Reviewing a recent exhibition on Theodor Herzl at Temple Emanu-El’s Bernard Museum of Judaica, James Panero considers its portrait of the life of the man he describes as “the most consequential theater critic in modern history.”
Trigger warning! [The exhibit’s] early chances to see yourself beside the founding father of the state of Israel, even the option to take a selfie with him, reveal a show that is unabashedly pro-Herzl, pro-Zionist, and upbeat about his nationalist vision. Like the energized state he inspired, Herzl understood the joys that could be released from Jewish sorrow, a fact reflected in the show’s sometimes lighthearted application of Herzl-iana. The mascot for David Matlow’s own “Herzl Project,” for example, based in Toronto, Canada, and established “to inspire people to be a little like Herzl and pursue their dreams,” is a Herzl-faced hockey player. At a moment when Israel’s frontiers are under vicious assault . . . the absence of doubt here for Herzl’s vision is refreshing. For those looking for a counterpoint, there is always Columbia University.
The Austrian-born playwright went from working as a cultural correspondent in Paris to inspiring what has become a nuclear-armed state. In the final eight years of his life, Herzl foresaw the descent of liberal Western Europe into barbarism as well as his own reburial in his future nation (by design, he was initially interred in Vienna in a transportable metal casket).
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