February 6: The Hofburgtheater produces Herzl's comedy "Die Dame in Schwarz" - "The Lady in Black". The play is condemned as as hokum by the critics.

March 29: Birth of daughter Pauline (1890-1930).

Foundation of the Odessa Committee, the organizational headquarters of the Hibbat Zion Movement. Leon Pinsker is the first chairman.

Foundation of Hadera.

Foundation of the Hebrew Language Committee by Eliezer Ben Yehuda, David Yellin and others.

Nathan Birnbaum introduces the word "Zionism" in the columns of his journal "Selbstemanzipation" - "Self-Emancipation".

Rise of Christian Social antisemitism in Vienna. In April, rampaging mobs destroy and loot the brandy shops of poor Galician Jews in some Viennese suburbs, accompanied by cries of "Down with the Jews" and "Beat the Jews". Christian store-owners speedily put up placards identifying their shops as Christian.

February 6: Herzl's best friend, Heinrich Kana, commits suicide in Berlin. After Herzl receives the message, he sets out for a three week journey to Italy and South France.

May: Herzl informs his father-in-law that he wants to divorce his wife.

June 10: Birth of son Hans (1891-1930).

August: Herzl leaves Vienna for the south of France and wanders in the Pyrenees.

October: Herzl receives a telegram from the "Neue Freie Presse" asking him to accept the post of the Paris correspondent. He replies at once in the affirmative, and without even returning to Vienna, he proceeds to Paris at the end of the month.

November 21: Herzl's comedy "Prinzen aus Genieland" - "Princes from Genius Land", is produced at the Carltheater in Vienna. It achieves only a short run.

Baron Maurice de Hirsch establishes the Jewish Colonization Association (ICA) to foster Jewish emigration from Russia to Argentina for agricultural resettlement.

Ahad HaAm returns from his first visit in Palestine and writes "The Truth from Palestine".

100.000 Jews emigrate from Russia. The Russian government orders the expulsion of Jews from Moscow.

The Great Synagogue in Moscow is opened, but will be closed during the period of expulsion of the Jews from Moscow. The reopening will take place only on 1906.

Max Bodenheimer writes "Whither Russian Jewry".

January 26: Death of Herzl's friend Oswald Boxer.

Herzl in Paris. He lives in the Hotel Rastatt in Rue Duoen. From the beginning of March he receives a regular monthly salary of 1.200 Francs and for each feuilleton 100 Francs.

Herzl covers the first and second trials of the anarchist Ravachol.

Herzl writes about the duel between the Marquis de Morès and a Jewish army officer, Captain Armand Mayer. The duel is fought in response to a campaign launched by the antisemitic newspaper "La Libre Parole". Herzl is deeply moved by Mayer's "noble demeanor and impeccable gallantry."

Herzl covers the Drumont-Burdeau trial, a libel action initiated by Burdeau against Edouard Drumont, France's most prominent antisemite.

July: Herzl starts to exchange letters with Arthur Schnitzler after he reads one of Schnitzler's short novels.

Herzl's articles deal more and more with antisemitism. On August, 31, he sums up the subject in a long report entitled "Französischer Antisemitismus" - "French Antisemitism".

November: His family joins him in Paris.

Herzl covers the trial against the directorate of the Panama Society.

Edouard Drumont, French journalist, founds "La Libre Parole", a daily newspaper that expresses antisemitism.

Zadoc Kahn, Grand Rabbi of France, issues a ringing denunciation of "La Libre Parole" for its press campaign against Jewish army officers. Almost the whole Paris press acclaims Kahn's initiative.

The French government is clear and decisive in its opposition against antisemitism.

The German Conservative Party adopts an antisemitc program.

Israel Zangwill, English author, writes "The Children of the Ghetto. A Study of a Peculiar People", the first British novel to depict the life of Eastern European Jewry.

Max Nordau, Zionist, philosopher and physician, writes "Degeneration", in which he denounces the major figures and trends in European art and literature and predicts the coming of an unprecedented human catastrophe.

David Schwarz (1845-1897), Austrian inventor and timber merchant, designs a cigar-shaped airship with an aluminum framework. His designs are sold to Graf Zeppelin.

Hebrew writer and Zionist leader. Elhanan Leib Lewinsky (1857-1910) writes the Zionist utopia "Journey to Palestine in the Year 5800".

Herzl continues his correspondence with Arthur Schnitzler.

In January Herzl is invited to contribute to the weekly newspaper of the Viennese Defense Association against Antisemitism (Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus). Herzl unleashes a flood of radical proposals for solving the Jewish question. Reacting to steady Christian Social electoral gains, Herzl now considers Austrian antisemitism as a "movement", an organized force, too powerful to suppress. Once the "hate speeches of a few agitators", antisemitism now enjoys popular support.

May 20: Birth of Herzl's daughter Margarethe Gertrude (always known as "Trude").

Herzl continues his reports about the Panama Society trial.

The family goes to a summer vacation in Lucerne and Austria.

Herzl suggests the idea of "Assistance par le Travail" - "Work Relief" (employment for the destitute instead of outright charity) to Baron Johann Chumetzky, leader of the German Liberals and Speaker of the Austrian Chamber pf Deputies. Chumetzky shows himself sympathetic the the idea, and Herzl returns to it in an article, which was printed in the Neue Freie Presse on August, 2.

Herzl considers mass baptism as a solution of the Jewish question.

The Central Union of German Citizens of Jewish Faith (Centralverein) is founded in Berlin to fight antisemitism and to protect and strengthen Jewish social and civic status.

Candidates of the German antisemitc political parties win 16 seats in the German parliament.

Max Isidor Bodenheimer (1865-1940) and David Wolffsohn (1856-1914) found a Hibbat Zion society in Cologne, Germany, which becomes the nucleus of the German Zionist Federation.

Opening of the Great Synagogue (Baron Ginsburg Synagogue) in St. Petersburg.

Nathan Birnbaum writes "The National Rebirth of the Jewish People in its Own Land as the Solution of the Jewish Question".

Zionist student circles in Vienna and Berlin correspond on the question of calling a general Zionist Congress. Nathan Birnbaum is the initiator.

Sculptor Samuel Friedrich Beer makes Herzl's bust.

September: Herzl spends the month in Baden in the company of his fellow-feuilletonist at the Neue Freie Presse, Ludwig Speidel. The record of this conversations is left.

After early 1893, Herzl considers Jewish statehood for the second time, but rejects the idea again, for he believed that Jews were too acclimatized to a variety of homelands and national cultures.

Herzl experiences a sudden illumination. In just "three blessed weeks of ardor and labor" he finishes his play "Das neue Ghetto" - "The New Ghetto".
"I was aglow with the blaze of a great eruption. When I left, the whole piece shot up in me like a block of basalt." The revelation comes during a heated conversation with his friend the sculptor Samuel Friedrich Beer. While walking home he saw the whole play in his mind's eye. The handwritten first draft of the play ends with the words: "Written while deeply gripped, at one stretch, while laughing and weeping." The play is completed on the 8th of November and Herzl immediately seeks the help of Arthur Schnitzler in getting the play on the stage. Under the pseudonym of "Arthur Schnabel" the play is circulated to theater companies.

As correspondent of the "Neue Freie Presse" in Paris, Herzl covers the Dreyfus trial.

A week after Dreyfus is convicted of treason, Herzl writes: "The strength of the Republic is by no means exhausted. The world can still look with anticipation to this land where the concerns if humanity are always taken up ... France is the great vessel in which political innovations bubble for the whole civilized world."

The Palestine Colonization Societies of Western Europe and America form a central committee in Paris.

October 15: Captain Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935), probationary officer on the French general staff, is accused of passing military secrets to the Germans and is arrested.

Otto Brahm (1856-1912), German stage director, takes over Berlin's Deutsches Theater for the production of modernist playwrights Henrik Ibsen, Gerhart Hauptmann and Arthur Schnitzler. Brahm's productions make Berlin one of Europe's theatrical centers.

The Sarajevo Haggadah, a Spanish illuminated 14th-century manuscript, reaches the Sarajevo Museum when a child of the city's Sephardic community brings it to school to be sold after the death of his father.

Sholom Aleichem begins writing the first episode of the life of Tevye the Dairyman.

Isaac Leib Peretz (1852-1915), leading Yiddish writer, publishes "Yom Tov Bletlakh" - "Little Pages for Festivals", a series of essays calling for cultural revival in eastern European Jewish life.

November 9: The French antisemitic newspaper "La Libre Parole" proclaims that all of Jewry is behind "the traitor".

December 19: The first court-martial of Alfred Dreyfus begins in closed session and lasts until December, 22. General Auguste Mercier (1833-1921) orders incriminating documents to secretly be made available to the judges. Dreyfus is sentenced to perpetual deportation and military degradation.

January 6: Herzl covers the degradation ceremony of Alfred Dreyfus for the Neue Freie Presse.

Herzl tries again to get "Das neue Ghetto" on the stage. By April the play is rejected by two theaters in Berlin and one in Vienna. In May, Herzl sends the play to director Heinrich Teweles at the "Deutsches Landestheater" in Prague.

April 1: Interview with Alphonse Daudet, French antisemtic writer, for whom Herzl translated an article. Herzl unfolds his views on the Jewish question, which produce a deep impression on Daudet. Daudet feels that Herzl should write a novel about his ideas. ("Look at 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'").

Late April/early May: Herzl conceives the idea of a Jewish state. He drafts the first letter to Baron Maurice de Hirsch and sends it only after two weeks.

June 2: Herzl meets with philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch but fails to arouse his interest in a plan to resettle the Jews of Europe in a country of their own.
Biography Baron Hirsch.

Early June: Herzl begins to write his diaries under the title "Die Judensache" - "The Jewish Question". He will keep his diaries until shortly before his death. Herzl does not mention an immediate cause for his conversion to Zionism.
He asks his father to enter all the notes in the first book.

June: Herzl adds "Rede an die Rothschilds" - "Address to the Rothschilds", a 65 pages pamphlet to his diary. It is a outline of "Der Judenstaat". Herzl is convinced and attempts to convince the Rothschilds, that their fortune can be rescued only by the instrument of the Jewish state.
Vienna Chief Rabbi Moritz Güdemann is Herzl's liaison to the Rothschilds.

July 6: "Gestern mit Nordau beim Bier .. ."

July: Herzl writes the last three articles of his series "Das Palais Bourbon, Bilder aus dem französischen Parlamentsleben" - The Palais Bourbon, Pictures of the Parliamentary Life of France".

July 27: Herzl leaves Paris and will never return as a resident. He will be a feuilleton editor for the Neue Freie Presse at a reduced salary.

Summer vacation in Altaussee.

August 17 - 19: Herzl meets Moritz Güdemann and Berlin philanthropist Heinrich Meyer-Cohn in München.

Narcisse Leven, co-founder and general secretary of the Alliance Israelite Universelle tells Herzl about the Zionist societies in Russia, France and England. Herzl hears the name of Pinsker for the first time.

October 27: Austrian Prime Minister Badeni revives the "Presse", forerunner and now out-lived rival of the "Neue Freie Presse." Herzl is offered the editorship of the "Presse". After some days of negotiations with Moritz Benedikt, Herzl refuses the offer.

November 15 - 30: Herzl visits Paris and London in order to meet the local Jewish representatives.
In Paris he conducts negotiations with Narcisse Leven, Chief Rabbi Zadoc Kahn. No one takes Herzl seriously. But Herzl succeeds in winning Max Nordau. (November, 19.)

November 21: Herzl in London. Conversation with Israel Zangwill. Zangwill gives him the names of "several suitable men": Colonel Goldsmid, rabbi Singer, chief rabbi Adler, etc.

November 22: Meetings with Chief Rabbi Adler, Rabbi Singer and Sir Samuel Montagu.

November 24: Herzl expounds his plans at The Maccabaeans Club, the first group to hear his ideas. ("Abends bei den 'Makkabäern'. Mageres Dinner, aber guter Empfang." - In the evening with the 'Maccabaeans'. Skimpy dinner, but good reception.")

November 25 - 26: Herzl visits Colonel Goldsmid, leader of the English Hovevei Zion, in Cardiff.

After his return to Vienna, Herzl reworks the "Rede an die Rothschilds" and a new work finally emerges: Der Judenstaat: Versuch einer modernen Lösung der Judenfrage - The Jewish State: An Attempt at a Modern Solution of the Jewish Question

December 24: From the diary.

January 5: Degradation ceremony of Alfred Dreyfus

April 13: Alfred Dreyfus is placed in solitary confinement on Devil's Island, off the coast of French Guiana.

The Hungarian Jews are granted full equality.

 

January 7: Herzl's article "Die Lösung der Judenfrage" - "The Solution of the Jewish Question" appears in "The Jewish Chronicle" in London.

February 8: The Berlin monthly "Zion" publishes a friendly review of Herzl's London article.
Herzl discusses his idea after a lecture by Chief Rabbi Güdemann in the "Jüdische akademische Lesehalle" with some Jewish students.
The Jewish community in Vienna wants to prevent the publishing of Herzl's "Der Judenstaat."

February 10: Herzl reads "Auto-Emancipation" by Leon Pinsker.

February 12: Herzl writes a "Literary Testament".

February 14: "Der Judenstaat" is published.

Herzl's pamphlet is the talk of the town.

February 21: Students' party at "Kadimah". The students give Herzl a great ovation.

March 1: First meeting with Nathan Birnbaum.

March 10: Dr. Reuben Bierer, chief rabbi of Sofia, considers Herzl the Messiah.
The newspaper "Ha-am" in Kolomea places itself at Herzl's disposal.

March 11: Herzl meets Reverend William Hechler (1845-1931), chaplain to the British Embassy in Vienna. Hechler was tutor in the household of the Grossherzog von Baden, he knows the German Kaiser and thinks he can get Herzl an audience.

March 14: The Hovevei Zion in Vienna decides to call on Herzl to work for the fulfillment of the program of a Jewish state.

March 26: The "Sion" society in Sofia sends an enthusiastic resolution. Herzl is proclaimed as the leader.

March 28: Herzl takes part in the Seder of the Zionist student association "Unitas".

Herzl meets Philip Michael Ritter von Newlinski, a descendant of Polish nobles, who enjoys political connections in Constantinople.

April 22 - 24: Journey to Karlsruhe where Herzl will be received in audience by Grossherzog Friedrich of Baden. ("Jedenfalls nahm der Grossherzog meine Staatbildung von Anfang an vollkommen ernst." - "In any case, the Grand Duke took my proposed formation of a state quite seriously from the beginning.")

April 26: David Wolffsohn visits Herzl and offers his cooperation. Herzl finds entree to the German Hovevei Zion.

Beginning of May: Aaron Marcus, Hasidic leader, writes to Herzl from Podgorze. He mentions the prospect of winning the cooperation of the three million Hasidim in Poland.

Middle of May: The English translation of "Der Judenstaat" is published in London: "The Jewish State."

May 19: Herzl is received by Agliardi, the Papal Nuncio in Vienna.

May 20: Max Bodenheimer, leader of the Cologne Zionists, invites Herzl.

End of May: Menahem Ussishkin, leader of the Russian Hovevei Zion, visits Herzl in Vienna.

June 2: The Neue Freie Presse mentions Herzl's "Der Judenstaat" for the first time.

June 15: Herzl and Newlinski travel to Constantinople. Herzl succeeds in visiting a number of highly placed individuals, including the vizier (June 23: Herzl is received as a journalist of the Neue Freie Presse). Herzl offers that the Jews would undertake the regulation of the Turkish finances if they were given Palestine. Herzl cannot obtain an audience with the Sultan. On June 29, he leaves Turkey in possession of the "Commander's Cross of the Order of the Medjidje" as visible evidence of the seriousness of the negotiations.

On the way back to Vienna, Herzl spends a few hours in Sofia. He his conducted to the Zionist Society and the synagogue. Hundreds of people cheer him.

July 2 - 20: Journey to London and Paris.

July 5: Meeting with Claude Montefiore and Frederic Mocotta of the Anglo-Jewish Association who are anti-Zionist.

July 6: Speech at "The Maccabaeans". Herzl formulates the program of the "Society of Jews": "Die Society of Jews macht sich zur Aufgabe die völkerrechtliche Erwerbung eines Territoriums für diejenigen Juden, die sich nicht assimilieren können." - The task of the Society of Jews is the acquisition according to international law of a territory for those Jews who cannot assimilate."

July 11: Herzl achieves the agreement of Sir Samuel Montagu and Colonel Goldsmid to work with him for a vassal Jewish state under Turkish rule. Goldsmid promises to write a letter to Baron Rothschild.

July 12: Herzl at a mass meeting in the workings-men's Club in East End.

July 13: Meeting with representatives of Hovevei Zion Britain (Goldsmid, Prag).

July 18: First and only meeting with Baron Edmond de Rothschild, whose financial sponsorship Herzl is seeking.

July 20: Meeting with the Association des Etudiants Israëlites Russes.

July 22. Herzl in Karlsbad, where he obtains an audience with Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria.

August 13: Meeting with the Turkish ambassador, Mahmud Nedim Bey, in Vienna.

August 23: Meeting with Johann Kremenetzky in Baden.

August 30: Herzl receives a "Shana Tova" from Jerusalem signed by Ephraim Cohn, director of the Lämel School, David Yellin, Eliezer ben Yehuda and Wilhelm Gross.

Herzl attends the meetings of the Viennese Zionist Society. The circle becomes the initial cell of the organization, the "Aktionskomitee" - "Actions Committee".
At the beginning of September, Herzl is officially installed as the leader.

September: The "Neue Freie Presse" sends Herzl to Görlitz and Breslau to attend the manoeuvres, at which the German Emperor is present. In spite of Hechler's efforts, Herzl cannot get to Wilhelm II personally.

October 21: Herzl is elected honorary member of "Kadimah."

November 8: Herzl accepts the invitation of the "Austrian Union of Israelites", a middle class anti-Zionist organization. His speech is well received.

In 1896 Herzl writes the philosophic story "Das Wirtshaus zum Aniline" (The Inn of Aniline) in which he memorializes his conversion to Zionism.

April: Baron Maurice de Hirsch dies in Hungary.

Picquart (1854-1914), the new chief of the French military information service, identifies Major Esterhazy as a German spy. Picquart realizes that all the evidence against Alfred Dreyfus was a work of Esterhazy.
In October Picquart is relieved of his post.

November: Bernard Lazare (1865-1903) publishes his brochure "A Judical Error: The Truth on the Dreyfus Affair", which raises the antisemitic issue from the Jewish point of view: "Because he was a Jew he was arrested, because he was a Jew he was convicted, because he was a Jew the voices of justice and of truth could not be heard in his favor."

The Cairo Genizah is rediscovered by Solomon Schechter (1847-1915).

The "Jüdische Rundschau", journal of the German Zionist Federation begins publication.

"HaShiloah", a Hebrew literary and cultural monthly, begins publication. It is first edited by Ahad HaAm in Odessa and Warsaw and considered the principal vehicle of cultural Zionism.

January 24: Berlin Zionists Willy Bambus and Theodor Zlocisti address a letter to Herzl.

March 6 - 7: Conference in Vienna with members of Zionist circles of Vienna, Berlin, Breslau and Galicia. Herzl's proposal of a general Zionist Congress is adopted with the reservation that the cooperation of the Russian Zionists will be obtained. München is chosen as the city for the congress.

March 30: Colonel Goldsmid asks Herzl to stay away from the Congress in order to prevent a split in the ranks of the Hovevei Zion. Herzl answers on April, 4.

Dr. Adler, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, and Moritz Güdemann, Chief Rabbi of Vienna, lead anti-Zionist attacks. "Protestrabbiner" - "Protest Rabbis".

May 12: Herzl decides to create a Zionist paper. ("Mit allem war ich gleich im reinen, nur mit dem Titel nicht" - "I saw everything clearly right away - except for the name.")

May 13: "Über Nacht fiel mir der Titel des Blattes ein: Die Welt. Mit dem Mog'n Dovid, in der der Globus hineinzuzeichnen wäre, mit Palästina als Mittelpunkt." - "Overnight the name for the paper occurred to me: Die Welt. With an Mogen Dovid [Star of David], inside which a globe should be drawn, with Palestine as the central point."

June 4: The first issue of "Die Welt" appears.

The English Hovevei Zion dissociate themselves officially from the Congress.

June 11: The Jewish community in München protests against holding the congress in the city.

June 17: Herzl moves the congress to Basel.

July 16: Herzl publishes his article "Protestrabbiner" - "Protest Rabbis" in "Die Welt".

August 25: Herzl arrives in Basel.

August 29 - 31: The First Zionist Congress assembles in Basel.

October 15: Herzl publishes his article "Mauschel" in "Die Welt".

November: Herzl tries again to produce "Das neue Ghetto". This time he is successful.

November 19: Herzl publishes his article "Die jüdische Kolonialbank" -"The Jewish Colonial Bank" in "Die Welt".

November 29: Herzl outlines his ideas for the "Jewish Colonial Bank" in a letter to Max Nordau.

December 24: Herzl publishes his article "Französische Zustände" - "French States of Affairs" about the Dreyfus Affair.

December 31: Herzl writes the article "Die Menorah" - "The Menorah" in which he tells how he has returned to Judaism, how he regards the celebration of Chanukkah and how the festival affects him.

Portrait: Herzl, about 1897

July 13: Auguste Scheurer-Kestner (1833-1899), vice president of the French senate, becomes convinced of the innocence of Alfred Dreyfus.
November, 15: Mathieu Dreyfus, brother of Alfred, publicly denounces Major Esterhazy.

August: At almost the same time as the First Zionist Congress takes place, the Central Conference of American Rabbis adopts a resolution totally disapproving of any attempts for the establishment of a Jewish state.

Hermann Schapira (1840-1898) presents his idea for a general Jewish fund at the First Zionist Congress in Basel.

Moritz Güdemann writes "Nationaljudentum" - National Judaism" in which he attacks Herzl's "Judenstaat" - "Jewish State". Güdemann concludes there is no "Jewish people" and Jews should devote their energies to the abolition of nationalism.

The first comprehensive Russian census counts 5,2 million Jews in Russia.

Foundation of the "Bund", a social democratic labor organization.

A Jewish Museum is opened in Vienna. It is the first actual Jewish Museum, with its own occasional publications.

The "Forward", a Yiddish daily, begins publication in New York.

Marcus Samuel (1853-1927), British industrialist, founds Shell Oil Company. In 1902 he will be elected lord mayor of London.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Austrian psychiatrist, develops the essential elements of psychoanalysis.

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), composer and conductor, is appointed director of the Vienna Court Opera. To secure his position, he converts to Catholicism.

January 5: "The New Ghetto" is finally produced in the Carl-Theater in Vienna.
The play is performed in Berlin and Prague too.

January 6: Herzl travels to Berlin and convenes a conference of Berlin Jews. He also has two conversations with Ahmed Tewfik, the Turkish ambassador.

April 23 - 25: Preliminary conference in Vienna for the second Zionist Congress. Representatives from Russia, Austria and Germany. It is decided to send Leo Motzkin to Palestine to prepare a report. City of the congress will again be Basel. Women delegates will be allowed to vote and to be elected.

May: The work on the bank begins.

Summer: Herzl starts to write his novel "Altneuland".

August 25: Bank conference three days before the opening of the Second Zionist Congress.

August 28 - 31: The Second Zionist Congress convenes in Basel. Herzl's father is among the delegates.

August: Completion of "Unser Käthchen"

September 2: Herzl leaves Basel and sets out for the Bodensee island Mainau, for an audience with the Grossherzog Friedrich of Baden. The main topic of the audience is Kaiser Wilhelm's journey to Palestine.

September 16: Herzl is received by Graf Philip Eulenburg, German ambassador in Vienna.
The next morning Herzl speaks with the German minister Bernhard von Bülow.

September 20 - October 9: Journey to Paris, the Hague and London on business of the Jewish Colonial Trust (Bank).

September 24: Herzl addresses a letter to Eulenberg, pleading for an audience with Wilhelm II before he leaves for Palestine.

October 1: Amsterdam. Herzl receives a call to the German consulate. Wilhelm II is inclined to take the migration of the Jews under his protection. He also wishes to receive Herzl at the head of a delegation in Jerusalem.