what Theodore Herzl really saw before the 1st Zionist Congress (war, economic)

[nickerman]

The story goes that Theodore Herzl believed, through his own observation, that anti-Semitism would always be there in a country where jews lived regardless of the conditions that nation was in. What I think Herzl really saw was that anti-Semitism was some day going to gain world wide consciousness and acceptance which would leave no place for jews to go and live in safety. In past times when anti-Semitism rose in one country the jews always had another country to go to that was relatively free of that. But in the modern world today anti-Semitism is everywhere in the world just like I think Herzl thought it would someday be. From a jewish point of view I can see the necessity of the existence of the state of Israel. Of course there is the U.S.A. but I believe that there is a fair amount of anti-Semitism in the U.S.A. All it would take would be an economic upheaval or world war or something like that for it to raise its head. Just my opinion by the way. Anyway, interesting topic and especially emotionally charged because of the Palestinian element in there.

[TheWiseWino]

Originally Posted by nickerman

What I think Herzl really saw was that anti-Semitism was some day going to gain world wide consciousness and acceptance which would leave no place for jews to go and live in safety.

I think that is what he believed at the time, that anti-semitism was so accepted across the globe that no matter what Jews did it wouldn't matter until Jews had their own sovereign nation.

Writing in 1896 in the tract; Der Judenstaat Herzel wrote:

"Oppression and persecution cannot exterminate us. No nation on earth has endured such struggles and sufferings as we have. Jew-baiting has merely winnowed out our weaklings; the strong among us defiantly return to their own whenever persecution breaks out. . . Wherever we remain politically secure for any length of time, we assimilate. I think this is not praiseworthy. . ."

Excerpts from "The Jewish State" | Jewish Virtual Library

[erasure]

Originally Posted by nickerman

The story goes that Theodore Herzl believed, through his own observation, that anti-Semitism would always be there in a country where jews lived regardless of the conditions that nation was in. What I think Herzl really saw was that anti-Semitism was some day going to gain world wide consciousness and acceptance which would leave no place for jews to go and live in safety. In past times when anti-Semitism rose in one country the jews always had another country to go to that was relatively free of that. But in the modern world today anti-Semitism is everywhere in the world just like I think Herzl thought it would someday be. From a jewish point of view I can see the necessity of the existence of the state of Israel. Of course there is the U.S.A. but I believe that there is a fair amount of anti-Semitism in the U.S.A. All it would take would be an economic upheaval or world war or something like that for it to raise its head. Just my opinion by the way. Anyway, interesting topic and especially emotionally charged because of the Palestinian element in there.

He saw what he saw.
The "Dreyfus affair," the "Pale of Settlement" in Russian Empire...
Those were things hard to miss and they were all over the place.


So it's all biblical, what do you do, ( even if Herzl was not a religious man himself)))