldstat and let’s have a nice view of Vienna. Shall we, should we see the next slide? Yeah, there is the wonderful University of Vienna that is the modern university, of course. But I’ve always found that absolutely fascinating. So many of the people that I’m talking to you about, they went to that university. And as I already mentioned, which is also fascinating, a disproportionate number of Jewish women at that university, which says a lot about the role of women in Jewish society. You know, I sometimes think that a very interesting course would be just to deconstruct the alumni. Just as at another stage, I want to give presentations on the people who were the, who were on the board of the Hebrew University. Anyway, so he graduates, he becomes a trainee lawyer, and he’s quite wealthy, remember they have money, he studies ins, he actually becomes a trainee lawyer in Salzburg. And it’s a period of his life he rather likes. But what he wants to do is to become a writer. And he writes many plays. He reconnects with Schnitzler. They begin quite a deep friendship. They, in many ways are quite similar.
They’re both in love with German culture. They’re both acutely aware of the problems of the empire, and really they’re trying to make their way. He had his, and he would send his plays to Schnitzler. Schnitzler would send his plays to Herzl. And we know that he keeps on getting rejections, and it hurts, it really, really hurts him. But in 1886, one of his plays, “Tabarin” was his first success. It was performed in New York, and it got very good, very good reviews, and he thought at last, this time, I’m really going to have my breakthrough. But unfortunately, it wasn’t. So he goes off on a European vacation, he’s incredibly high strung. He goes off on a European vacation and he begins to write travel pieces. What today we would call travelogues, wonderful descriptive, 5,000 word pieces. Unfortunately, very few magazines and newspapers give writers the opportunity to do this. But in those days, some of the major newspapers did give that kind of space. And he becomes very popular as a writer of travel pieces, and he becomes employed like many of these other characters by Maurice Benedict at the Neue Freie Presse. And with the Neue Freie Presse, he gradually becomes a famous journalist. And then two of his players are accepted by the Baird Theatre with huge acclaim. And he then, now, now we have to go into his love life because at this stage he meets the daughter of a Jewish multimillionaire, a merchant, a woman called Julie Naschauer.
He, in June, 1889, they marry, they go on a honeymoon, tour the canal. They have a two month honeymoon, they travel, but it’s even on the honeymoon that he realises that his wife is completely neurotic. Now, it’s very difficult with the hindsight of history because she didn’t write a diary, he did, to actually know where the story, where the story was. But the point is, the marriage does prove to be an absolute disaster. They finally did have three children. He was thinking of leaving her, but she was pregnant. She had a daughter, and then a son and another daughter. They were all going to end terribly tragically. The one daughter actually committed, one daughter, one daughter died, the brother then committed suicide. The third daughter died in Theresienstadt. She had a son who survived, in fact, 1949, he was never treated very well by the Zionist establishment. And he actually committed suicide in 1949 in America. So the point is, and I, and this is also very true of people who change the world, quite often there’s a family tragedy behind it. It’s almost as though those people who go on to make the huge statement that when you actually look at their families, what happens to them. But what must be said about Julie’s family is that there was huge instability in it, but by 1891. And so the marriage is rocky. She’s a spend thrift. He still has quite a bit of family money, but he is living on a writer’s salary. So by 18, by the 1890, early nineties, he’s by far the most celebrated writer of cultural pieces for the Neue Freie Presse. And they offer him an overseas position.
They offer him bureau truth in Paris. So off he goes to Paris. Let’s have the next slide, please. Here you have Herzl with his three children, the beautiful Julie and those children, all of whom are going to have such tragic ends. And can we go onto the next slide, please? There we are, Paris, the wide boulevards. By the time, by the time Herzl arrives in Paris, of course, Haussmann, the great building programme, the wide boulevards, beautiful, beautiful Paris. Do you know what he does? He writes in his diary. “Paris is the centre of civilization. It will take the rest of the world a hundred years to achieve what Paris, what France has achieved.” He wrote, “I am in my element.” And the family actually joined him six months later, he puts up at a hotel, six months later, they have a big apartment and they’re living in Paris already underneath the surface of glittering Paris fantasy echo Paris, just as underneath the surface of glittering Berlin and glittering Vienna, there are all sorts of forces of discontent. If you think about French history from the revolution onwards from the revolution at the end of the 18th century, the 1800, 1789 through to the First World War, the French could really not make up their minds whether they were a monarchy or a republic. They went backwards and forwards. On top of that, they had suffered a terrible defeat in the Franco Prussian war. There had been the revolt of the Communard, the communist revolution.
There was an incredibly reactionary Pope, who I’ve mentioned to you before, Pius the ninth he was the Pope who had, who was fighting liberalism, who was fighting communism, and how Catholic is France. It’s a very interesting question. You have the gaiety of fantasy echo Paris, but you also have the conservative France. It had also undergone huge financial scandals. In 1882, the Catholic Union Bank had collapsed. The Panama Canal company had collapsed. When the Catholic Bank collapsed, they blamed the Jews. What the Jews had to do with it is that the, there weren’t many Jews on the board of directors of the Catholic banks. But the point is the scapegoat. And there was a man called Drumont. Shall we see him please? Can we see the next slide, please? Edouard Drumont. Edouard Drumont was the French equivalent of Wilhelm. He believed that all the ills of French society could be at the hands of the Jews. He had a newspaper called the La Libre Parole which spilled out antisemitism on a regular basis. You see, when a society is under threat, and please remember that this is before the great movements of people. The Jews are really the only settled non-Christian minority in the capitals of Europe. And yes, it was an incredible Jewish success story. Yes, there was, if you, Jews could go to the opera, they could own department stores, they could, it’s very much a similar pattern that you find in Vienna, that you find in Berlin.
It’s Jews as arbiters of modernity, and just as in Vienna and in Berlin, they’re in love. So in France, they’re in love with French society. But beneath the surface, you have all the discontents, economic troubles, humiliation, the Army is humiliated. I would suggest to you that France is divided into two. On one side, you have the forces of reaction. That would be the army, the church, the Monarchists, the C. So think about it, Catholic conservative Monarchist France. On the other side, you have the France of the rights of man, the France of liberalism, the France of forward thinking, the France of gaiety, the France of ideas, which one will succeed? And of course, it all bursts open in the affair of Alfred Dreyfus. Now, I’ve referred to Dreyfus many times in my lectures, Alfred Dreyfus. And there are many books on it and many films on it. In fact, I believe now there are seven films on the Dreyfus affair. Alfred Dreyfus was the only Jew on the French General staff. Secret was, it was discovered that secrets were being sold to the Germans. Dreyfus was found. Dreyfus, suspicion falls on him, although it’s all trumped up, we find out this later. And when he is publicly dishonoured after a secret by a closed trial, the mob are at the gates of the Palais de Justice not screaming death to Dreyfus, but screaming death to the Jews whipped up by Edmund Drumont. They’re really, really screaming for Jewish blood. Now, the Dreyfus affair is going to galvanise France from 1894. And I wonder where I have to put the ceiling on that. There is a very interesting book from Dreyfus Delici. I still believe France is a divided nation. I still believe those forces have not eased. If those of you who love France, who fall in love with the Capitol, when you go to those little villages or little towns, what’s the first thing you see as you enter either a crucifix or a little statue of the Virgin Mary in the countryside, just as in Vienna, outside of the Capitol. You go to those little villages around the capitol, it’s very Catholic.
So you have a situation where the mob is whipped up. Now, Herzl was in the reporter’s box when the humiliation happened. You’ve all seen representations. We do not have footage. The Lumiere brothers had, of course invented the moving image in 1895, but there’s no footage. But it’s been represented so often on film, his epaulettes are ripped from his shoulder. The sword is broken and the mob is screaming death to the Jews, and he’s screaming, I am innocent. And here you have Theodore Herzl in the journalist box, and he sees it. And it has a profound effect on him because look, he already understood antisemitism. He was aware of it, he was aware of it in Vienna. Think about it, in Vienna, we are now in 1894, the follow in, within a couple of years, Karl Lueger is going to become the anti-Semitic mayor of Vienna. He knows about it, but in a country which he believed was so liberal, it had a profound effect on him. He, and it’s at this stage, he writes his dispatch to the Neue Freie Presse. They changed the account of death to Judas, death to, the editors actually called it Death to the traitor. Even though Benedict was a Jew, he didn’t want that printed in his newspaper. And a few days later, the French General Assembly was actually confronted with a motion to prevent Jews from holding public office. It was defeated, but it really agonises him. And he ponders on the Jewish question. He has sleepless nights. He goes to the opera. He wanders the streets of Paris. He just doesn’t know what to do. And by the spring of 1895, he believed we have to solve this problem. And he, up until then, he really saw antisemitism as a societal affair. That if what he believed was once society evened out, things would get better.
And of course, he meets up with Max Nordau. Max Nordau, the far more famous journalist in Paris. And Max Nordau thinks that maybe he’s got something going for him. I should mention that the year before this just after the trial, the first trial, he has a very bad about of malaria, which permanently damaged his heart. Can we move on? Because I really don’t want to look at Edouard Drumont’s picture much longer. Yes, there’s the poor Alfred Dreyfus. Should we go on next slide, please? Yeah, let’s leave it on more Nordau for a bit. And he, the other point was Julie was, Julie’s father was dying. So his wife and children go back to Vienna. So consequently, he’s on his own. He’s wandering, he’s pondering, he’s writing, he’s writing and writing. And he began to think that perhaps he was wrong, that it will never be solved, that the whole of Europe could go on the rampage. He was worried that Jews were actually facing an apocalypse. Now, he knew, he begins to play around with ideas. He knew that Baron de Hirsch, one of the richest Jews in the world, was funding Russian Jews going to Argentina, because don’t forget the issue of the Russian Jews under the last two czars, and we’ll be talking a lot about this from May onwards, the situation of the Jews in Russia was unbelievably appalling. Why do you think it is that those of you who are Eastern European in origin, why do you think it is that your, the majority of your family’s got out in 1881 and 1914. It was unconscionable. Now through Max Nordau, he has a meeting with Baron de Hirsch.
Baron de Hirsch is a huge philanthropist. He’s already helping Jews. Can we see Hirsch? I believe we have a picture of Hirsch, have we not? Yes, there’s Barron Maurice de Hirsch, one of the richest men in the world. He is a friend of the Prince of Wales. He moves in the highest circles. He has estates all over the world. He has a huge, he has a huge castle in Hungary where he entertains the royalty of Europe. And through Max Nordau, remember Max Nordau is very famous. He has a meeting with him, and he, Herzl actually approached Hirsch with an idea. Perhaps the time has come for Jews to regain their nationhood. The meeting, the meeting went incredibly badly wrong. We know that Hirsch was, that Herzl was incredibly nervous. And he, and nervous and arrogant, he actually said to Hirsch, why’d you just give money? You are breeding a race of schnorrer. Improve. And Hirsch said, improve the race that Herzl said to Hirsch, help me improve the race, make them virtuous. Which also shows you the downgraded image of the Duke, even with people like Theodore Herzl, they’ve imbibed, if you like, anti-Semitism. And remember how Baron de Hirsch’s giving charity, he, at this stage, it’s money. Later on, he was going to help people actually set, get on their own two feet, which of course is a very interesting development in philanthropy.
And Hirsch said to Herzl, “One of the problems is Jews shouldn’t rise too high.” He believed that antisemitism was caused because Jews were becoming too successful. He wanted a lower profile. And it’s at this stage that Herzl realises he’s got to write it also down, he’s got to write it down. He neglects his journalistic work. And it’s actually during the opera “Tannhauser” at the French Opera House, he decides, you see what sort of state does he want? He decides that what he wants to happen is that it must be a European state and it would have its own opera house. Now… Despite criticism from many of his friends, Max Nordau begins to believe that this is a solution. Freud had already written in 1895, in Vienna, “I had the first glimpse into the abyss.” Freud had been on a holiday in the, in the beautiful mountainous area, just outside Vienna. And he’d seen a lot of antisemitic graffiti, and the great man himself had said, let me repeat that. It’s very important, the first glimpse into the abyss. Anyway, 189, autumn, 1895 Herzl returns to Vienna. Remember he is, he works for an Neue Freie Presse. He has made the literary editor, the family, Julie, the spend thrift, she moves into a very elegant apartment, and this is when he writes his article, “A solution to the Jewish Question.” The Neue Freie Presse refused to print it, Nordau said, he says to “Nordau, am I insane?” And Nordau said, “If you are insane, so am I.” And Nordau actually sends him off to London to meet Israel Zangwill, who I promise, later on I’ll do a whole session on, I’ve already mentioned his books to you, Israel Zangwill. That meeting at 24 Oxford Road, Kilburn is so important because when Herzl gets out of the lander in Kilburn, meets up with Zangwill.
Zangwill is also very much likes the idea and introduces him to a group called the Maccabeans in London, one of the members of the Maccabean is a man called Asha Mayer, who is the editor of the Jewish of the Jewish Chronicle and the first article, and he agrees to print an abridged article. Herzl then finds a printer in Vienna who prints, who prints 500 copies, which his father pays for. It’s important because he’s running out of money. And “Judenstaat” it’s an analysis of antisemitism, but I suppose the greatest phrase in it lets sovereignty be granted us over a portion of the globe large enough to satisfy the requirements of a nation. Now, the point about Herzl, and I think that’s what puts him aside from the other Zionist thinkers, is that he was a man of action. He is going to make it happen. He’s almost demented. He’s quite ill. He has a very unhappy family life. And after the edition of “Der Judenstaat” comes out in Vienna, he is horribly mocked. When he goes to the coffee houses, when he goes to the opera, Karl Kraus, the satirist really makes fun of him. Here comes the king of the Jews. What has happened to the dandy, the playwright, the important journalist, what has happened to him? So anyway, he’s got this dream and he realises he’s got to make the dream happen. He’s written it down. Now he has to influence people. He has to represent someone. Can you go on please with the slides, if you don’t mind, Lauren? Oh, that’s the wrong Rothschild I’m so sorry. That’s my fault. Go on Israel’s Zangwill. Here’s wonderful Israel’s Zangwill. Fascinating man.
Now can we see the next slide there it, “Der Judenstaat.” Yes, so he’s attracting a certain amount of fame. He’s approached by Anglican minister who’s a philo-Semite. Philo-Semitism is a very interesting diversion that I think we should have some lectures on. Who is, who’s well acquainted with the Duke of Bardon, who is the nephew of the Kaiser. He has this idea that Herzl, what Herzl needs to do is to meet important people. If he can meet important people, then maybe he can persuade the non-Jewish world to help with the Jewish state, but in order to do that, what he needs to do is to have a conference to prove that he’s got people behind him. Now, of course, I referred to this with, when I talked about Max Nordau, because Max Nordau is going to be the man who helps him, the famous writer, and they decide they’re going to have a conference in Basel. By this time the word is going around Zionists, that of course Kadima was the first group to receive 150 copies of “Der Judenstaat” that they adore Herzl. You also in Eastern Europe where Zionism is becoming, I’m not going to say important numerically, because compared with all the other options that faced the Jews of Eastern Europe, it was never the most numerical. You know, between 1881 and 1914, only 65,000 Jews went to Palestine. Out of a potential two and a half million who got out the bulk went to America, the second largest, of course, to England, to Canada, to South Africa, to Argentina, only 65,000 to England. A bigger bulk to to Palestine. But amongst them, it’s becoming important.
And the first conference is to be held in Munich. But the Jewish establishment in Munich and in other important cities, they want to stop it. Why, because Herzl is not to now here, now we come to the question of Jewish identity, and I must say a couple of our group, and it’s so wonderful to have a group such as ours. A couple of the group have said, why don’t we do a whole session on Jewish identity. I’ve quoted before Elias Canetti, there are no people more difficult to understand than the Jews, and this is so true. You know that word Jew from the French Revolution onwards. What do the French Revolution and Napoleon say, be a Jew by religion and a citizen of France. What about those who leave their Judaism behind, not the converts, but have a cultural affiliation to it. But now Theodore Herzl is, if you like, smashing the dreams of those who want to be German, who want to be French. He’s saying you belong to a separate nation. At first, Herzl wasn’t sure where that nation should be. He wasn’t, remember he’s remote from the Jewish, from the real Jewish past. He even talked about rebuilding the temple. He said, should it be Palestine, should it be Argentina? He said, what kind of constitution will we have? Should it be a monarchy? Although I like the monarchy in my own country, it would lead us to ridicule if we resurrected the monarchy. So, and he talked about having the kind of flag they wanted. But the point is, it’s the notion of nation, which is so problematic for Jews who want to be part of it. He’d managed through Max Nordau to have a meeting with Rothschild, the French Rothschild, who was helping already in Palestine with wine growing industries. But he was not a Zionist at this stage. He would help poor Jews in trouble.
And when Herzl, he prepared 68 pages of notes to talk to Rothschild about. And he said to Herzl, he basically said, I want, I want thousands of Jews into Palestine immediately, was acutely aware of the pogroms in Russia, and Rothschild said, and who’s going to pay for it, me? So basically for many, the whole notion of a Jewish state is cutting all the assumptions on which they’re building their existence. But anyway, it’s to be held in Basel. It lasted for three days, 200 delegates, but 30 newspapers. Think about it. And I mentioned this when I talked about Nordau world Jewry coming together to talk about recreating a state. It’s no accident that the protocols of Zion are going to come out not much longer, not much longer after this. It’s all tied up. Can you just imagine world Jewry coming together to recreate the state after 2000 years? It’s the story of the century. But at the end of the conference, he actually said that Basel, I created the Jewish state, maybe in five years, certainly in 50, it will be a reality. Now what happened was, at the end of the conference, everyone erupted, it was extraordinary. Now, he and Nordau and Zangwill actually went to synagogue in Basel, because the chief rabbi of Switzerland, Rabbi Cohen, he said, you know, will this be dangerous for Judaism? So they went to synagogue and Herzl was actually called up to the law, and to give you the quote, which I mentioned with this is Zangwill’s quote, “By the rivers of Babylon, we sat down and wept, by the rivers of Basel, we resolved to weep, no more.”
Herzl then goes back to Vienna, where Julie had the Christmas tree up. And he says, no more from now on, it’s Hanukkah. And he pens a short story called Menorah. And in that short story, assimilation, antisemitism out of all this darkness, the one way is to return to our ancient homeland. And he was then informed through Prince Max of Baden that the Kaiser would meet him in Constantinople. He’s going to spend every year there’s going to be a, a Zionist Congress. In 1898, a young Russian called Chaim Weizmann from Motal near pins was a delegate. This is when the young guard are going to come into it. Jabotinsky as a youngster attended one of Herzl’s congresses he actually meets with the anti-Semitic Kaiser in Jerusalem. And he describes to him his hope, the Kaiser, the Kaiser lost interest in the whole idea because what Herzl wanted was the Kaiser to put pressure on the Sultan of Turkey to allow them to buy land in Palestine. He also, he sets up a newspaper, which his father finances called “Die Welt” a Zionist newspaper. Julie becomes more and more irritated. All these eastern Europeans come to visit their beautiful home in Vienna, and then his father dies, which is a terrible blow for him. He says, the struggle is too hard. The movement has made me old poor and tired, but Zionism is the Shabbat of my life. Let’s have a look at the Zionist Congress again, please. Yeah, there you have it. The beautiful Zionist Congress. And you see how formal they all look, he makes three trips to Constantinople. He never managed to meet the Sultan, but the Sultan did send him a present. He did meet his officials.
And again, this is an aspect of Herzl that’s going to cause problems with his, with many of the Eastern Europeans. He basically said, look, if you, if you help me buy land for a state in Palestine, the Jews of the world will settle the debts of the Turkish empire. He set up all sorts of companies to back the endeavour. But obviously that was another, that was a fantasy. Maybe that’s what you need to create this kind of dream. You need a touch of fantasy. Through all sort, he’s becoming world famous. He’s most, funnily enough, his greatest success is with the British. And I promise you we’re going to have to do many lectures on this because why Britain and Zionism, he met the colonial secretary, Joseph Chamberlain. Joseph Chamberlain had just returned from, from touring Africa. This is the days of the height of the British Empire. And he’d already suggested, perhaps Lord, he’d already suggested perhaps it would be a good idea to give the Jews land in al-Arish. But Lord Croma, who was the in charge of the Middle East, he said, look, if you do that, we have to divert the source of the Nile, and that might upset the Egyptians. You know, this is the British and their empire. So the British are finally going to come up with a very interesting offer. They’re going to offer a homeland on the borders of Kenya and Uganda and members of the Zionist organisation actually went out there to look at the land.
And we know from the letters that the settlers sent back to the times, they were very, very upset about it. Can you imagine in the main Yiddish speaking Zionist from Eastern Europe looking at land in Africa. Now it’s at the stage. He receives the offer, that Kishinev happened, that terrible cup of rum that became worldwide news. And he saw it as a temporary solution. It was the Russian delegates who turned down the Uganda offer. And as I mentioned on Tuesday, it led at the Maccabean ball to a shot being fired at Max Nordau. So on the way back though, but he, when he leads the Congress, he travels to Vilna and hundreds of Jews actually came out on the railway station to meet him. He was taken to a private dinner an hour away, hundreds of young followers. He’s almost treated as a Messiah. And by 1903 there are 600 delegates at the conference. It’s getting bigger and bigger, but he’s becoming more and more ill. He in Eastern Europe, he’s getting more support. He’s adored. But then he has a collapse. And he goes, he has to go to a sanitarium. And in the sanitarium, young Zionists come and they guard, they guard the building. And it’s absolutely tragic because, and of course he passes away. And I’m going to read to you, Stephan Zweig, the great Stephan Zweig, “The editor of the Der Welt, of new Neue Freie Presse, was Theodore Herzl. He was the first man of international stature that I met in my life,” ‘cause Zweig became a young writer for Neue Freie. Not that I knew what great changes there would be in the destiny of the Jewish people and the history of our times. Theodore Herzl had an experience in Paris, which shook him badly.
One of those moments which change your life, it was a strange day in July, and no one who was there will ever forget it. He’s describing the funeral of Herzl. Thousands of people are going to come suddenly to all the railway stations of the city by day and night and from all realms and lands, every train bought new arrivals, Western, Eastern, Russian, Turkish Jews from all the provinces and all the little towns, they hared excitedly the shock of the news still written on their face. Never was it more clearly manifest what strife and talk had hitherto concealed. It was a great movement whose leader had now fallen. When he talks about the strife, you can just imagine the arguments in the Zionist Congress over Uganda. Already, the Russian faction and Chaim Weizmann were incredibly critical of Herzl and his politicising. You see, they didn’t care that he could have meetings with the prime minister of France, the British foreign Minister, even the Kaiser. What they wanted was a man who was more within the Jewish world. The fact that he knew so little about Judaism, he didn’t have Hebrew. The fact that Max Nordau had married a Gentile, you know, to them it was anathema, so there was terrible strife. But now let me continue with the wonderful Stefan Zweig, “The procession was endless. Vienna startled, became aware that it was not just a writer or a poet who had passed away, but one of those creators of ideas who disclosed themselves triumphantly in a single country to a single people at vast intervals. All the regulations were upset through a sort of elementary and ecstatic mourning, such I have never seen before nor since at the funeral. And it was this gigantic outpouring of grief from the depths of millions of souls that made me realise for the first time, how much passion and hope this lone and lonesome man had born into the world through the power of a single thought.”
And I’m going to read a more pejorative account by Karl Kraus, also a Jew, a satirist of defacto, “King of Zion, a perfumed ring-strutter dandy, and a caricature of a Jewish messianic leader. The clothes which he rends off a grief phased people have been ordered from the most worldly tailor.” But Stephan’s Zweig again, “At the beginning of the new century, Vienna, perhaps derided none more than Herzl unless it was that other man who at the same time alone and unaided set up the great concept,” his fellow Jew, Sigmund Freud, so incredibly divisive. But please don’t forget, without Herzl could political Zionism actually have got off the ground? It was Herzl who made Zionism into a world movement. It was Z, it was Herzl that made countries take Jewish nationhood seriously. He even had meetings with the anti-Semitic Russian foreign minister. And he said to him, yes, you have a Jewish problem. Help me get a state and then I will save your problem. Save, solve your problems. You see, he was a, in many ways, this man who was a dreamer, he would use anything to achieve the end. So that is an overview, I think of one of the great figures of Jewish history. It’s fascinating. This might be something for you to mull over over Passover when we sit round with our families. If you have to name the 10 great Jews who changed either the Jewish world or the world, who would you choose? Anyway, I think I will stop there and let’s have a look at the questions. Are you there, Wendy?
I am thanks, Judy. That was absolutely outstanding.
Wendy I think your psychological insights are very important when we’re talking about these kind of characters.
You know what, I think I’m going to get a psychologist then and we can, I like to remain neutral so-
Yes I understand but I really think when you’re looking at characters like Herzl and all that, they’re so interesting on the psychological, psychological systems,
I think we can look at belief systems. I think that would be a very interesting topic.
I agree I think that would be fascinating. Now this is from Rose. All right, so shall I start looking at the questions? Thank you.
Q&A and Comments:
Q: I have visited that beautiful synagogue with my husband. Sadly, there were no services when we went, but I remembered Art Budapest and remains in my soil, is the children’s shoes symbolising the deported at the riverside?
A: Yes, of course. This is the problem when you visit Europe, I actually, we can, I dunno if Lionel’s online, he used to run our tours and we were at the Dohány Street shore, and Jerry actually did sing from the Bema. It was a strange feeling to be with a group of Jews again at that international Jews. But there is a large Jewish community in Budapest. But yes, and I will be spending more time with you on the story of the Jews of Hungary. Yes, of course. The shoes are extraordinary.
Oh, this is from Irv. He didn’t construct the Panama canal, but this is de Lesseps, but he started it but didn’t work out. Yep.
Q: What is the Jewish problem that needs to be solved? It is actually a Christian problem. He, but what is the Jewish problem?
A: He perceived that even Jew, even though Jews were becoming part of society, they were still not really accepted and when anything wrong, they were the major scapegoats.
This is from Michael, I in 2015, I attended a summer school course at the American University in Paris. The closest metro station for my class was the École Militaire. And on my first arrival at the station, the entire episode of Dreyfus and Herzl’s awakening to Zionism came to mind. It was a very emotional moment. Yes, Michael, it’s fascinating, isn’t it? And then if you think of those wonderful lectures that Patrick gives on fantasy echo Paris. Look, I love Paris. I’m going over there the end of the end of March I hope, it’s, but on the other hand, I think it’s complicated to be a Jew in Europe. Whatever way you look at it, when you’re on the mainland of Europe, you have to be aware of our past. It’s a terrible situation. As far as I understand boys are bar mitzvah’d, whether they do anything on, I’m not sure about that.
This is Addie, the synagogue in Budapest is so magnificent. Yes, it is wonderful.
This is from Sandra. Oh, hi Sandra darling. She, she has a, she has a video of the Maccabean delegation in Budapest singing the Hatikvah in that beautiful tone, very emotional, happy to share it. I think that would be a lovely idea. Sandra, if you don’t mind, we need yes to see yes. The Maccabean in Budapest is quite incredible. On the first page of Theodore Bickle autobiography, Bickle writes, his mother named him Theodore in honour of Theodore Herzl. That’s from Janet. Thank you.
This is from Ken. I recall a quip of Chaim Weizmann to the effect that it was lucky that Herzl actually knew next to nothing about practising religious Eastern Jews otherwise, he would never have had anything to do with championing Zionism. I’ve never been able to track this down. So I suppose it’s apocryphal would like to know. I don’t, I’ve never seen it anywhere, Ken, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I will, I’ll ask a friend of mine.
This is from Hit Philip. The Dreyfus affair has not been concluded. It’s still going on. The power of deep Catholic inspired Jew hatred has not abated in certain circles, look, that’s the problem. One would’ve thought that after the Shoah, what was it? Howard Jacobson said, couldn’t they have least had waited until the survivors had gone. I do not think that malaria, well, evidently he, that’s what I’ve read David. So in all the books about it, he had a weakened heart. Is that that’s what I read.
You’re a a medic man. That’s interesting. That’s what I love about our group. There’s always someone who knows something that takes us off on another interesting tangent. Valerie’s saying she did her dissertation on Dreyfus. Alan Walman, one of the leading commodity trading companies in the world is a French global trading company, Louis Dreyfus and Co run from by descendants of Alfred Dreyfus, that’s interesting.
Q: Forget the pre isn’t the real question whether any minority group can exist in any society?
A: Jews in Catholic France or Muslims and Hindu, India. Yeah, it is. We, until we learn to accept difference and just because someone’s different, to blame them for all the ills of the world, I think that is a very important point you’ve made.
Q: Judenstaat here, why did so many Jews go to Argentina?
A: Because Baron de Hirsch bought land there basically, and he set up all sorts of organisations for them. Rose, I think Jewish identity would be a marvellous topic, talking about French, let’s look at an extreme right wing French, first French, and then a Jew, and Trump is saying, yeah, yeah. You know, that’s the problem. If you believe in progress, which I always used to as a creature of the enlightenment, we seem in terms of the way our thought processes work, to kind of to be a little bit, I don’t know, are we in reverse? The first Jewish flag came at the first Congress and they chose the tally, the colours of the tally.
Q: Do you think that Herzl’s ideas of a Jewish nation state inadvertently fueled anti-Semitism?
A: Well, that’s an interesting, very interesting point. I think it added to the cocktail Martin, certainly. But it wasn’t just about that. I think it was the Jew as the other. I think you’ve got, got 2000 years in the Christian world, tragically of Jew hatred. I dunno how you excise it. Look, just to give you the basic, there is not a positive image of a Jew anywhere in European civilization until 1729 when a figure of the German enlightenment lessen wrote the Jews. And it fails on the German stage because no one could imagine a Jew to be a hero. It’s a complicated story. If on,
I’m getting some lovely compliments. Thank you so much. My grandfather and brother-in-law from Cologne started the first Jewish sports organisation in Germany. They’re invited the second Zionist Congress to show the new strong and athletic Jews. Oh, that’s interesting Meek, sir, that is very interesting.
This is from Deborah. My father attended a Congress in Lucerne and kept a diary, just handwritten notes, but a very verbatim response to what he saw and heard. I have transcribed it into a document from his notebook. Yes, that would be very interesting Deborah.
Q: Why go to Palestine when countries like Canada offered free land and free passage to Canada?
A: Ah, that’s an interesting point because Zionism said, look, Leon Pinsky, he said, even those of you who are going to America are fooling yourselves. He said, this judaphobia is a psychic aberration. It is a 2000 year old disease. It is incurable. And he said, the only answer to the Jewish condition is to create Jewish nationhood. I’m not saying, I’m just quoting you what the Zionist believed. They didn’t believe it was possible. They saw what was happening in other parts of Europe and they didn’t believe that the Jew could ever walk tall. And that’s why they wanted to recreate. They remember they talked about the recreation of the Jewish state, not the creation of the Jewish state. My grandfather is mentioned in Herzl’s diary as my first supporter from England. Philip Mikalas, my grandfather travelled to the first Zionist Congress with my uncle Herbert Mikalas, age eight, that is fantastic.
That’s from Sasha Wolfson. Oh, that is absolutely extraordinary. It’s only on our group that things like this happen, and I love it. And we are going to have a chat room when the website is up and it’s really happening and we’re all very excited. It’s all, it’s important to realise that by a, like, I dunno what that word is. I can’t read that properly. Can you put it back again?
This is from Karen. When I was 14, I won a speech contest at Temple B'rith Kodesh in Rochester talking about Herzl. But I don’t remember what I said except that Herzl was a dreamer, he made it happen. You know, they said of Disraeli who was one of his idols. The key to Disraeli to understanding him is that he created castles in the air, but he managed to persuade the whole of England and Queen Victoria to move in with him.
Q: Were the Jews offered Madagascar?
A: No, that is a very, very dark period of history. Valerie, it was actually in France in the late thirties when there was violent anti-Semitism, that there was a dispo, there was a discussion in the French cabinet to ship all the eastern European Jews to the island of Madagascar. Eichmann played with that idea. You’ve got to remember the Nazis did not actually embark on the wholesale murder of every male, female and child until the invasion of Russia. They were playing with other solutions and Madagascar was one of those solutions. The problem was they didn’t control Madagascar. Secular Jews. Thank you. How did the delegates learn of the conference in Basel all the Zionist organisations you’ve got to remember by the 188, by the 1890s, have we have what? We have letters the penny post 1840. Remember we have letters, we have telegraph, we have telegraph newspapers. What if I tell you that in Warsaw in 1940, there were, 1939, there were 40 Jewish newspapers. Every little shtick town, every little shtetl would have news, it spread.
Michael Block, your description of Herzl is absolutely a replay of Jabotinsky without the self-hatred at the beginning. Meeting in port J, Michael, I promise you, I’ve got to give a big one on Jabotinsky. He’s such a fascinating character.
Q: Did Herzl and Émile Zola meet?
A: That is a very, very good question, Dion. I don’t think so. I’ve never read about it.
Q: Nordau would’ve met him. Nordau met him and I, did Herzl ever meet him?
A: He went back to Vienna. Read “Daniel Deronda.” Yes. That’s George Elliot. Mary Jane Evans. Now there’s, there’s a whole series of lectures on philo-Semites and George Elliot certainly was one. Daniel Deronda is a Zionist novel in Britain, you also have Sir Walter Scott’s “Ivanhoe” it’s an interesting trend in Britain.
Marion, my grandfather used to tell the day I went home from school in the polish shtetl to find his mother crying uncontrollably. She said that they heard that morning that the man who was going to save us Jews had died. What a story Marion. This coming from a family whose sons are, wanted to go to America to the Golden Medina. This is an interesting aspect of that subject.
Trudy, you’ve not yet mentioned a marvellous new book by Noa Tishby, “Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth.” Put that on the reading list. Thank you, Jeffrey. Yes. The shoes.
Peter’s pointing out the shoes in the river of Budapest were a memorial to those Jews who were drowned in the river. Yes, of course it was the Iron Cross who threw, oh, it is the most terrible story. But there was, there was a hero there. You know, Karl Lutz, he actually managed to pull a woman out of the out. He pulled a woman out of the, out of the river. He was the Swiss, he was one of the rescuers along with Wallenberg.
Philip is worrying about malaria. Honestly, I’m going to have to go back to the books to give you an answer to that now. Yes. Now the Iron Cross. There were some children there sure is a horrible, horrible story. And it was, it was Hungarian fascists who perpetrated it. Yeah. This is the problem with memorials. History becomes very vague. The Jews and adults included were tied up and shot. Look, I will be talking about Budapest and I will be discussing with Wendy and my colleagues whether we, how far along we will go. Because we did spend a lot of time studying the Holocaust last year, and we will talk about it. It’s perhaps prophetic that secular Jews like Herzl had played key roles in the realisation and the establishment of the modern state of Israel. You know, it’s very interesting. Never forget the great Rabbi Cook. He, the second aliah were terribly atheistic. You know, women working with men in the field, short wearing shorts, often not marrying, and he said, it doesn’t matter. They’re performing the Great Mitzvah. They are God’s instrument, but they don’t be, they don’t realise it.
How do I think things would’ve turned out if the Uganda option had been accepted and Aviva saying we would’ve been called apartheid colonialists. That is an extraordinary story, isn’t it? I don’t even want to go there in the realms of Jewish history that would be extraordinary. His famous saying, if you will it, it is no dream. Joan is saying democracy in America has become most unenlightened. I can’t say much better for Britain Joan.
Q: Why didn’t Baron de Hirsch buy land in Israel?
A: Baron de Hirsch put most of his, Baron de Hirsch gave away a hundred million in he gave, he bought land in Canada. He set up, he was, he was an incredible philanthropist, but he was not a Zionist. Galsworthy had a character in one of his books. The trouble with these Hebrews, they get on, so yes, you see in English literature, you find the philo-Semitic characters and you find the anti-Semitic. My mother used to speak about the large photograph of Herzl, which hung in the living room when she was growing up in Seymour, a small, small village in South Africa. That’s from Thelma.
My maternal grandfather, Alexander David Shutz, attended one of the Zionist conferences. My mother Theodora was named after Herzl. That’s from Janet from Ottowa. Wow.
My aunt was KJ Goldblum’s daughter. Her father organised the fourth Jewish Congress in London. Of course, new Herzl’s angle. My cousin’s has a file of his correspondence, including letters from Weizmann. Please let me know if you’re interested. You know something about this and Wendy suggested that perhaps 'cause we’ve had one of the, once the chat room is up, and we’re going to be talking to the website designers that there will be an opportunity for people to share materials because I have never come across a group such as you. You know, in a way the Zoom has been wonderful because we’re international, we’re all passionate about the same things and we all have amazing memories. So it’d be wonderful if we could share. I know he said it’s a country for schnorrer 'cause he thought he’d have to pay all the bills.
This is from Carol. Discrimination is the dislike of the like for the unlike Chief Gustus of South Africa. Dorothea Bialic, the shoes were mainly adult. Look, I think, I don’t want to get into a debate on that. I have all the information on it. This is my daughter Jesse Bernanke in Ottawa at the embassy now, she has volunteered at the JCC, and would like to get to know other Jewish, all right, she’s giving information out. Okay in Ottawa, my maternal grandmother, who was middle name Paulette, is named after, was born a Dreyfus for Alfred was her father’s brother. Wow. The American actor, Tony Curtis started a foundation to renovate the Dohány Synagogue, yes. Pauline just made Alia so pleased to be in our home now.
Q: Did Herzl still have brothers or sisters?
A: No, James, he had his sister who died when she was 20 tragically.
I think I better stop now because at seven o'clock we have Professor Ken Guimes talking about Otto Weininger, who is also from Vienna. A fascinating figure who tragically suffered from, I think Ken would call it Jewish self-hatred. But it all ties together. So I hope you, I think you better go and have a cup of tea. And it’s been, you know, it’s so good to be with this group and Susan’s just sent me a message, a friend of mine. It’s lovely. We’ve got a huge family now.
Take care.