Herzl Observing the Rhine from the Balcony of Hotel Les Trois Rois during the Fifth Zionist Congress in 1901 in Basel

Ephraim Moses Lilien

1901

Ephraim Lilien’s photograph of Theodor Herzl, considered the father of modern political Zionism, depicts him staring off into the distance like a lonely prophet. The congress in Basel in 1901 was the fifth Zionist Congress. The congress’s most substantive achievement was the establishment of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) to fund land purchases in Palestine. The Fifth Congress was also the occasion for a landmark exhibition of Jewish artists, as well as Martin Buber’s influential speech to the delegates in which he declared that art had a central role to play within Zionism and within any movement for Jewish spiritual and national renewal.

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Credits

Courtesy Shapell Manuscript Foundation.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 7.

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Related Guide

Jewish Visual and Material Culture at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

1880–1918

Increasingly culturally integrated, Jewish fine artists, designers, and photographers produced dazzling works of art and considered cultivating a distinctive national art. 

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