Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), Theodor Herzl

First edition of the iconic text by the founder of modern political Zionism.

Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl (1860–1904) wrote his epoch‑making Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) in 1895 as a “proposal for a modern solution to the Jewish question.” Intended initially as a private address to leading Western European Jewish financiers, the pamphlet as printed called for organizing the Jewish people as a political entity and for the founding of a future independent Jewish state. Issued in mid‑February 1896, it was followed the same year by early translations, including English, French, Yiddish, and Hebrew. Der Judenstaat quickly catalyzed the movement that led to Herzl’s First Zionist Congress at Basel (August 1897) and the Basel Program. “That a Jewish State was created in Palestine within fifty years of his death was due to the vision and practical methods of Herzl, expressed in his manifesto of 1896” (Printing and the Mind of Man, 381).

Physical Description

8vo (222 x 147 mm). 86 pp. Text in German. Title-page imprint: “Leipzig und Wien 1896. M. Breitenstein’s Verlags‑Buchhandlung”. 

Binding: half green cloth over black paper boards; paper spine label with manuscript title in gilt; light blue silk ribbon

Provenance

Ex libris of Benno B. Goldschmidt; added sheet containing birthday wishes to Alexander (1974 ) and to Andrew (2016); current owner.