Zion's Herzl

A U. S. Jew talked last week to English Jews about a Viennese Jew who wanted Jewry to return and live in Palestine. The occasion was a London meeting to memorialize the 25th anniversary of the death of Dr. Theodor Herzl, founder of political Zionism. It was Dr. Herzl who, while reporting the famed Dreyfus affair (1894) for the Vienna Neue Freie Presse, found his attention focused on antiSemitism, his Jewish consciousness aroused.* Two years later, aged 36, he published The Jewish State, a speedily famed pamphlet which, with secular, economic emphasis, advocated Jewish national reunion. Followed congresses, interviews with world rulers, potent propagandizing.

Eloquent, devoted Dr. Herzl, were he , alive today, might visit or live in Tel Aviv, first Zionist city, population 50,000. Its shrubbery, stucco residences, theatre, opera house and 50 schools stand on the dunes outside Jaffa, Palestine. Hebrew alone is spoken. The name of Herzl is almost sacred.

Several distinguished Jews spoke at last week's meeting, including Chemical Tycoon Lord Melchett and Sir Robert Samuel, famed Liberal. None was more closely attended, however, than orotund Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise of Manhattan, who said: "Theodor Herzl was one of the few men truly epochal . . . because he dared to bid the Jew to be what, for nearly two millenia, he had not dared to be--to be himself, a Jew. . . . Before Herzl came the Jews had been so hurt by the world's ill will that many had denied their own Semitism. Such a denial is infinitely more provocative than a courageous admission. But since Herzl's day there are fewer Jews concealing their Semitism. ... I was the last comrade that Herzl talked with. He was a worn and spent man. I asked him whether we could not free him from the necessity of potboiling for his Vienna newspaper. . . 'I dare not,' he answered, 'lest it be said I live on Zionism rather than for it.' "

* German espionage was rife in the French Army. To obtain a scapegoat and to cater to anti-Semitic factions, Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, able Jew, was accused by the high command, tried, convicted, sent to Devil's Island. The question shook Europe. After five years the Dreyfusards won. Capt. Dreyfus was retried, found guilty "with extenuating circumstances," pardoned by the President. In 1906 he was formally declared innocent. He fought for France in the War, gained the rank of colonel, still lives in Paris.