I have previously written about his diary that began in 1895 and his political activities, thereafter, until his death in 1904. But what about his early life? He was born in 1860, in the Jewish quarter of Pest, in Hungary. (Pest was on the left side of the Danube River. The union of Buda and Pest as the capital of Hungary did not take place until 1872.) He was called “Tivadar” in Hungarian.
His parents were German-speaking, assimilated Jews. But his grandfathers were closer to traditional Judaism. In fact, his paternal grandfather, Simon Loeb Herzl, living in Semlin (a city in Serbia), was a disciple of Rabbi Judah Alkalai (died 1878). Rabbi Alkalai was an early advocate of Jews returning to Eretz Yisrael. Herzl saw his grandfather regularly, on his annual visits to Pest. Perhaps, Simon might have mentioned some of Rabbi Alkalai’s Zionistic ideas to his young grandchild. But when Herzl wrote in his diary in 1895 about his plan for the Jews to return to Eretz Yisrael, it was presented as a new idea. (It has been suggested that the idea was planted in him by his grandfather decades before and remained in his subconscious, waiting to come to the surface!)
Herzl’s ancestors had migrated from Serbia to Bohemia in 1739, where they were required to Germanize their family name “Loebl” (from Hebrew לב meaning “heart”) to “Herzl” (In German, “Herz” means “heart”). Herzl’s father was a successful businessman. Theodor had a sister, Pauline, who was a year older. She died of typhus in 1878.
In Budapest, Herzl attended a Jewish grade school and then enrolled in a secular high school.
Their house was very close to the liberal-reform Temple. They, probably, attended sometimes. Although assimilated, the family observed the main Jewish festivals on some level.
In his youth, Herzl was inspired by Ferdinand de Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal. De Lesseps had brought together the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. At one point, Theodor’s dream was to do the same to the Atlantic and Pacific.
After Pauline’s death, Herzl’s family moved to Vienna. Herzl had decided to be a writer, but his parents felt that he needed a profession that would provide an income as well. Herzl complied and studied law at the University of Vienna. There, he became a member of the German fraternity “Albia.” He, later on, resigned in protest after a member made an antisemitic speech.
At this fraternity, he took the name “Tancred.” Shlomo Avineri has written: “Most of his fraternity brothers chose names from German history… Herzl, instead, chose the name of one of the leaders of the First Crusade, who set out for Jerusalem and the holy land from the Muslims. When the Crusader kingdom was established, Tancred was named ‘prince of the Galilee.’ Herzl … almost certainly knew the story … But there was more, ‘Tancred’ was also the name of one of the best-known novels of Benjamin Disraeli … (It tells) the story of a young contemporary British nobleman who takes a journey to Palestine … Disraeli used his novel to convey his romantic view of the Jewish nation’s nobility. We have no evidence that the young Herzl knew about ‘Tancred’ the novel, but after the establishment of the Zionist organization, he cited Disraeli—together with George Eliot and Moses Hess—as writers ‘who supported Zionism.’ … Herzl’s choice of name is at least ironic, if not prophetic.” See “Herzl’s Vision,” page 57.
After completing his legal studies, he followed the usual path of clerking for a year. But his heart was in writing, not law. He published literary pieces in a number of Vienna’s newspapers. Eventually, one of Berlin’s leading newspapers took him on as a regular contributor. He also published a book of short stories. In 1888-89, three of his plays were staged.
Around this time, one of Herzl’s best friends killed himself. He was a Jew of Romanian birth. Herzl saw him as an educated Jew, who was, tragically, unable to find a place for himself in European society.
In 1891, while traveling in France, he received an offer from the influential “Viennese Daily”—the “Neue Freie Presse,” to serve as its correspondent in Paris. Avineri writes: “He jumped at the opportunity—it gave him a prominent journalistic perch, while also providing a good reason not to return to his wife in Vienna.” (His marriage was a poor one.) He remained in Paris for four years, from 1891 to 1895.
One of the major issues he wrote about—over these years—was a bribery scandal involving French government officials and Ferdinand de Lesseps, relating to the Panama Canal. 1894 and 1895 were the years when Herzl wrote about the Dreyfus trial.
During his final autumn in Paris in 1895, he wrote a play about the failure of Jewish emancipation. It was called “the New Ghetto.” It was his first work on stage, with an explicitly Jewish subject. But he was unable to find a theater willing to stage it. (It did receive its first production in 1897, after Herzl became a well-known figure.)
In the autumn of 1895, his term as Paris correspondent came to an end, and he was brought back by his newspaper to Vienna to serve as editor of one of its literary sections.
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There is an important entry from the beginning of his diary from “Pentecost 1895:” “When actually did I begin to concern myself with the Jewish question?… Certainly, upon reading Dühring’s book. … In the course of the succeeding years, the question gnawed and tugged at me, it tormented me and rendered me profoundly unhappy.” The above book was an extremely antisemitic work written in 1881. Herzl read it in 1882. Dühring wanted to purge German and European society of the Jews and their influence.
Scholars now realize that it was not the trial of Dreyfus, but Herzl’s long analysis of the failure of emancipation and the rise of German and Austrian antisemitism that led him to his new plan for world-Jewry.
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Herzl’s Death; His Wife and Children
On July 3, 1904, he died of a heart condition, having been diagnosed with a heart issue earlier on in the year. In 1889, he married Julie Naschauer, the 21-year-old daughter of a wealthy Jewish businessman. His wife took little interest in his intellectual activities. She died in 1907. Already in 1891, he had told his father-in-law that he would eventually divorce her.
Herzl’s children each had a tragic end:
Paulina suffered from mental illness and drug addiction. She died in 1930, at the age of 40 of drug overdose.
Hans was given a secular upbringing and was not circumcised. His mother objected and Herzl did not insist. (After his parents’ death, Zionist leaders forced Hans to undergo circumcision.) Hans eventually converted and became a Baptist, then a Catholic and then flirted with other Protestant denominations. He shot himself to death on the day of his sister, Paulina’s funeral, leaving an explanatory note.
Trude married Richard Neumann. She suffered from severe bouts of depressive illness that required many hospitalizations. The Nazis took her from a mental hospital to the Theresienstadt concentration camp and she died there.
They had a son called “Stephan Neumann.” He was inspired by the Zionism of his grandfather, but he killed himself in 1946.
See the Wikipedia entry for “Herzl” for details of his too short life.
Mitchell First can be reached at [email protected]. The day before his death, Herzl told a friend: “Tell everyone that I gave my heart’s blood for my people.” Mitchell First has been giving his heart’s blood for The Jewish Link.
