Herzl, the towering Zionist who has permeated my life
Publisher Lord Weidenfeld, who has received the prestigious WJC Theodor Herzl Award, reveals his personal connection to the man who paved the way for the founding of Israel
I AM so proud to have been asked to become honorary vice-president of the remarkable institution, the World Jewish Congress. And I am deeply honoured also with this award, because Theodor Herzl is not just a figure in the tribal annals of the Jewish people; he is also a world figure.
But for me personally, his message has permeated my personal life, my political life and my professional life.
In 70 years of publishing, I published three biographies of Herzl. The last one has only just appeared, written by the great historian, philosopher and diplomat Shlomo Avineri.
Herzl’s message meant a great deal to me because of three aspects that are each so important. He was for me the last of the great Hebrew prophets. He was for me also the great redeemer who managed to make some of his prophecies come true. And he was for me also the apostle to the gentiles.
You see, the extraordinary thing about Herzl was that he was a man who moved mountains and yet had a very short life. He died at the age of 44.
But that’s not all. Only in the last years was he aware he was Jewish. He was assimilated, he was emancipated. Of course, he knew he was Jewish, but he had no feeling for the Jewish people.
As an undergraduate, a member of a very feudal, e l e g a n t s t u d e n t corps, he had experienced antisemitism because, at the age of 23, in 1883, two waves of antisemitism swept through Austria, a pl e bei a n a nd a patrician one.
The plebeian one Lord Weidenfeld with his award was run by the mayor of Vienna, Karl Lueger, the first of the modern antisemitic politicians, who mobilised the lower middle-classes and had a strong antisemitic background.
The patrician one was more the haut bourgeoisie than t h e a r i s - toc- racy, and they were pan-German. They despised the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, they wanted the Anschluss, they were antisemitic.
So when he was an undergraduate, Herzl had the awful experience of being asked to resign from his corps because the Albia, this very feudal student corps, decided that Jews had to resign. They formed a cartel of student corps, known as the Weithoffen Kartell named after a small village near Vienna where they said the Jew is not a gentleman and they must get out.
But Herzl’s reaction was very odd. He didn’t immediately think he was going to be a Zionist; on the contrary, he thought of mass conversion, let’s all be baptised