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1. The last will and testament of Theodor Herzl.
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Theodor Herzl (1) was laid to rest in the family's burial
plot, beside his father, Yaacov Herzl, in Vienna's Doebling
Cemetery on July 7, 1904. Zionist leaders immediately began to examine
the possibility of re-interring his remains in the Land of Israel, in
accordance with his Will. However, although the issue was discussed for
years at meetings of the Zionist Executive Committee and at Zionist
Congresses, prevailing circumstances in Palestine and Europe prevented
the execution of this directive. (2) It was finally made possible only
after Herzl's vision of the Jewish state was realized.
On November 24, 1948, the Provisional Government of Israel established a joint committee with the
Jewish Agency for the purpose of
bringing Herzl's remains to Israel. (3) This was the first step on
the way to the re-interment ceremony on a hill at the entrance to the
Jerusalem suburb of Bayit ve-Gan, on August 17, 1949.
A. The will
Herzl wrote his third and last will at the beginning of March 1903,
about a year-and-a-half before his death. The will was divided into two
parts. The first related to matters of inheritance. Herzl bequeathed his
whole estate to his children, whereas his wife was to receive a monthly

2. allowance. Herzl's mother, Jeanette, was appointed Executor of this
part.
In the second part of his will, a gave detailed instructions
concerning his burial:
I request an unostentatious funeral, without speeches or
flowers. I wish to be buried in a metal coffin beside my
father, (4) to lie there until the Jewish people bring my
body to the Land of Israel, [and also] the coffins of my
father, of my sister Paulina, who was buried in 1878 in
Pest, and those of my closest relatives (my mother and
my children) who are deceased when my coffin is
brought to the Land of Israel; my wife's coffin only at her
own request in her will.
B. The family
Herzl was survived by his wife, his three children, and his mother.
(5)
His wife, Julia, suffered from ill health, mainly mental illness,
that required frequent hospitalization. After Herzl's death, she
spent most of her time in sanatoriums until she died in Osze Hospital,
in 1907. At her behest, she was cremated and her ashes given to her son.
Herzl's mother died in 1911 and was buried in the family plot

3. beside her husband and son.
Paulina, the eldest daughter, lived with relatives after her
father's death. In 1911, she married but was divorced a year later.
Between 1915 and 1924, she was repeatedly confined to mental hospitals.
For the next six years, she wandered around Europe until, in the summer
of 1930, critically ill and addicted to morphine, she was arrested for
vagrancy in Bordeaux. She died in mid-September of the same year.
Following Herzl's death, his son Hans was sent to boarding
school in Clifton, England, where he graduated with distinction. He went
on to study philosophy and languages at Cambridge University and
received his MA degree, again with distinction. During World War I, he
served in the British army. Like his mother and sister Pauline, Hans
suffered from mental illness. Following a prolonged breakdown related to
his religious and national identity, he convened to Christianity in
1924, on the 20th anniversary of his father's death. He joined the
Baptist Church, but this brought him no peace, and he subsequently
belonged to a number of streams of Christianity before returning to the
liberal synagogue of Claude Montefiore.
Hans was very attached to his sister Paulina. On September 15,
1930, on being informed of her death, he committed suicide. He left a
will instructing that his body "be placed in the same coffin as
that of my sister and conveyed to Vienna. No doubt, my father's
body and my mother's ashes will be transferred to the Land of

4. Israel; however, this is now for my sister Trude to decide."6
Paulina and Hans were buried in the Jewish cemetery in Bordeaux, on
September 16, 1930.
Trude, Herzl's youngest child, had suffered from episodes of
manic depression since childhood. She married Richard Neumann, a wealthy
textile manufacturer, in 1917 and gave birth to her son, Stefan Theodor
Neumann, Herzl's only grandchild, the following year. Almost
directly after giving birth, Trude was hospitalized. She was finally
committed to Stettenhof Sanatorium for the mentally ill, in Vienna. In
1942, together with the other inmates of the hospital, she was sent by
the Nazis to Theresienstadt. According to evidence from Theresienstadt
survivors, Trude died there in March 1943.
C. The committee
As mentioned, on November 24, 1948, the Provisional Government of
Israel decided "in cooperation with the Jewish Agency, to bring
Herzl's remains to Israel and to bury them on the day of the
founding session." (7) Interior Minister Yitzhak Greenbaum headed
the committee, which comprised three government ministers (Yitzhak
Greenbaum, David Remez and Eliezer Kaplan); four Jewish Agency
executives (Bed Locker, Eliahu Dobkin, Moshe Kohl, and Zalman Shragai);
representatives of the Zionist Executive Committee, Keren Hayesod, Keren
Kayemet, and members of the First Zionist Congress.
The committee was supposed to complete its task by the time the

5. first Knesset convened in mid-February 1949. However, in January, work
was interrupted by elections for the first Knesset as well as the
absence of most of the Jewish Agency Executive, who had gone to the
United States to resolve their disagreements with the United Israel
Appeal.
After the elections, the question arose as to whether Yitzhak
Greenbaum could continue to preside as chairman, since he was no longer
a government minister. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion asked Greenbaum
to continue as chairman, since "the position is not connected to
the Ministry of the Interior, but to a Zionist mission." (8) The
removal of this obstacle enabled the committee to commence work in April
1949, after a three-month break. They held nine meetings, only two of
which were attended by representatives of the government.
Parallel to the main committee, an additional committee of five was
formed to complete arrangements for the re-interment ceremony. It
consisted of Berl Locker, Moshe Kohl, Zalman Shragai, Elihau Dobkin, and
Avraham Granot and did not include members of the government. In
addition to the activities of these two committees, the matter was
handled by Leo Lauterbach, Secretary of the Jewish Agency and the
Zionist Organization.
Three issues had to be resolved before Herzl's remains were
brought to Israel: 1) A new date for the ceremony; 2) The burial site;

6. 3) The re-interment of Herzl's close relatives, in compliance with
his request.
The Date: The first date, which had been chosen to coincide with
the convening of the first Knesset, had passed, and the Hebrew
anniversary of Herzl's death (Tammuz 20) was proposed as an
alternative. But this day had already been designated IDF Day, and the
government refused to change it. Finally, they settled on August 17,
1949, by which time all the arrangements would be completed. (9)
The Site: Herzl made no mention of the burial site in his will. Two
proposals were presented over the years: Mount Carmel and Jerusalem.
Those who backed the idea of Mount Carmel were relying on the
testimony of David Wolfson, Herzl's personal friend and president
of the Zionist organization. They asserted that although Herzl had not
stipulated this preference in his will, he had more than once mentioned
it in private conversations. They were also relying on a quotation from
Herzl's book, Alteneuland. Yosef Levy, a character in the book,
speaking of the Land of Israel as the Jewish state, requests that
"when I die, lay me to rest next to my dear friend Fisher, up there
in the cemetery on Mount Carmel that overlooks my precious land and my
precious sea." They interpreted this quotation as a concealed
request.
The majority considered Jerusalem to be the most suitable burial
site. It was also preferred by most of those who had dealt with this

7. issue before the establishment of the state, (10) Herzl's burial in
Jerusalem symbolized the completion of the circle of the Zionist ideal:
the return of the Jewish people to its homeland and Jerusalem, capital
of the Jewish kingdom in the time of King David.
David Ben-Gurion's motion to transfer the Knesset and seat of
government from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem had just been passed. The State of
Israel had considered it proper to make Jerusalem the capital of the
Jewish state, contrary to the UN declaration of November 29, 1947,
defining the city as an international zone under UN supervision. The
decision to bury Herzl in Jerusalem was an additional step in
Israel's struggle in the international arena to have Jerusalem
recognized as its capital.
Having decided on Jerusalem, the task was to find the site. In
terms of Jewish beliefs, the most suitable place was the Mount of
Olives, but this area and other Jewish holy places were under Jordanian
rule. Therefore, Greenbaum agreed to the choice of the hill at the
entrance to Bayit ve-Gan in the Western part of the city.
Executing the will: As mentioned, Herzl requested that the remains
of his family, apart from his wife, be brought to Israel together with
his. This request was the most complex one to fulfill, both because of
the fact that members of the family were buried in different places and
because of their life histories. The committee was able to overcome the
first obstacle, leaving his children Hans and Paulina as the only

8. stumbling block.
This sensitive issue was personally handled under cover of secrecy
by Leo Lauterbach, Secretary of the Jewish Agency and Zionist
Organization. In February 1949, Lauterbach requested representatives of
the Zionist Organization in France to ascertain where Herzl's
children were buried and the condition of their graves. (11) The answer
was not long in coming. Hans and Paulina Herzl were buried in the
Bordeaux Jewish cemetery. "Under the assumption that their remains
would one day be transferred to Israel, in accordance with their
father's will, they were buried in metal coffins." The local
Jewish community expressed their willingness to assist in transferring
the bodies and to attend to all the arrangements. (12)
Lauterbach obtained information that Trude HerzlNeumann had been
sent to Theresienstadt where, apparently, she died. (13)
He did not do anything about bringing Julia Herzl's ashes for
burial in Israel, reasoning that "since Herzl insisted that his
wife's remains should be transferred only at her request in her
will, and since the contents of her will are unknown to us, we do not
intend to transfer her ashes." (14)
Having gathered this information, Lauterbach was free to attend to
the legal and moral aspects of executing Herzl's will to the
letter. To this end, he consulted Aharon Barth, a lawyer and a leader of

9. the Mizrachi Movement. Barth presented two possibilities in his reply:
There are two approaches by which the committee dealing with the
transfer of the late Theodor Herzl's remains can proceed: The two
approaches are absolutely different and reach different conclusions:
A. The committee can regard itself as the executors of the late
Herzl's will. In which case, it must adhere to the sacred, great
rule that states, "Carrying out the words of the deceased is a
religious precept" [...] his words should not be understood other
than that he wished to lay down clear conditions: he wanted to lie with
his relatives (with the exception of his wife, under circumstances
stated in the will). From this it emerges that his remains may be
transferred only if the remains of the relatives he mentions are also
transferred. In this case, I also would not differentiate between good
and bad, for who can understand a father's heart, and who knows if
he would forgive or not? Would he forgive if he regarded the death of
his son and daughter as atonement for their lives, or not? In my
opinion, the will must not be executed in part. This would go against
his wishes. Nor can one say that the activities may be carried out at
different times; having witnessed how many decades have passed before
the leader's will was executed, it is certainly impossible to rely
on his children's remains being brought at all, if they are not
brought immediately together with those of the leader. Therefore, if one
wishes to execute the late Herzl's will, one must not do other than
to transfer his family's remains.

10. B. An entirely different approach could be that the transfer of the
leader's remains is not done according to his will and without any
connection to his thoughts on the matter. The nation decides not to
leave the remains of a great leader outside the country. The nation
cannot bear them to be left on foreign soil. The nation wants them to be
in Israel. The nation wants them to be where those who were saved by his
actions may pass his grave day by day.
If this is the approach, it has no connection with the will [....]
Two things are clear to me: First, that the question in this approach
has ceased to be a legal question, because the nation does not decide on
this sort of question on the basis of a legal opinion. Second, the
nation will in any case feel much freer than the executors, in making a
decision. (15)
Barth indeed presented two different interpretations of
Herzl's will, but he preferred the second. Lauterbach was also
inclined to adopt this interpretation, and in his recommendation to the
committee, wrote:
The executors of the will must do their best to carry out
Herzl's wishes concerning the transfer of his family's
remains to Israel, but his words relating to the family do
not place them under any obligation, since nobody can
decree what must be done to someone else. Anyway, it is

11. clear that in his will, Herzl does not make the transfer of
his remains contingent on the transfer of his family's
remains and does not set any time and place for the burial
of the remains of his parents, his sister, and his three
children. Therefore, the executors have the right to
decide and act in the matter of the transfer of the members
of Herzl's family according to prevailing conditions,
without specific obligation. Regarding the transfer of his
son Hans's remains, further clarification of the matter is
required, considering the latter's way of life. There is no
obligation to transfer the ashes of his wife, who was cremated
at her own behest. (16)
His recommendations concerning the transfer of Herzl's
children's remains were presented to the committee in April 1949.
They were also sent to Pinhas Rosen, the Minister of Justice. According
to documents in our possession, it cannot be established for certain
whether the issue was discussed in the committee or the government and
on what level decisions were taken.
On Monday, August 14, 1949, the Herzl family grave in Doebling
Cemetery was opened and his remains and those of his parents were placed
in new coffins. The coffins, together with that of his sister, were
transferred to the central synagogue in Vienna. Close to midnight on the
following day, they were flown to Israel. The funeral ceremonies began
with a motorcade traveling to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, via settlements
on the plain and the Jerusalem Corridor. In Jerusalem, Herzl's

12. coffin was placed in a national building's square, after which the
funeral procession continued to the hill on the outskirts of the Bayit
vegan neighborhood. Herzl's coffin was interred on the eve of
August 17, 1949. In addition to the State leadership, 6,000
representatives of towns, institutions and organizations from all over
the country participated in the ceremony. Each of them brought a blue
and white bag of soil from where they lived; these were
later placed on
Herzl's coffin. The pallbearers were senior army officers.
A choir
sang psalms, and the coffin was lowered into the grave
to the roll of
drums and the blast of shofars. The ceremony concluded
with the Kaddish,
El Malei Rachamim (prayers for the dead) and Hatikvah,
the national
anthem.
At the ceremony, leading national figures and
representatives of
the Zionist Organization emphasized the unbreakable
connection between
Herzl's vision, the establishment of the state, and the execution
of his will. In Prime Minister Ben-Gurion's words, "Herzl is
immortal, his monument is the State of Israel, which will be built,
numbed, and embellished by the love of its builder-sons. The carrying of
Herzl's bones to Jerusalem is not a funeral procession--but a
victory parade in celebration of a vision realized."

13. His parents' and sister's coffins were buried in a plot
close to Herzl's grave.
In a report to the committee, the Jewish Agency, the Zionist
Organization, and the Zionist Executive, Lauterbach wrote:
"Herzl's will has been executed. His remains have been brought
to the Land of Israel and interred in the bosom of its soil in the
Jerusalem Hills ... as have the remains of his father Jacob, his
motherJeanette, and his sister Paulina, as stipulated in his will."
In this summary, Lauterbach ignored the full contents of Herzl's
will, leaving the reader with the impression that Herzl left
instructions only for his parents' and sister's remains.
However, this was not the end of the affair. In February 1954,
Lauterbach approached Rabbi Avraham Haim Shag (chairman of the Religious
Council in Jerusalem, chairman of the "G'milat Chesed Shel
Emet" burial society, and one of the leaders of the Mizrachi
Movement in Israel and its Member of Knesset) who was involved in

14. organizing the procedures for Herzl's burial and selection of the
burial site, asking him to re-examine the issue of Herzl's
children's burial. About a year later, the Rabbi sent a memo
stating the rabbinical establishment's position:
After consultation with the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, the
Gaon Rabbi Zvi Pesach Frank (long may he live, amen) it
has been decided to notify the above that since it was
published worldwide that the son, Hans, had converted,
he cannot be brought to a Jewish grave in Jerusalem.
Bringing him for burial on Mount Herzl is also likely to
bring dishonor to his late father.
This decision was conveyed to Dr. L. Lauterbach in my
conversation with him on 23.2.54. On Monday, 6.2.54, I
discussed the above matter with the Gaon Rabbi Isaac
Halevi Herzog, Chief Rabbi of Israel (long may he live,
amen) and he agreed with the entire decision as above. (17)
At the beginning of 1956, the State of Israel set a tombstone on
the grave of Paulina and Hans Herzl in the Bordeaux Jewish cemetery. It
bore the following inscription: "Here lie Hans and Paulina, son and
daughter of Theodor Herzl, visionary of the State of Israel." The
issue ended there.
D. Conclusion

15. Immediately after Herzl's premature death in 1904, a myth
began to be woven around his personality. Within a short time, he became
a symbol-icon of the Jewish national movement. His portrait, which
naturally appeared at every Zionist Congress, was also central to
gatherings of Zionist organizations. Herzl's image pervaded the
Zionist movement, which continued to function after the death of its
gifted leader. It was an element that united the different streams at
work in the Zionist movement, allowing them to reach ideological
compromises for the sake of the Zionist cause--Jewish sovereignty in the
Land of Israel.
In the process of Herzl's iconizafion, the story of his life
was reshaped to serve the Zionist ideal and to make it the leading
ideology in European Jewish society. He was portrayed as a West European
Jew who regarded himself as a member of that society and culture.
However, dissatisfied with this association, he constantly sought ways
to merge with his people. His shock on encountering antisemitism in
Western and Central Europe, most prominently symbolized by the Dreyfus
affair, was a stage in the revelation of his national identity. Herzl
was the mythological hero who experienced rebirth and, like a
messiah-king, would redeem his People. In this new image, Herzl did not
merely return to the bosom of his people, he was the inspiring leader
guiding the masses. He paved the way to release them from ghetto life
alienated from the story of the ancient Hebrews; he would bring them
back to nature and the soil. He was prepared to sacrifice a life of

16. comfort and personal security for the supreme aim. In this story, there
was no room for a figure with weaknesses, doubts, and family problems.
Herzl's life-story was blended into the general national
mythology taking shape in the early days of the Second Wave of
Immigration and, with greater force, in the early years of the State. At
its center stood The New Jew, the pioneer Estate Planning Attorneys returned to his ancient
homeland to create a new Jewish national life that was absolutely
different from life in the Diaspora. The decision to bring Herzl's
remains for burial in the State of Israel can be seen in this context.
The leader of the movement never immigrated to the Land of Israel, the
home of every Zionist, in his lifetime. The State was correcting this
anomaly by bringing his remains home. The ceremony of Herzl's
re-interment served to close the circle of the Zionist ideal and its
realization.
The details of the lives of Herzl's family were known to the
leadership of the State and the Zionist Organization. As they saw it,
Herzl's children cast a heavy shadow on their father's myth,
and therefore they could have no part in it. Since the nation, now
sovereign in its homeland, had taken upon itself to redeem its leader,
it was doing so with sovereign authority to establish the rules of the
redemption. This concept was the basis for the decision not to bring the
children for reburial, thereby removing them from the story. The wish to
preserve the myth as it had been nurtured for decades was stronger than
the moral obligation to execute their father's will.

17. Herzl's grave was meant to become a national shrine to the
Zionist vision of the "Eternal Covenant of the People of
Israel," something like the Western Wall, a national religious
shrine. From there, the people would draw its inspiration and national
image. Therefore, great effort was invested in laying down rules for the
burial ceremony, the choice of place, and the setting.
It cannot be established for certain at what level it was decided
not to bring Herzl's children for burial in Israel. There's no
doubt that the committee and the minister of justice were aware of the
recommendations. However, the question is whether the deliberations were
brought before the prime minister and other ministers, and whether they
were consulted prior to the decision. The main figure in dealing with
the issue was Leo Lauterbach, Secretary of the Board of the Jewish
Agency/Zionist Organization. He personally handled the affair and was
the liaison between the official bodies and persons party to the
decision-making. Lauterbach reported to Greenbaum and Rozen, but it is
not clear whether they conveyed the information to more senior elements.
Regarding both the legal and the religious aspects of this issue,
Lauterbach chose to consult two members of Mizrachi, a religious
movement, both of whom were known for their Orthodox views. This raises
the question of whether it was not a foregone conclusion that they would
object to the transfer of Herzl's children's remains.
Could Aharon Barth and Rabbi Shag, Orthodox Jews, pardon Hans Herzl

18. for converting to Christianity? The decision to leave Paulina and Hans
in Bordeaux was made jointly by decision-makers in the Zionist movement
and Orthodox circles. It was an additional layer in their historical
alliance. Each side cooperated for reasons of its own, but in the end,
they led to the same conclusion.
Hans's lifestyle was the argument against transferring his
remains, but this decision also ruled against transferring the remains
of his sister, Paulina. They were placed in the same category and judged
by the same rule.
More than fifty years after the ceremony, in the plot reserved on
Mount Herzl for the great figures of the Zionist movement and the Jewish
Agency, two graves stand empty. It remains with the nation to change
this. In the words of Theodor Herzl, "If you will it, it is no
legend."
Notes:
(1.) The Hebraized version of Theodor Herzl's name is Binyamin
Ze'ev http://www.ameriprise.com/retire/investment-advice-life-events/estate-plan.asp Herzl.
(2.) S5/10412 Central Zionist Archives (CZO).
(3.) Israel State Archives (ISA).

19. (4.) Yaacov Herzl died on June 9, 1902, and was buried in the
family plot in Vienna's Doebling Cemetery.
(5.) See: Ernst Pawel, The Labyrinth of Exile--A Life of Theodor
Herzl, New York: Farrar, Straus Giroux, 1989.
(6.) S5/11333, CZO.
(7.) The Provisional Gnvernment of Israel meeting, ISA.
(8.) Ben-Gurion to Greenbaum, 3.30.1949, correspondence, Ben-Gurion
Archives (BGA).
(9.) H/2285, CZO.
(10.) Ibid., S5/10412.
(11.) Ibid., S5/11333.
(12.) Ibid.
(13.) Ibid., S5/10413.
(14.) Ibid., Lauterbach to Levin, 1.17.1949.
(15.) Ibid., Barth to Lauterbach, 3.13.1949, S5/10413.

20. (16.) Ibid., Lauterbach to Barth and Pinhas Rosen, 2.14.1949,
S5/11333.
(17.) Ibid., Shag to Lauterbach, 2.6.1955, S5/11333.
ARIEL FELDSTEIN is Director of Academic Administration, Sapir
Academic College, Ashkelon, Israel. His field of expertise is Zionist
ideology, the Zionist Movement, and relations between Israel and
American Jewry.
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