Herzl's Vision: Theodor Herzl and the Foundation of the Jewish State

Theodor Herzl had been a successful Viennese journalist and a less successful playwright with no political ambitions. That changed in 1896, when he published The Jewish State. In response to the wide resonance that the book received, Herzl convened the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897, which founded the Zionist Organization in order to establish a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, recognized and guaranteed by public international law. As he transformed h...