Language:
English
Year of publication:
2001
Titel der Quelle:
Jewish Social Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
8,1 (2001) 126-152
Keywords:
Zola, Émile,
;
Dreyfus, Alfred,
;
Herzl, Theodor,
;
Trials (Treason)
;
Antisemitism History 1800-2000
;
Zionism History
Abstract:
Downplays the importance of Viennese antisemitism as a factor in Herzl's conversion to Zionism, focusing rather on the importance of the Dreyfus trial, and especially parallels with the views of Emile Zola. Notes that both Zola and Herzl originally shared some of the antisemitic prejudices of their environments. Stresses that both reversed the defensive approach toward the Jews that entailed self-justification, and accused society of being unwilling or unable to protect the Jews. Traces Herzl's loss of faith in France and, hence, in the modern state, to the degradation of Dreyfus in 1895, after which Herzl wrote "Der Judenstaat." In the face of what he perceived as universal antisemitism, Herzl concluded that Jews needed a state of their own and that this was in the interests of European states, as well as the Jews. He shared some of Zola's liberal ideas about the state, but applied them to work for the creation of a political entity of the Jews where they would be free from antisemitism.
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