Benjamin Ze'ev (Theodor) Herzl (May 2, 1860 – July 3, 1904) was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist who became the founder of modern political Zionism.
Herzl was born in Budapest, Hungary. He settled in Vienna in his boyhood, and was educated there for the law, taking the required Austrian legal degrees; but he devoted himself almost exclusively to journalism and literature. As a young man, he was engaged in the Burschenschaft association, which strove for German unity under the motto Ehre, Freiheit, Vaterland ("Honor, Freedom, Fatherland"). His early work was in no way related to Jewish life. He acted as correspondent of the Neue Freie Presse in Paris, occasionally making special trips to London and Istanbul. His work was of the feuilleton order, descriptive rather than political. Later he became literary editor of the Neue Freie Presse. Herzl at the same time became a writer for the Viennese stage, furnishing comedies and dramas.
His forerunners in the field of Zionism date through the nineteenth century, but he was perhaps unaware of this. Herzl followed his writing with serious work. He was in Istanbul in April, 1896, and on his return was hailed at Sofia, Bulgaria, by a Jewish delegation. He went to London, where the Maccabeans received him coldly. Five days later he was given the mandate of leadership from the Zionists of the East End of London, and within six months this mandate was approved throughout Zionist Jewry. His life now became one unceasing round of effort. His supporters, at first but a small group, literally worked night and day. Jewish life had been heretofore contemplative and conducted by routine. Herzl inspired his friends with the idea that men whose aim is to reestablish a nation must throw aside all conventionalities and work at all hours and at any task.
In 1897, at considerable personal expense, he founded Die Welt of Vienna. Then he planned the first Zionist Congress in Basel. He was elected president, and held as by a magnet the delegates through all the meetings, being unanimously reelected at every following congress. In 1898 he began a series of diplomatic interviews. He was received by the German emperor on several occasions.
At the head of a delegation, he was again granted an audience by the emperor in JerusalemThe capital of Israel. He attended The Hague Peace Conference, and was received by many of the attending statesmen. In May, 1901, he was for the first time openly received by the Sultan of Turkey, but Sultan refused to cede Palestine to Zionists, and said, "I'd prefer being penetrated by iron to seeing Palestine lost."
In 1902–03 Herzl was invited to give evidence before the British Royal Commission on Alien Immigration. As a consequence, he came into close contact with members of the British government, particularly with Joseph Chamberlain, then secretary of state for the colonies, through whom he negotiated with the Egyptian government for a charter for the settlement of the Jews in Al 'Arish, in the Sinai Peninsula, adjoining southern Palestine.
On the failure of that scheme, which took him to Cairo, he received, through L. J. Greenberg, an offer (Aug., 1903) on the part of the British government to facilitate a large Jewish settlement, with autonomous government and under British suzerainty, in British East Africa. At the same time, the Zionist movement being threatened by the Russian government, he visited St. Petersburg and was received by Sergei Witte, then finance minister, and Viacheslav Plehve, minister of the interior, the latter of whom placed on record the attitude of his government toward the Zionist movement. On that occasion Herzl submitted proposals for the amelioration of the Jewish position in Russia. He published the Russian statement, and brought the British offer, commonly known as the "Uganda Project," before the Sixth Zionist Congress (Basel, August 1903), carrying the majority (295:178, 98 abstentions) with him on the question of investigating this offer.
Herzl died in Vienna in 1904 of heart failure at age 44. His will asked that he be buried in the future Jewish state together with his three children. In 1949 his remains were moved from Vienna to be reburied on Mount Herzl in JerusalemThe capital of Israel. In 2006 the remains of two of his children were moved from Bordeaux (France) and placed alongside their father