2023-09-05 20:49:22
Israeli President Herzog unveiled the plaque together with Mayor Ludwig and Minister Edtstadler.
Vienna (OTS/RK) – Today, Tuesday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog unveiled a memorial plaque for the Jewish Austro-Hungarian writer, publicist and journalist Theodor Herzl in the presence of Mayor Michael Ludwig and numerous guests of honor at a house in Berggasse 6 on Alsergrund.
Numerous representatives of politics and culture were invited to the ceremony. In addition to Mayor Ludwig, the Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Karoline Edtstadler, Federal Minister for Europe and the Constitution and representatives of the World Zionist Organization were present.
Mayor Ludwig emphasized the importance of Herzl in his speech: “It fills me with particular joy, because Herzl was not only a Zionist pioneer, humanist and philanthropist, outstanding writer and thinker. He was also a utopian and a pioneer of an Israeli state.” Ludwig also described Herzl as a “citizen of the world and Viennese”. The mayor of Vienna emphasized Herzl’s “absolute will” to create a place “where people can live in peace and without persecution”.
Crucial years in Vienna
Vienna played an important role in Theodor Herzl’s work. The “flourishing cosmopolitan city of Vienna” was already a city of Jews with its social and cultural life around the year 1900, said the mayor of Vienna. Around 180,000 Viennese of Jewish faith lived in the city until 1938. At the same time, however, there was unfortunately also a great deal of anti-Semitism in the city, Ludwig admitted. For Theodor Herzl, the time he spent in Vienna in the Berggasse was formative, concluded City Manager Ludwig.
About Theodor Herzl
Herzl was born on May 2, 1860 in the Kingdom of Hungary. He moved to Vienna with his parents in 1878 to study law at the university. At first he worked out theoretical positions and responded to anti-Semitic pamphlets, seeing anti-Semitism and the exclusion of Jews as a social issue. In the end, however, the author and journalist designed a utopia of a state of their own, according to which all Jews who had to suffer from exclusion and discrimination were entitled to their own nation state. He published his idea in 1896 under the title The Jewish State, paving the way for the political Zionist movement that was completed with the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. Theodor Herzl thus became the pioneer of the State of Israel and is considered the main founder of political Zionism. He died on July 3, 1904 and was buried in the Döblinger Friedhof. Decades following his death in 1949, his remains were transported to Jerusalem, where they were reburied on Mount Herzl. (close) kri
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