Herzl and the rabbis - Haaretz Com (original) (raw)
Herzl’s combination of religion and nationalism was reviled by many rabbis of his time. Today he is hardly discussed in observant circles. But one religious scholar suggests that Herzl is key to solving the identity crisis wracking Israeli society.
The writer David Isaiah Silberbusch once described in the Russian Hebrew-language newspaper Ha-Melitz a rabbi from a town in Hungary who comes to Frankfurt to visit his son. The son, an ardent Zionist, persuades his father to accompany him to the Third Zionist Congress in Basel. After listening patiently and devotedly to every word, Silberbusch writes, the rabbi returns with his son but remains mute on his impressions, despite his son’s curiosity. A few days later, the aged rabbi is visited by Dr. Horowitz, the chief rabbi of Frankfurt, who studied with him at the same yeshiva in their youth.