A Tribute to Herzl
The London Jewish Chronicle, which has always been a trenchant critic of Zionism, though recently it has become milder and more sympathetic, writes the following on the Yahrzeit of Theodor Herzl.
The week that is closing saw the anniversary of the death of one of the greatest of Jewry’s sons who lived in modern times. It is remarkable that ten years ago he was practically unknown. To-day, he has already been. dead three years, and no name is more widely cherished in every quarter of the globe where beats a Jewish heart, than that of Herzl. It is not necessary to be a Zionist, still less a Zionist of his school of thought, to think with kindly gratitude of the great man who drew the last breath of his young life as the beloved leader of a movement which he brought into being, and which, bearing something of the fire of his quenchless enthusiasms, spread in a few short years from end to end of the earth. Those to whom his doctrine appealed least, those even to whom it being a hateful teaching did not hesitate to say so—and the columns of this journal have frequently in the past voiced this view—willingly render the meed of recognition due to his marvelous genius, to the utter unselfishness of his noble life, to the ceaseless energy with which he labored for his cause. His, indeed, was a rare character, its beauty thrown into peculiar relief by being set in an age particularly material and prosaic. For, what was his labor? What was his life?
"He looked upon the burdens of his people as thousands of others are forced to do, but in him there was this differentiation—he was not content merely to look and to pity. With swift intuition he diagnosed the disease and set himself the mighty task of a radical cure as he saw it. It was an heroic resolve—not the less so because he probably was able only inadequately to gauge it. If he was wrong in his diagnosis and mistaken about the cure, he staked all, even life itself, on what he believed to be the best service he could render to his people. What he always failed to reckon
with throughout, was the possibility that though he may have rendered an accurate diagnosis and offered a correct prescription, the patient would ignore the one and refuse the other. This indeed has happened to even greater men than Herzl, who have yielded themselves as a sacrifice to those whom they would desire to save. But what these earnest souls seldom realize, or appreciate too late, is the human equation which must take into account the patient's own inclinations for whom the diagnosis has been made and the prescription prepared.
"Yet withal, for Herzl there is this to say he left behind him a movement which neither his death, nor all that it was inevitable his removal from the scene would mean, has been able seriously to shake. The organization may have become slack here and there, different methods may have supervened with the different men who have come more or less adequately to fill the places he held alone, but the idea and ideal he projected before the world remain, and do not appear to release the strong hold they have taken upon a large section of our people. This is in itself a wonderful tribute not alone to the mastery Herzl gained over the minds of those with whom he came in contact, but to his personal power in leav- ening Jewish thought to the spirit which animated his. In a man of Herzl's eminence it is perhaps difficult at the short space of time which has elapsed since he was with us, to point with any degree of certainty to the real well-spring of his influence over men in life as in death. The Jewish people are not easy to sway and to influence, but like all people they are not slow to discern thoroughness. And in this Herzl was supreme—he identified himself heart and mind with all that he conceived to be highest and best in Judaism. Like Moses of old, his early training was such as would have been most likely to produce a quite different personality. But perhaps the true meaning of his life can best be summarized in a sentence of his own writing: 'Es war ein Mann der hatte die Not ein Jude zu sein tief in seine Seele empfunden!'"