“The spiritual father of the Jewish State, Theodore Herzl…”
Theodor Herzl was born on May 2, 1860 in Budapest and died on 20 July 1904 in Vienna. He was a journalist, jurist, writer, playwright and statesman, who developed the idea of political Zionism and founded Zionism as an institutionalized national movement. He was considered the “Spiritual Father of the State “, by the Zionist movement, the Yishuv in the Land of Israel and the Jewish public throughout the world.
Since the First Zionist Congress in 1897 and until his death, Zionism became a significant and dynamic political and practical movement. Herzl’s ideas found an echo among European Jewry and reached Jewish communities all over the world. After the Second World War the support of the masses of Jews for the ideas of Zionism increased, and led to waves of immigration to Eretz Israel. Together with the political struggle of the Jewish Agency, they ultimately enabled the establishment of the State of Israel.