Derek Jonathan Penslar > Quotes

“Observing these developments, Herzl wrote in 1890 that “the Jewish Question is neither national nor religious but is rather social. It”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“In this new entity, known as Austria-Hungary or the Dual Monarchy, Jews were fully emancipated. In 1873, Buda and Pest merged to form the metropolis of Budapest, home to almost two hundred thousand people, of whom 16 percent were Jews.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“The diary entries from June and July are enthralling and illuminating, yet also unnerving and disturbing. They combine flashes of paranoia and of prescient wisdom, megalomania and altruistic idealism, delusions of grandeur and canny self-awareness.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“In his book A First-Rate Madness, the psychiatrist Nassir Ghaemi writes that many of the greatest political leaders of modern times have suffered from mental illness. Analyzing the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr., Ghaemi depicts their struggles with anxiety and depression, even to the point of suicide attempts (as in the case of Gandhi and King).”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“Antisemitism, Herzl believed, no longer had to do with hatred of Jews as killers or rejecters of Christ. It was bound up with the Jews’ historic concentration in commerce and the money trade and their more recent entry into law and journalism, where they competed with increasingly frustrated and angry Christians.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“In early May he contacted Baron Maurice de Hirsch, a Jewish banker, railway entrepreneur, and philanthropist who since 1891 had sponsored programs to settle Russian Jews as farmers in the New World, especially Argentina.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“year later, he wrote, “if the Jews really ‘returned home’ one day, they would discover on the next day that they do not belong together. For centuries they have been rooted in new homelands, nationalized and separated from each other, preserved in a particularity of character only by the omnipresent pressure on them.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“According to Herzl’s account, he harangued the baron about the inadequacy of his programs that settled Jews in the New World by the thousands, when millions were in danger. At first, Herzl raised themes from The New Ghetto about restoring Jewish honor and self-esteem. “Whether the Jews stay put or whether they emigrate, the race must first be improved on the spot. It must be made strong for war, eager to work, and virtuous. Afterwards, let them emigrate, if necessary.”35 Herzl suggested that the baron fund handsome prizes in antisemitic countries for Jews who perform “deeds of great moral beauty, for courage, self-sacrifice, ethical conduct, great achievements in arts and science … in short, for anything great.” When Hirsch insisted that emigration was the only solution, Herzl “almost shouted”: “‘Well, who told you that I don’t want to emigrate?’” Herzl said he would lay his plan before the German emperor and raise from Europe’s wealthiest Jews a loan of ten million marks—a staggering sum, equivalent to twice the German imperial navy’s annual budget. Immediately after he got home from the meeting, Herzl saw to his dismay that he had only gotten through six of the twenty-two pages of notes. So he wrote Hirsch a long letter that, more clearly, yet with an even higher emotional charge than their”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“Herzl declaims: “In poverty Mauschel is a despicable schnorrer; in wealth he is an even more despicable show-off.” The distinction between the good Jew and the wicked Mauschel is that the latter has no honor: “What is honor? Who needs honor? If business is all right and one’s health is good one can live with the rest.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“Nevlinsky had a more realistic, or more opportunistic, approach. He suggested that Herzl, as an eminent journalist connected with one of Europe’s most influential newspapers, could be of great service to the Ottoman Empire’s public relations regarding its persecuted Armenian minority. Accordingly, Herzl provided his newspaper a flattering interview with the Grand Vizier, Halil Rifat Pasha, and a pro-Turkish account of recent mass killings in Armenia as well as the empire’s conflict with Greece over Crete. Herzl was not unsympathetic to the Armenian cause, but he believed that Armenian “revolutionaries” were bringing misfortune upon themselves and, in a meeting in London with the Armenian nationalist leader Avetis Nazarbekian, urged him to order his followers to lay down their arms. Herzl may well have viewed the Armenians with compassion, but he also knew that so long as the “Armenian Question” exercised the sultan, he would not brook any consideration of concessions to another non-Muslim minority.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“Why is it, then, that in an 1899 essay Herzl would claim, “What made me a Zionist was the Dreyfus trial”?29 Why did he write in the same essay that the trial had inspired him to write The New Ghetto? After all, Herzl finished the play more than a month before the trial. To”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“The Society of Jews would also carry out statistical studies and environmental research to determine the most appropriate site for mass Jewish settlement. This task provides the context in which Herzl raises the possibility of Argentina as well as Palestine as the site of the Jewish state. On”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“antisemitism from Austrian liberals was also galling, and he was deeply hurt when the Austrian liberal student union passed a measure denying Jews the right to satisfaction in duels.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“In 1878, the Christian Social Party, which combined antisemitism with critiques of secularism and free-market capitalism, had been founded in Germany.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“In both his depressive tendencies and capacity for greatness, Herzl strongly resembled another modern leader, Winston Churchill.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“He raised this idea with his editor Benedikt toward the end of 1892 and again with Baron Leitenberger in January of 1893. Herzl coolly explained that the conversion would be conditional upon the pope declaring a campaign against antisemitism. The Christian world would see an end to the Jews, but in return it would have to put an end to hating them. Herzl fantasized that the conversion ceremony would be held in St. Stephen’s Cathedral in the heart of Vienna and be presided over by the pope himself.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“In the diary entries for 1895 and early 1896, Herzl uses the word “Zionist” to describe others, not himself. Similarly, the word “Zionist” appears only three times in The Jewish State, and each time it is used in a critical way. When Herzl first experienced a Jewish awakening, he had never heard of “Zionism,” a word coined around 1890 by Nathan Birnbaum, a Viennese Jew of Galician (Austrian-Polish) origin.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“Herzl preferred an entirely different solution to the problem of antisemitism in Austria-Hungary, involving not the reconfiguration of society so much as the reconfiguration of the Jews themselves. Austria’s Jews, he wrote in January of 1893, must undergo complete assimilation, up to and including intermarriage and baptism. At the same time, they must win the respect of Gentiles by fighting for their honor: “Half a dozen duels will do a great deal to improve the position of Jews in society.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“According to Herzl’s alter ego Jacob, the Jews have been emancipated yet remain in an invisible ghetto, imposed not only by antisemites but also by the Jews’ own moral limitations. Like Herzl in his youth, Jacob exhibits shame over what he perceives as weakness and cowardice and aspires to be manly, altruistic, and self-disciplined. The Jews’ worst qualities are embodied in stock exchange speculators, who lack honor and a moral compass. The Jewish women in the play are crass and pretentious, bedecked with jewels. Another unsympathetic character in the play is a rabbi who refuses to condemn social injustice and plays the stock market himself.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“Given that Herzl himself was a deeply unhappy man, afflicted by depression and a horrendous marriage, throwing himself into a national cause was not only heroic but also therapeutic.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“In the June diary entries, Herzl imagined himself as a great statesman, dictating terms to Hirsch and other wealthy Jews whom he had always envied and despised.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“In 1878, the Christian Social Party, which combined antisemitism with critiques of secularism and free-market capitalism, had been founded in Germany. In the 1880s, the Christian Social movement spread to Austria, and the Austrian Christian Social Party was founded in 1891. The sparkplugs of Viennese Christian Socialism were the journalist Karl von Vogelsang and the charismatic city councilman Karl Lueger, who brazenly and repeatedly accused the Jews of dominating banking and the press, and who had nothing but contempt for the complacent”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“Herzl offered detailed coverage of Dreyfus’s 19–22 December trial, but only on the 27th did he explicitly mention that Dreyfus was Jewish, and even then it was an aside, a reference to a comment that Dreyfus allegedly made to one of his guards that he was being persecuted on account of his faith. When Dreyfus was found guilty and condemned to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island,”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“These leaders also had a penchant for hyperthymia, an exuberance that falls short of manic psychosis and can generate productive energy, creativity, and charismatic appeal.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“Russian Zionists, for the most part, were not Orthodox, and most had had a formal secular education, but one cannot compare even the most secularized among them with Herzl, who was so non-observant that he did not have his son Hans circumcised. When the chief rabbi of Vienna came to visit Herzl at his home in December of 1895, Herzl was decorating the children’s Christmas tree.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“Throughout most of June, Herzl unleashed dubiously rational aphorisms like buckshot, but on 14 June he wrote a far more coherent, lengthy document that he wanted Moritz Güdemann, the chief rabbi of Vienna, to read aloud to Albert Salomon Anselm von Rothschild, head of the Vienna branch of the Rothschild banking dynasty—which Herzl saw as the cornerstone of his gargantuan fund-raising enterprise. The “Address to the Family,” as Herzl called it, in turn formed the base of his pamphlet The Jewish State, published in February of 1896.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“In fin-de-siècle Vienna, the middle classes, denied opportunities for serious political engagement by the Dual Monarchy’s ossified political structure, steeped themselves in art, music, opera, and literature. In turn, the feuilleton’s aesthetic dimension and its capacity for internal reflection were particularly valued. Herzl was a master of polished, elegant prose, and his tone, which was both worldly and a tad world-weary, struck just the right balance between irony and sentimentality.”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“More important than Dreyfus, however, were the Viennese municipal elections in April and May of 1895. No party won a majority, but the antisemite Karl Lueger was elected mayor. Herzl was horrified even though Lueger”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

“honor. It was to be “the paper of the poor, the weak,”
― Derek Jonathan Penslar, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader