My Amazon Review of Derek Penslar's "Theodor Herzl: A Charismatic Personality"

A Prophet with Honor

A really wanted to like Harvard history professor Derek Penslar’s biography of the great Zionist hero, Theodor Herzl. Simply put, the words don’t fly off the page, they just sit there and hence I had to put the book down too many times. That said Penslar presents a nuanced view of Herzl’s life. He shows his charismatic personality that captivates European Jewry and he shows his bouts of depression, his heart condition which kills him at age 44 and his less than successful roles as a husband and a father.

Herzl comes from an assimilated upper-middle class fin-de-siecle Vienna family. After receiving a law degree he becomes a correspondent and literary editor for the very influential Vienna newspaper, the Neue Freie Presse. From that post he witnesses the antisemitism of Vienna mayor Kurt Lueger. Then as Paris correspondent he sees the vitriolic antisemitism of republican France that the Dreyfus affair brought to the fore. He then realizes that there isn’t much hope for the Jews of Europe.

Herzl becomes the voice of a nascent Zionist movement with his publication of the now classic “Der Judenstaat” (The Jewish State). He calls for a Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland in 1897 and out of that grows a formal Zionist organization. He goes on the meet the German Kaiser, the Ottoman Sultan and the Pope. His charisma is so strong that this highly assimilated Jew becomes a hero to the masses of Jewish people trapped in the shtetls of Eastern Europe. Along the way he continues to write plays. How he found the time is beyond me.

Penslar goes into great detail of Herzl’s failed idea of creating a Jewish State in British Uganda. That proposal is rejected by the masses of Eastern Europe and it falls of its own weight. The Jewish Homeland had to be Palestine.

There is great stuff in the book. I only wish that Penslar told the story with the verve and charisma of Herzl.

For the full amazon URL see: https://www.amazon.com/review/R1376C9VDNFRA9/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv