On May 2, 1860, Theodor Herzl, the father of political Zionism, was born in the Jewish quarter in the eastern part of Budapest, Hungary.In late 19th-century Europe, “the Jew” had been reified into a subordinate caricature without agency, a scapegoat for economic woes, military losses, and disease outbreaks. Jews could participate in society through assimilation or by segregating into ghettos and shtetls, but Jewish practice was to be kept discrete and personal.After witnessing the antisemitism of the Dreyfus Affair, Herzl was torn between his comfortable, assimilated life and his nascent Jewish consciousness. But by 1896, Herzl risked his literary career by publishing a pamphlet called “Der Judenstaat.” The pamphlet outlined the formation of an independent Jewish state and the return of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland. As a consequence, it completely discredited Herzl as a writer in European society. Gentiles and assimilated Jews, including friends of Herzl, thought him to be a madman and objected to his ideas. Orthodox Jews, for the most part, felt that a Jewish homeland could not be re-established without the arrival of the Messiah. Notably, though, some, like Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and Rabbi Shmuel Mohilever, championed the idea of religious Zionism alongside Herzl's political Zionism, and little by little, Herzl gained support.By August 1897, Herzl had organized the first World Zionist Congress meeting in Basel, Switzerland. There were 200 Jewish delegates to the Congress, representing 17 nations, including the United States and Russia. The delegates varied in social strata and occupational backgrounds, as well as citizenship, though more than half were Eastern European. The delegates, united by their yearning for a Jewish homeland, attended the conference and heard inspirational declarations made by Herzl and Max Nordau, one of Herzl’s greatest supporters.After three days of discussion, the delegates established the Basel Program, declaring an intent “to create a publicly guaranteed homeland for the Jewish people” in Ottoman-occupied Palestine. A year later, at the Second Zionist Conference, the delegates, which now included women, strategized campaigns to raise funds and support from within the Jewish communities of Europe and political support from European leaders. Following the First Congress, Herzl made appeals to Sultan Abdulhamid II of the Ottoman Empire and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, trying to convince them to consider the proposals of the Zionists. Herzl died in 1904 from pneumonia, 41 years before the idea of a Jewish homeland came to life. In 1949, his remains were brought to Israel.