and died at Edlach on the 3rd of July 1904. The greater part of his career was associated with Vienna, where he acquired high repute as a literary journalist. He was also a dramatist, and apart from his prominence as a Jewish Nationalist would have found a niche in the temple of fame. All his other claims to renown, however, sink into insignificance when compared with his work as the reviver of Jewish hopes for a restoration to political autonomy. Herzl was stirred by sympathy for the misery of Jews under persecution, but he was even more powerfully moved by the difficulties experienced under conditions of assimilation. Modern anti-Semitism, he felt, was both like and unlike the medieval. The old physical attacks on the Jews continued in Russia, but there was added the reluctance of several national groups in Europe to admit the Jews to social equality. Herzl believed that the humanitarian hopes which inspired men at the end of the 18th and during the larger part of the 19th centuries had failed. The walls of the ghettos had been cast down, but the Jews could find no entry into the comity of nations. The new nationalism of 1848 did not deprive the Jews of political rights, but it denied them both the amenities of friendly intercourse and the opportunity of distinction in the university, the army and the professions. Many Jews questioned this diagnosis, and refused to see in the new anti-Semitism (q.v.) which spread over Europe in 1881 any more than a temporary reaction against the cosmopolitanism of the French Revolution. In 1896 Herzl published his famous pamphlet “Der Judenstaat.” Holding that the only alternatives for the Jews were complete merging by intermarriage or self-preservation by a national re-union, he boldly advocated the second course. He did not at first insist on Palestine as the new Jewish home, nor did he attach himself to religious sentiment. The expectation of a Messianic restoration to the Holy Land has always been strong, if often latent, in the Jewish consciousness. But Herzl approached the subject entirely on its secular side, and his solution was economic and political rather than sentimental. He was a strong advocate for the complete separation of Church and State. The influence of Herzl’s pamphlet, the progress of the movement he initiated, the subsequent modifications of his plans, are told at length in the article Zionism.
His proposals undoubtedly roused an extraordinary enthusiasm, and though he almost completely failed to win to his cause the classes, he rallied the masses with sensational success. He unexpectedly gained the accession of many Jews by race who were indifferent to the religious aspect of Judaism, but he quite failed to convince the leaders of Jewish thought, who from first to last remained (with such conspicuous exceptions as Nordau and Zangwill) deaf to his pleading. The orthodox were at first cool because they had always dreamed of a nationalism inspired by messianic ideals, while the liberals had long come to dissociate those universalistic ideals from all national limitations. Herzl, however, succeeded in assembling several congresses at Basel (beginning in 1897), and at these congresses were enacted remarkable scenes of enthusiasm for the cause and devotion to its leader. At all these assemblies the same ideal was formulated: “the establishing for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine.” Herzl’s personal charm was irresistible. Among his political opponents he had some close personal friends. His sincerity, his eloquence, his tact, his devotion, his power, were recognized on all hands. He spent his whole strength in the furtherance of his ideas. Diplomatic interviews, exhausting journeys, impressive mass meetings, brilliant literary propaganda—all these methods were employed by him to the utmost limit of self-denial. In 1901 he was received by the sultan; the pope and many European statesmen gave him audiences. The British government was ready to grant land for an autonomous settlement in East Africa. This last scheme was fatal to Herzl’s peace of mind. Even as a temporary measure, the choice of an extra-Palestinian site for the Jewish state was bitterly opposed by many Zionists; others (with whom Herzl appears to have sympathized) thought that as Palestine was, at all events momentarily, inaccessible, it was expedient to form a settlement elsewhere. Herzl’s health had been failing and he did not long survive the initiation of the somewhat embittered “territorial” controversy. He died in the summer of 1904, amid the consternation of supporters and the deep grief of opponents of his Zionistic aims.
Herzl was beyond question the most influential Jewish personality of the 19th century. He had no profound insight into the problem of Judaism, and there was no lasting validity in his view that the problem—the thousands of years’ old mystery—could be solved by a retrogression to local nationality. But he brought home to Jews the perils that confronted them; he compelled many a “semi-detached” son of Israel to rejoin the camp; he forced the “assimilationists” to realize their position and to define it; his scheme gave a new impulse to “Jewish culture,” including the popularization of Hebrew as a living speech; and he effectively roused Jews all the world over to an earnest and vital interest in their present and their future. Herzl thus left an indelible mark on his time, and his renown is assured whatever be the fate in store for the political Zionism which he founded and for which he gave his life. (I. A.)
HERZOG, HANS (1819–1894), Swiss general, was born at
Aarau. He became a Swiss artillery lieutenant in 1840, and then
spent six years in travelling (visiting England among other
countries), before he became a partner in his father’s business in
1846. In 1847 he saw his first active service (as artillery captain)
in the short Swiss Sonderbund war. In 1860 he abandoned
mercantile pursuits for a purely military career, becoming
colonel and inspector-general of the Swiss artillery. In 1870 he
was commander-in-chief of the Swiss army, which guarded the
Swiss frontier, in the Jura, during the Franco-German War, and
in February 1871, as such, concluded the Convention of Verrières
with General Clinchant for the disarming and the interning of the
remains of Bourbaki’s army, when it took refuge in Switzerland.
In 1875 he became the commander-in-chief of the Swiss artillery,
which he did much to reorganize, helping also in the re-organization
of the other branches of the Swiss army. He died in 1894 at
his native town of Aarau. (W. A. B. C.)
HERZOG, JOHANN JAKOB (1805–1882), German Protestant
theologian, was born at Basel on the 12th of September 1805.
He studied at Basel and Berlin, and eventually (1854) settled at
Erlangen as professor of church history. He died there on the
30th of September 1882, having retired in 1877. His most noteworthy
achievement was the publication of the Realencyklopädie
für protestantische Theologie und Kirche (1853–1868, 22 vols.),
of which he undertook a new edition with G. L. Plitt (1836–1880)
in 1877, and after Plitt’s death with Albert Hauck
(b. 1845). Hauck began the publication of the third edition in
1896 (completed in 22 vols., 1909).
His other works include Joh. Calvin (1843), Leben Ökolampads (1843), Die romanischen Waldenser (1853), Abriss der gesamten Kirchengeschichte (3 vols., 1876–1882, 2nd ed., G. Koffmane, Leipzig, 1890–1892).
HESEKIEL, JOHANN GEORG LUDWIG (1819–1874), German
author, was born on the 12th of August 1819 in Halle, where his
father, distinguished as a writer of sacred poetry, was a Lutheran
pastor. Hesekiel studied history and philosophy in Halle, Jena
and Berlin, and devoted himself in early life to journalism and
literature. In 1848 he settled in Berlin, where he lived until his
death on the 26th of February 1874, achieving a considerable reputation
as a writer and as editor of the Neue Preussische Zeitung.
He attempted many different kinds of literary work, the most
ambitious being perhaps his patriotic songs Preussenlieder, of which
he published a volume during the revolutionary excitement of
1848–1849. Another collection—Neue Preussenlieder—appeared
in 1864 after the Danish War, and a third in 1870—Gegen die
Franzosen, Preussische Kriegs- und Königslieder. Among his
novels may be mentioned Unter dem Eisenzahn (1864) and Der
Schultheiss vom Zeyst (1875). The best known of his works is his
biography of Prince Bismarck (Das Buch vom Fürsten Bismarck)
(3rd ed., 1873; English trans. by R. H. Mackenzie).
HESILRIGE (or Heselrig), SIR ARTHUR, 2nd Bart. (d. 1661),
English parliamentarian, was the eldest son of Sir Thomas
Hesilrige, 1st baronet (c. 1622), of Noseley, Leicestershire, a
