It was with great pleasure that I received the news that I will be allowed to give a speech about the founder of Zionism Theodor Herzl on the occasion of the visit of Itzhak Herzog, the President of Israel to Austria. This was preceded by months of preparations to pay tribute to Theodor Herzl in the city of his impact, Vienna. During a visit to Israel in early 2023, State Secretary for Tourism Susanne Kraus-Winkler approached me about Theodor Herzl, whose 120th death anniversary is coming up in 2024. Together with the Herzl Museum, the office of Federal Minister Karoline Edtstadler, the Israeli Embassy and the historian Awi Blumenfeld, who lives in Vienna, a commemorative plaque to Theodor Herzl was to be designed for Herzl's home in Berggasse. This was followed by numerous joint appointments, during which we not only worked on the planning of the memorial plaque. On the occasion of the anniversary of Herzl's death, numerous initiatives are being considered to commemorate the founder of Zionism in Vienna as well.
This is indeed necessary. Again and again I am asked by foreign guests what can be found in Vienna about Theodor Herzl. Unfortunately, the answer remains unsatisfactory. There are just three not particularly attractive places in Vienna that remind us of him: the so-called Herzl Stiege near Sterngasse in the first district, which is always the target of graffiti sprayers, the "Theodor-Herzl-Platz" next to the Hotel Marriott (in fact the name of the square is different, only the Herzl sign was put up, and the municipal building in need of renovation for years, which bears the name of the founder of Zionism in the 2nd district. At least the gravestone for Herzl can still be found in the Döblingen cemetery. His mortal remains were transferred to Jerusalem in 1949 and rest there on Herzl Hill.
Now there is at least one additional reminder, the plaque on the residence of Herzl and his family, which was in the immediate neighborhood of Sigmund Freud. The inscription reads as follows:
Here lived and acted
from 1896 to 1898
- THEODOR HERZL
(1860–1904)
Journalist, author, visionary
& Founder of Modern Zionism
"We sort of went home.
Zionism is the Return to Judaism
Even before returning to the Jewish land."
Opening speech to the 1st Zionist Congress August 29, 1897 in Basel
On May 14, 1948, his vision of a Jewish state became a reality.
בְּאֵ֣ין חָ֭זוֹן יִפָּ֣רַֽע עָ֑ם
Without vision a nation disintegrates
משלי Sprüche 29:18
The ceremonial unveiling was carried out by the Israeli President Herzog, in the presence of the Israeli Ambassador Mordechai Rodgold, his wife Celine, Federal Minister Karoline Edtstadler, the Mayor of Vienna Michael Ludwig, as well as representatives of the World Zionist Organization and the Herzl Center. With the memorial plaque in Berggasse, there is now finally a worthy reminder of the great Zionist mastermind and humanist Theodor Herzl in Vienna, a city that had so influenced him. Herzl was born in Budapest in 1860, and the family moved to Vienna after the death of Herzl's sister, where Theodor studied law while working as a journalist and author. In the face of rising anti-Semitism, Herzl theorized that a place must be created where people could live without persecution and in peace. All Jews who suffered from exclusion and discrimination would be entitled to their own nation-state, Herzl believed. In 1896, at the time when he and his family were living in Berggasse, he published his paper "The Jewish State," thus outlining the idea of a Zionist movement, which was completed in 1948 with the founding of the state of Israel. Theodor Herzl became the mastermind of the State of Israel. He died on July 3, 1904 at the age of 44 in Edlach an der Rax.
