Theodor Herzl

A Jewish State: An Attempt at a Modern Solution of the Jewish Question (1904)

Some notes and highlights.

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"The Jewish question still exists. It would be useless to deny it... The Jewish question exists wherever Jews live in perceptible numbers. Where it does not exist, it is carried by Jews in the course of their migrations."

"We are a people—One people... In vain are we loyal patriots... Therefore it is useless for us to be loyal patriots... If we could only be left in peace. But I think we shall not be left in peace."

"For old prejudice against us still lies deep in the hearts of the people. He who would have proofs of it need only listen to the people where they speak with frankness and simplicity: proverb and fairy- tale are both Anti-Semitic."

"The Jews must previously acquire economic power sufficiently great to overcome all social prejudice against them. The aristocracy may serve as an example of this, for in its ranks occur the proportionately largest numbers of mixed marriages."

"Whatever is unfit to survive can, will, and must be destroyed. But the distinctive nationality of Jews neither can, will, nor must be destroyed. It cannot be destroyed, because external enemies consolidate it."

"The departure of the Jews will involve no economic disturbances, no crises, no persecutions; in fact, the countries they abandon will revive to a new period of prosperity. There will be an inner migration of Christian citizens into the positions evacuated by Jews."

Everything tends in fact to one and the same conclusion which is clearly enunciated in that classic Berlin phrase: "Juden raus!" (Out with the Jews!) I shall now put the Jewish Question in the curtest possible form: Are we to "get out'' now? And if so to what place?"

"Every nation in whose midst Jews live is, either covertly or openly, Anti-Semitic... We have doubtless attained pre-eminence in finance, because mediaeval conditions drove us to it... Modern conditions force us again into finance, now the stock-exchange..."

"When we sink, we become a revolutionary proletariat, the subordinate officers of the revolutionary party; when we rise, there rises also our terrible power of the purse."

"Thus, whether we like it or not, we are now, and shall henceforth remain, a historic group with unmistakable characteristics common to us all. We are one people—our enemies have made us one in our despite, as repeatedly happens in history."

"The emigrants standing lowest in the economic scale will be slowly followed by those of a higher grade. Those who at this moment are living in despair will go first, led by the mediocre intellects which we produce so superabundantly, & which are persecuted everywhere."

"Here two territories come under consideration, Palestine and Argentina... Immigration is consequently futile unless based on an assured supremacy."

"Palestine is our ever-memorable historic home. The very name would attract our people with a force of marvellous potency... Supposing His Majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine, we could in return pledge ourselves to regulate the whole finances of Turkey."

"Many latent political forces lie in our financial power, that power which our enemies assert to be actually and now as effective as we know it might be if we exercised it. Poor Jews feel only the hatred which this financial power provokes..."

"We Jews are even now perpetually shifting from place to place, a strong current actually carrying us westward over the sea to the United States, where our presence is not desired..."

"How are we to transport masses of Jews without undue compulsion from their present homes to this new country? Their emigration is surely voluntary?"

"Great exertions will not be necessary to spur on the movement. Anti-Semites provide the requisite impetus. They need only do what they did before & then they will create a love of emigration where it did not previously exist, & strengthen it where
it existed before."

"There are more mistaken notions abroad concerning Jews than concerning any other people... that, parrot-like, we repeat & believe these mistakes. Such a one is the assertion that our love of business is extreme."

Language & Theocracy

"Were a man who lived in the last century to return to the earth, he would find the life of to-day full of incomprehensible magic. To build a city takes in our time as many years as it required centuries; America offers endless examples. Distance has ceased to be an obstacle."

"Universal brotherhood is not even a beautiful dream. Antagonism is essential to man's greatest efforts... The diaspora cannot take place again, unless the civilisation of the whole earth is destroyed..."

"Perhaps we shall have to fight first of all against many an evil-disposed, narrow-hearted, short-sighted member of our own race."

"The equal rights of Jews before the law cannot be withdrawn where they have once been conceded; for the first attempt at withdrawal would immediately drive all Jews, rich and poor alike, into the ranks of the revolutionary party."

"Persecutions are no longer so malignant as they were in the Middle Ages. True, but our sensitiveness has increased, so that we feel no diminution in our sufferings; endless persecution has overstrained our nerves."

"Meantime, Jews in a hundred different places would suffer insults, mortification, abuse, blows, depredation and death. Not so, the initial steps towards the execution of the plan would stop Anti-Semitism at once and for ever. Ours is a treaty of peace."