Der Judenstaat.

In 1896, Der Judenstaat, Versuch einer Modernen Lösung der Judenfrage (The Jewish State, Proposal of a modern solution for the Jewish question) was published in Vienna by the 35-year old Theodor Herzl, a Hungarian journalist of Jewish descent. The previous year Herzl had witnessed the Dreyfus affair in Paris and had been appalled at the outbreak of anti-semitism that it had generated in the 'birthplace of human rights'. He came to the conclusion that the creation of an independent Jewish state during the 20th century would be the best way for Jews to escape European anti-semitism. The title of the work originally read Proposal of a modern solution for the Jewish question Address to the Rothschilds, as Herzl planned to deliver it as a speech to the Rothschild family but Baron Edmond de Rothschild rejected Herzl's plan, feeling that it threatened Jews in the diaspora; he also thought it would his own settlements at risk.

Herzl worked on his pamphlet from summer 1895 to winter 1896 but received little support from the publishers. Siegfried Cronbach (Berlin), publisher of a Jewish weekly, rejected the publication, objecting to its content, as did Duncker and Humblot (Leipzig), which had recently published Herzl's Palais Bourbon but insisted that they never produced anything on 'this question' (relating to the Jewish question). On 17 January 1896 the London Jewish Chronicle carried a synopsis of the pamphlet 'A Solution of the Jewish Question' by Dr. Theodor Herzl. This led to a meeting with a fairly obscure publisher, Breitenstein. Herzl noted that he was enthusiastic about certain passages, and a definitive title, Der Judenstaat, was decided upon then and there. The precise terms of their co-operation are not known but later accounts show that Herzl received no royalties and that income from sales barely covered the publisher's costs. By February the proofs were ready but Herzl was clearly disappointed that only 3,000 copies were planned to be printed - Breitenstein did not expect a commercial success.

On February 15th, 1896, the slim volume appeared in the shop window of M. Breitenstein's Verlags-Buchhandlung in Vienna. It is Herzl's only work in which he used his academic title. Obviously, he wished to appear as a sober man of affairs, not a utopian. Reactions to Der Judenstaat were not long in coming. The well-to-do Jewish middle class of Vienna was aghast, as Hermann Bahr told Herzl at the time and Stefan Zweig recalled. The Neue Freie Presse kept silent, the liberal press rejected the scheme. Encouragement came from Zionist groups in Berlin and Sofia and the Russian Hovevei Zion cautiously took note. Unreserved acclaim came from the Zionists on the margins of Viennese Jewish society. Their support catapulted Herzl to the leadership of the Zionist movement. This was the most significant, immediate result of the publication of Der Judenstaat.

Der Judenstaat is considered to be the founding manifesto of political Zionism.