Tag Archives: First Zionist Congress

Jew of the Week: Nathan Birnbaum

The First Zionist (and the First Modern Ba’al Teshuva)

Nathan Birnbaum (1864-1937) was born in Vienna to a traditional Jewish family of Hungarian and Galician heritage. He studied law and philosophy at the University of Vienna, where he founded Kadimah, the first nationalist Jewish student association. He also started a new magazine called Selbstemanzipation! (“Self-Emancipation!) In fact, it was in an 1890 article for his magazine that Birnbaum coined the terms “Zionism” and “Zionist”. Two years later, he coined the term “political Zionism”, as distinct from the religious Zionism that has always existed in Judaism. Birnbaum’s writings were hugely popular and helped ignite the modern Zionist movement. They also played a role in inspiring Theodor Herzl. At the First Zionist Congress in 1897, Birnbaum was elected Secretary General. However, he soon had a change of heart when he saw how Zionism was becoming too secular and too political. Instead, he began to advocate for “Jewish cultural autonomy”, also called golus (or galut) nationalism. He hoped Jews would be recognized as a distinct and semi-autonomous people within the countries in which they dwelled. Birnbaum ran for Austrian parliament and while he did win the election, corruption and anti-Semitism prevented him from taking his seat. Birnbaum was a huge proponent of “Yiddishism”, and to make Jews proud of their culture and language. In 1908, he convened the first Conference for the Yiddish Language, and even traveled to America to promote the revival of Yiddish. During this trip, he had a meeting with US President Teddy Roosevelt. Birnbaum eventually realized that true salvation for the Jews can only come from adherence to Torah and Jewish law. In 1916, he became a ba’al teshuvah and began to live a strictly Orthodox life. Three years later, he became the General Secretary of Agudas Yisroel (originally an umbrella organization for Eastern European Orthodox Jews, and today also a political party in Israel). He wrote a popular text called Gottesvolk (“God’s People”), where he outlined his plan for reviving Judaism and laid out a vision of the ideal Jewish community. He argued passionately against “modern paganism” and warned about the dangers of godless secularism, quite accurately foreseeing how it could destroy society. He affirmed that settling and living in Israel was still important, of course, but for spiritual reasons, not political ones. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Birnbaum fled with his family to the Netherlands, where he lived out the last few years of his life. Today there is a street in Jerusalem named after him. He has been called a “prophetic personality” and the “first modern ba’al teshuvah”.

Yom Kippur Begins Tuesday Evening – Gmar Chatima Tova!

9 Yom Kippur Myths and Misconceptions

The Kabbalah of Yom Kippur

Words of the Week

When one stands in prayer, he should place his feet together side by side. He should set his eyes downwards as if he is looking at the ground, and his heart upwards as if he is standing in Heaven.
– Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (“Maimonides”, 1138-1204), Mishneh Torah

Jew of the Week: Theodor Herzl

Israel’s “Spiritual” Founding Father

Theodor Herzl

Theodor Binyamin Ze’ev Herzl (1860-1904) was born in what is now Budapest, Hungary to Ashkenazi Jewish parents with mixed Sephardic heritage. He was a descendant of the great Spanish rabbi and kabbalist Yosef Taitazak. Herzl first wished to be a scientist and engineer, then switched to law and journalism. In his youth, he was ashamed of the many impoverished and uneducated Jews in Hungary, and was inspired by the Germans whom he felt were the most civilized and cultured of peoples. During his time at the University of Vienna, he was a member of a German nationalist club, but left because of their rampant anti-Semitism. After a brief law career, Herzl became a journalist for a Viennese paper. In 1894, he was sent to cover the Dreyfus Affair where a French-Jewish military officer was falsely accused of treason by anti-Semites, and heard the masses chant “Death to the Jews”. While this is often cited as the moment that awoke him to the plight of the Jews, a more likely factor was what happened at the same time back home in Vienna. The virulently anti-Semitic Kart Lueger was elected mayor – this was the man whom Hitler would later credit as being his major inspiration. Although Herzl once believed that Jews should assimilate and become Germans, he soon realized that the Germans were not as civilized as he thought, and that the Jew would never be accepted in European society. Immersing himself in Jewish and early Zionist literature (especially the work of the great Sephardic rabbi and mystic Yehuda Alkali), he came to understand that the only solution for the Jews was not to abandon their heritage, but to embrace it forcefully and return to their Promised Land (or some other land if that didn’t work). He wrote: “Zionism is first and foremost a return to Judaism.”

Herzl got to work and drafted Der Judenstaat, his manual for “The Jewish State”. It was published in early 1896 and quickly became a bestseller. Meanwhile, Herzl succeeded in arranging a meeting with the German emperor, injecting a huge boost of credibility to his campaign. The following month, Der Judenstaat was published in English, and a month after that Herzl met with the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, who awarded him a medal. Herzl continued traveling, speaking, and meeting with dignitaries and Jewish communities. In 1897 he spent much of his own savings to found a Zionist newspaper and to organize the First Zionist Congress, where he was elected its president. It should be noted that Herzl had many opponents, including assimilated Western European Jews, those that had entered the European nobility, most of the wealthy Jews and bankers who lived in Europe comfortably, as well as the Ultra-Orthodox Jews who distrusted his secular leadership. Nonetheless, he charged onwards, believing that “The Jews who wish for a State will have it.” Herzl continued negotiating with the British, the Turks, and the Russians. He traveled to Israel for the first time in 1898, and once more met the German emperor there for discussions. He also traveled to Russia to try to ease the plight of the Jews and end the pogroms. Meanwhile, he worked on a novel to describe his vision more romantically, and published Altneuland in 1902, which also became a bestseller. When translated into Hebrew by Nahum Sokolow, he chose to title the book Tel Aviv, based on a verse from the Tanakh (Ezekiel 3:15). The name would, of course, later be adopted for Israel’s largest city. Herzl met with the Pope in early 1904, famously refusing to kneel before him or kiss his hand as was required. The Pope refused to help the Jews unless they all converted to Christianity, which Herzl quickly rejected. The meeting lasted less than a half hour. (The next Pope would reverse the Church’s position in 1917 and support the Zionist cause.) Herzl had been battling a heart condition for quite a while, and unfortunately succumbed to it in the summer of 1904. He didn’t live to see his dream fulfilled, but on the 5th of Iyar in 1948, the State of Israel became a reality, with David Ben-Gurion proclaiming the rebirth of an independent Jewish state in the Holy Land, with a portrait of Herzl behind him. The city of Herzliya in Israel is named after him, and the 10th of Iyar (next Wednesday), is a minor holiday in Israel called Herzl Day. Happy Yom Ha’Atzmaut!

A Secret History of Zionism

Words of the Week

…I believe that a wondrous generation of Jews will spring into existence. The Maccabees will rise again… We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes. The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness. And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity.
– Theodor Herzl, Der Judenstaat