Theodor Herzl

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Theodor Herzl (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904) was a Hungarian Jewish journalist and lawyer who was the father of modern political Zionism. Herzl formed the Zionist Organization and promoted Jewish immigration to Palestine, which, in the late 19th century was part of the Ottoman Empire, in an effort to form a Jewish state. Due to his Zionist work, he is known in Hebrew as Chozeh HaMedinah (חוֹזֵה הַמְדִינָה), lit. 'Visionary of the State'. He is specifically mentioned in the Israeli Declaration of Independence and is officially referred to as "the spiritual father of the Jewish State". Herzl was born in Pest, then part of the Kingdom of Hungary, to a prosperous Neolog Jewish family. After a brief legal career in Vienna, he became the Paris correspondent for the Viennese newspaper Neue Freie Presse. Confronted with antisemitic events in Vienna, he reached the conclusion that anti-Jewish sentiment would make Jewish assimilation impossible, and that the only solution for Jews was the establishment...

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