Of course we can’t know for certain who Theodor Herzl would vote for if he could go to the polls today. But we do know that he had a clear vision of what voting rights should look like in the state of his dreams. In his utopian novel Altneuland, Herzl describes his Jewish state of Israel.
Altneuland is both a literary and a political work. Benjamin Zeev Herzl (as he was named at his brit mila) published his book in 1902. In it he predicted the rise of the modern Hebrew state and described Israel in detail. When the book was published, it was labeled a work of fiction. In hindsight, it turned out to be one of the boldest and most prophetic books in the modern era. Among other things, the plot revolves around an imaginary electoral system in the Jewish state, where a populist party led by a Rabbi Geyer demands that non-Jews be denied citizenship. Herzl often hit the mark with his prophecies.
Should the new society only be open to Jews, or also to others? Herzl’s answer is unequivocal. In his novel, Herzl denounces Rabbi Geyer as a racist who, out of personal lust for power, is dividing the new nation and alienating himself from the principles of the founding of the state and the true values of Judaism. He calls Geyer “an instigator and thief of our heavenly Father’s agenda.” Herzl explains in the book that after the many persecutions Jews suffered in exile simply because they were Jews, “we must not ask anyone what race or religion they belong to. He must simply be human.”
In one of the book’s highlights, Herzl describes the fateful election campaign in the new Jewish state, in which the representatives of the various parties explain their worldviews to the electorate. Rabbi Geyer’s representative proposes a policy of discrimination against non-Jews. Herzl declares that the path of Geyer and his followers will devastate the country. You can’t deny people rights just because they’re not Jews. It is our duty, according to Herzl in the book, to promote freedom of opinion, patience, and love for all people. Only then is Zion the true Zion!
“If you vote for Geyer’s party, you are not worthy of the beautiful sun shining over the head of our holy country,” Herzl wrote 120 years ago. In the fictional campaign, the rabbi loses the election. Herzl describes the Jewish state as a place of tolerance where Jews, Muslims and Christians live side by side and enjoy equal rights. The only ones who have no place in Herzl’s new society are those who, like Rabbi Geyer, deny equal rights to non-Jews. “If you will it, it is no dream,” emphasized Theodor Herzl at the time.
We must not forget, of course, that Herzl’s dreamland has little to do with the Israel of today. Herzl described a peaceful society in which Jews and Arabs lived peacefully side by side, which is not always the case in our country. That is the difference between utopia and reality.
