A public memorial ceremony will take place at Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem today in honor of the 100th anniversary of the death of Binyamin Ze'ev Herzl, which will be marked tomorrow, the 20th of Tammuz (July 9th). President Moshe Katzav, Prime Minister Sharon, and most others of the country's leaders will take part. The Knesset legislated an annual memorial day in honor of Herzl, considered the founder of the modern Zionist movement and the visionary of the State of Israel.
Though he was an assimilated Austrian Jew, the persistence of antisemitism stirred Herzl to seek a political/national solution that would grant the Jewish people its own state. He wrote The Jewish State in 1896, convened the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, during which he predicted the establishment of a Jewish State within 50 years (he was off by only a year), and convened five more Zionist Congresses between then and 1902.
Herzl originally led the approach that Zionism "has nothing to do with religion," but later wrote, "We must not drive the Zionist rabbis away. Let us not discourage them, even if we have no intention of handing them the leadership." In The Jewish State, Herzl compared the rabbinate to the military:
"We shall permit no theocratic inclinations on the part of our clergy to raise their heads. We shall know how to restrict them to their temples, just as we shall restrict our professional soldiers to their barracks. The army and the clergy shall be honored to the extent that their noble functions require and deserve it. But they will have no privileged voice in the state... for otherwise they might cause trouble externally and internally."
On the other hand, Herzl was "more considerate and knowledgeable of Judaism than is commonly thought," said Dr. Aviva Halamish of the History Department of the Open University. Dr. Yoram Hazony, Director of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, has written that Herzl's diaries show that Herzl's
"positive inclination towards the heritage of his people was by no means limited to the lighting of the Hanuka candelabrum. He similarly reports the respect - and sometimes the delight - with which he participated in other Jewish customs: Friday night services, being called up to read from the Torah, the traditional grace after meals, the Passover seder, his children's recitation of a bedtime prayer in Hebrew. He wrote sympathetically about the Jewish Sabbath, and emphatically about the symbolism of the Star of David. He cited the Bible as the basis of the Jewish claim to Palestine."
Though he was an assimilated Austrian Jew, the persistence of antisemitism stirred Herzl to seek a political/national solution that would grant the Jewish people its own state. He wrote The Jewish State in 1896, convened the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, during which he predicted the establishment of a Jewish State within 50 years (he was off by only a year), and convened five more Zionist Congresses between then and 1902.
Herzl originally led the approach that Zionism "has nothing to do with religion," but later wrote, "We must not drive the Zionist rabbis away. Let us not discourage them, even if we have no intention of handing them the leadership." In The Jewish State, Herzl compared the rabbinate to the military:
"We shall permit no theocratic inclinations on the part of our clergy to raise their heads. We shall know how to restrict them to their temples, just as we shall restrict our professional soldiers to their barracks. The army and the clergy shall be honored to the extent that their noble functions require and deserve it. But they will have no privileged voice in the state... for otherwise they might cause trouble externally and internally."
On the other hand, Herzl was "more considerate and knowledgeable of Judaism than is commonly thought," said Dr. Aviva Halamish of the History Department of the Open University. Dr. Yoram Hazony, Director of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, has written that Herzl's diaries show that Herzl's
"positive inclination towards the heritage of his people was by no means limited to the lighting of the Hanuka candelabrum. He similarly reports the respect - and sometimes the delight - with which he participated in other Jewish customs: Friday night services, being called up to read from the Torah, the traditional grace after meals, the Passover seder, his children's recitation of a bedtime prayer in Hebrew. He wrote sympathetically about the Jewish Sabbath, and emphatically about the symbolism of the Star of David. He cited the Bible as the basis of the Jewish claim to Palestine."