Presented in association with the Santa Fe Distinguished Lecture Series

Webinar has been recorded

He’s considered the father of modern political Zionism and the spiritual father of the Jewish State; an assimilated Jew whose political activism was believed to be ignited by the Dreyfus Affair. But there’s much more to the story of Theodor Herzl. He was also a playwright and journalist with a sometimes darker side; a secular Jew who influenced others who were more traditional and observant; and a Jewish statesman who solicited support of the German Kaiser, the Pope, and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.

Join us on for this recorded conversation with Prof. Derek Penslar, Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University and author of Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader (2020; German ed. 2022). Prof. Penslar will shed light and fill in details about this charismatic figure: his early life, the role of the Dreyfus Affair and Herzl’s own personal crises in his transformation from secular Jew to the founder of political Zionism, and the alternatives Herzl considered before advocating for a state in the historic Jewish homeland.

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Meet Prof. Derek Penslar

Derek Penslar is the William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History and the Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University. He has published a dozen books, most recently Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader (2020; German ed. 2022); and Zionism: An Emotional State (2023). He is currently writing a book titled The War for Palestine, 1947-1949: A Global History. He is a past president of the American Society for Jewish Research, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and an Honorary Fellow of St. Anne’s College, Oxford.

Santa Fe Distinguished Lecture Series