Abstract
This article investigates the relationship between Theodor Herzl’s journalistic career and his Zionist enterprise. Contrary to the received wisdom that Herzl’s post in the Neue Freie Presse had little to do with his Zionist vision, it is argued that his Zionist awakening sprang essentially from his experience as an influential journalist working in the early days of mass-circulation newspapers. It is further shown that once Herzl took up the Zionist cause he made a sophisticated use of mass-circulation newspapers and of his post in the Neue Freie Presse to bring about and propagate his Zionist plan. In the final analysis, it is suggested that Herzl’s position as a leading journalist working in the early days of mass-circulation played a key role in shaping his particular strand of political Zionism as well as in securing his initial leadership of the Zionist movement.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 483-499 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Israel Affairs |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2 Oct 2015 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The author would like to thank Marshall Berman, Jack Jacobs, Alyson Cole, Michael Walzer, Shlomo Avineri, Giora Shamis, Diane Shalem and Hila Elroy for their insightful comments on earlier versions of the article. He would also like to thank Eleanor Yadin from the New York Public Library for her assistance and the Political Science Program, the Center of Jewish Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), and the Association for Israel Studies for their support of this research.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Taylor & Francis.
Keywords
- Neue Freie Presse
- Theodor Herzl
- Zionism
- journalism
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Cultural Studies
- History
- Political Science and International Relations