Life
Theodor Herzl (1860–1904), a Viennese journalist shaken by the antisemitism he witnessed (notably the Dreyfus Affair), concluded that Jewish safety required a homeland and set out his vision in Der Judenstaat ("The Jewish State"). He convened the First Zionist Congress in 1897, founding the World Zionist Organization, and pursued the cause through tireless diplomacy until his early death. Revered as the visionary founder of political Zionism — a movement whose aims and consequences remain the subject of intense modern political debate — he did not live to see its outcome.