Summary about biography of Thedor Herzl, the founder of Zionism

1. THE FOUNDER OF
ZIONISM
PRESENTED BY : INGYALI
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2. BIOGRAPHY
 Theodor Herzl was born in Budapest. He received a law
degree, but chose to concentrate on writing.
 He was 31 years old in 1891 when he moved to Paris as the
correspondent .
 Encountering anti-Semitism, He believed that anti-
Semitism occurred because Jews looked and acted
differently.
 Herzl was covering the Dreyfus trial as a correspondent
when he witnessed the vitriolic anti-Semitism of the
French. When he observed the humiliation of Alfred
Dreyfus and heard the mobs screaming "Death to the
Jews," he was stunned. 2

3.  Herzl concluded that the only solution for anti-
Semitism was resettlement of Jews onto their
own land. Anti-Semitism would cease, he
believed, only when Jews had their own country.
 Herzl founded the Zionist political movement.
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4. ZIONISM WAS NOT A NEW IDEA.
 In 1860, Moses Hess had written a book called Rome
and Jerusalem, in which he noted that the world
consisted of two races: Aryans and Semites. The
Aryans described the world and tried to make it
beautiful but The Semites tried to make the world
moral . Since these two groups were really separate,
rather than living in conflict within the same borders,
the Semites should fulfill their destiny and create
their own nation.
 In 1882, Leon Pinsker, a Russian Enlightenment
writer, wrote a book called Auto-Emancipation, in
which he said anti-Semitism existed because Jews
were a minority without their own land. So long as
they tried living among non-Jews, they would be
persecuted. Jews needed to return to the Land of
Israel and become independent. Pinsker was a major
leader in a group called Lovers of Zion.
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5.  After the Dreyfus affair, Herzl devoted his life to
creating the necessary political framework to
achieve his goal of an independent Jewish state.
He knew that the first step to creating a Jewish
homeland had to be an international Jewish
institution responsible for funding and
organizing the new nation.
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6.  In 1897, the First World Zionist Congress met in Basel,
Switzerland. It was the first time that Jews from different
nations had ever met with a political agenda. The official
language of the Congress was German. Although the
philosophical differences among the representatives were
massive, all agreed that the purpose of the World Zionist
Congress would be to represent the needs of all Jews in
their goal of establishing an independent Jewish nation. It
was understood that their major function was to create the
political organizations needed to found a new country. They
elected Herzl president of the organization, set the dues
rate, approved the design of the Jewish national flag (now
the flag of Israel), and agreed to meet once a year. It was at
that first meeting that Herzl triumphantly declared, "If you
will it, then it's not a fantasy."
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7.  Herzl believed that the movement to create a Jewish
homeland could not achieve its goals through illegal
immigration. He tried to convince the Turkish sultan,
who controlled Palestine at that time, to convince him
to allow Jews to migrate en masse to Palestine, but
the sultan was unenthusiastic about the idea.
 Herzl spent the last years of his life struggling to
amass the capital needed for establishing a nation
and trying to convince the heads of European states
to help the Jews. England refused to give the Jews
permission to settle on Cyprus. However, Foreign
Minister Lord Chamberlain did offer Herzl the option
of settling in Uganda. Herzl excitedly brought this
proposal back to the World Zionist Congress. While
many Western European Jews seriously considered
the offer, the representatives of Russian Jewry,
dedicated to the dream of a return to Zion, threatened
to leave the Congress. The proposal was defeated.
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8. WHAT IS ZIONISM?
 Zionism is a movement founded by Theodor Herzl
in 1896 whose goal is the return of Jews to Eretz
Yisrael, or Zion, the Jewish synonym for
Jerusalem and the Land of Israel.
The name of "Zionism" comes from the hill Zion,
the hill on which the Temple of Jerusalem was
situated.
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9. ANTI-SEMITISM
 The term emerged in the second half of the 19th
century, it’s racism ideology movement came to
justify hatred against Jews because they are
Jews . The differences of the people that belong to
the European Aryan element.
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12.  Herzl died in 1904, and was buried on Mount
Herzl in Jerusalem. He is credited with being the
father of political Zionism.
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13.  http://judaism.about.com/od/jewishbiographies/a/
herzl.htm
 http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/zionism/herz
l/index.cfm
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism
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