February 14 1896 – 30 Shevat 5656
Vienna
Theodor Herzl’s pamphletThe Jewish State was published, setting out his vision in four short chapters.
Like many of the visionary leader’s works, it was the product of a few frenzied months of work: “I wrote walking, standing, lying down, in the street, at table, at night when I started up from sleep,” he wrote (Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl, vol. 1 p. 24) of his detailed program of how such a state might be achieved.
No one Herzl approached, including his regular publisher, was prepared to publish the popular journalist and playwright’s new creation. In the end a non-Jewish bookseller named Breitenstein liked Herzl’s ideas and agreed to take on the job.
Vienna’s Jews reacted with scorn, and author Stefan Zweig reputedly called the book an obtuse, idiotic text which had made his friend Herzl a laughing stock. Six months later Herzl held the first Zionist Congress in Basle, and fifty years later, the State of Israel was established.