FREE ESSAY ON JEWISH MYTHOLOGY

JEWISH MYTHOLOGY

Theodor Herzl and Zionism
One of the most important influences in the movement that led to the creation of the
state of Israel was Jewish writer and journalist Theodor Herzl. He was born on May 2,
1860 in Budapest, Hungary. Herzl studied law in Vienna, but later on went into a literary
career. This proved a good decision, as he became a well-known playwright and essayist
and in 1891, Hertzl was appointed Paris correspondent for the Vienna Neue Freie Presse
(New Free Press). 
During the Alfred Dreyfus affair in 1894, anti-Semitic feelings in France spread greatly.
This greatly affected Hertzl because before that he believed that the best solution of
anti-Semitism in Europe was the assimilation of the Jews with the Christian people. After
the court-martial of Dreyfus, Hertzl was certain that the only way anti-Semitism could be
solved was with the creation of a Jewish state. In 1896, Theodor Hertzl published a short
book, Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), which promoted the establishment of a Jewish
State. Although Hertzl was not the first to suggest a Jewish State, he was the first to
call for immediate action. Even though some wealthy leaders, such as German emperor
William II and Sultan Abd al-Hamid II of Turkey, were sympathetic towards the idea of a
Jewish homeland, they were not willing to put up the money to back such a project. 
After the wealthy leaders rejected Hertzl, he called for a Zionist Congress in 1897,
which met in Basel, Switzerland. Nearly two hundred delegates attended the congress. The
congress founded a permanent World Zionist Organization that was to establish branches in
every country with a substantial Jewish population. They also formulated the Basel
Program, which defined Zionism's goal as the creation "for the Jewish people of a home in
Palestine secured by public law." Herzl now directed his diplomacy towards Great Britain.
The British offered to help start Jewish colonization in East Africa in Uganda, but this
nearly split the Zionist movement in two because most Zionists were in support of having
a Jewish homeland in Israel. This split greatly upset Hertzl and he died a broken man
soon after in 1904. The seventh Zionist Congress rejected the East India Scheme. 
The Zionist movement worked very hard in the 20th century to see a Jewish homeland come
true. First, a British Zionist leader received a declaration from British Foreign
Secretary Arthur J. Balfour that approved the establishment in Palestine of a "national
home for the Jewish people." This provided the Zionists with the charter they had been
seeking from a wealthy backer. Now all the Zionists had to do was get Jewish people to
move to Israel. This was not done so easily. The new Soviet government sealed off the
tradition source of Zionist migration, which was Russian Jewry. Also, the leader of
American Zionism, Judge Louis Brandeis, and Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the man credited with
obtaining the Balfour Declaration, got into an argument over the future of Zionism, which
slowed the migration of Jews to Israel greatly. Despite these two critical setbacks, the
Yishuv grew from fifty thousand to six hundred thousand people from nineteen twenty to
nineteen forty-eight. Most of these new immigrants were refugees from Nazi persecution in
Europe. The New Zionist party was formed in nineteen thirty-five when a revisionist group
led by Ze-ev Vladimir Jabotinsky split from the Zionist movement. Jabotinsky promoted a
Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan River and devoted his time to set up the mass
evacuation of European Jews to Palestine. 
Relations between the Arabs of Palestine and Jews immigrating there during the nineteen
twenties were not very good and became an intractable problem. The Palestinians did not
like the Jews overtaking their land so they rebelled and fought the Jews. Although the
Palestinians fought against the Jews, they were no match for the skill of the Jewish
Army, called the Hagana. On May 14, 1948, at midnight, the Jewish state of Israel was
born. Zionism had achieved its goal of having a homeland for the Jews in the Middle East.
Although the Arab nations have denounced Zionism as a "tool of imperialism" and have
fought many wars with Israel on the topic, they have been unsuccessful in breaking up the
heart of the Jewish people, the state of Israel.