Herzl, Theodor | Herzl's proposal for a Jewish state

The Passion of American Collectors: Property of Barbara and Ira Lipman

Herzl, Theodor

Der Judenstaat: Versuch einer modernen Lösung der Judenfrage. Leipzig and Vienna: M Breitenstein, 1896

8vo (242 x 155 mm). Title-page and final, blank, page dust-soiled, some scattered very short marginal chips and tears. Later vellum with overlapping fore-edges.

First edition. Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl (1860–1904) wrote his epoch-making Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) in 1895 as a "proposal for a modern solution to the Jewish question." Intended initially to be delivered orally to a group of powerful Western European Jewish bankers and leaders, the pamphlet as printed called for the organization of the Jewish people as a political entity and for the founding of a future independent Jewish state. It was originally published February 14, 1896 in German, and translations into English and French, paid for out of pocket by Herzl himself, followed shortly thereafter. "That a Jewish State was created in Palestine within fifty years of his death was due to the vision and practical methods of Herzl, expressed in his manifesto of 1896" (Printing and the Mind of Man 381).