Theodor Herzl's Typewriter and Tel Aviv

A chapter of Dr. Theodore Herzl’s memories, just published, reveals that the great Zionist leader was first to have an Arabic typewriter. He ordered it made in America in the early 90’s.

Dr. Herzl presented it as a memento of his esteem to the then Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid.

Mavi Boncuk |

In 1901 Herzl asked the American company Remington to create an Arabic typewriter. It was a unique gift for the Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid II. The assignment came amid a heated negotiation between Herzl and the Sultan over whether the Jews could have Ottoman-controlled Palestine as their homeland.

The sultan did not want to move on the question of Palestine. He offered that Jews could settle anywhere else in his empire, including Anatolia, Syria, or Mesopotamia. Herzl refused, and the Sultan refused the typewriter, much to Herzl's annoyance.

Sensing his own dwindling power, the Sultan banned all typewriters from the empire to quell political disagreements. The ban was later lifted by Kemal Ataturk in 1929 as part of his modernization efforts (Ataturk abolished the use of the Arabic script).

Theodor Herzl's typewriter was found among his belongings in 1909, the year the Sultan was dethroned by the Young Turks. Herzl himself mentioned the typewriter in his published letters, Briefe und Tagebücher, Band 3; Theodor Herzl; page 802.

 

Theodor Herzl’s 1902  novel Altneuland (Old-New Land) is a ... an important and prescient book. It addresses three issues that are today at the core of Israel’s politics and public discourse: the question of equal citizenship, the social and economic structure of the country, and the relations between state and religion.

In 1923, the New Society of the Old-New Land is in the midst of a heated electoral campaign. A recently arrived immigrant has just established a new political party, which calls for the disenfranchisement of its non-Jewish inhabitants. The leader of this racist party is a certain Rabbi Dr. Geyer. (Geyer means vulture in German; Herzl was not subtle.) Geyer maintains that citizenship and voting rights should be restricted to Jews in a Jewish state. Arabs and other non-Jews should not be expelled, but they should not be part of the body politic either.

The campaign becomes a battle for the country’s soul. At the core of the novel are dramatic accounts of election rallies, in which the country’s liberal establishment fights the racist challenges of Geyer and his followers. Herzl’s dramatic rendering of the speeches of both the liberal and the racist protagonists clearly reflect his journalistic experience as a parliamentary correspondent in France and elsewhere. Eventually, Geyer’s party is beaten, the liberals win, and the defeated candidate is reported to be leaving the country in ignominy.

The book was immediately translated into Hebrew by Nahum Sokolow, who gave it the poetic title "Tel Aviv", using tel ('ancient mound') for 'old' and aviv ('spring') for 'new'. Eventually Tel Aviv would become known as "the first [modern] Hebrew city" and a central economic and cultural hub of Israel.