fbpx

The Promise of Israel

The first English-language opera about Herzl, “State of the Jews,” premiered at the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center last week.
[additional-authors]
January 23, 2025
Gideon Dabi as Theodor Herzl with Temple Emanu-El Chorus (Photo by Steven Pisano)

In the early 1900s, Theodor Herzl was worried about Sultan Abdul Hamid of Turkey. For nearly a decade, Herzl had led a quest for the Jews to finally have a state of our own, in our historic homeland. But he was concerned that the Ottoman Empire, which had colonized our land for centuries, would not give its “permission.”

In 2025, the state of Israel finally exists but because of today’s Sultans the promise of Israel — living freely with dignity in our own land — still does not.

The first English-language opera about Herzl, “State of the Jews,” premiered at the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center last week. It had been conceived before Oct. 7, and an enhanced workshop had been performed at the 14th Street Y in 2019. 

But this was the first full production, with a chorus, full-stage lighting, costumes, etc. When librettist Ben Kaplan and composer Alex Weiser first began discussing the idea of creating an opera about Herzl, “the palpable fear of antisemitism in the United States was a distant memory,” Kaplan wrote in his program notes. “Sadly, that is no longer the case,” he told me. “And that fear of physical threat, so deeply felt by Herzl at the time, is now increasingly felt by Jews today, here in New York and around the world.”

Herzl, an Austro-Hungarian journalist and playwright, was not the first to propose a Jewish state, but he is credited with mobilizing Zionism into a modern, global movement, and for devising the political infrastructure that led to the creation of the state of Israel half a century later.

The opera begins in Paris, 1895, with the public shaming of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish French army captain falsely accused of treason. Herzl, as a reporter, watches the tension build as the chanting of the crowd intensifies. One side chants: “Jewish traitor! Death to Dreyfus!”

Given the antisemitic anarchy on campuses and in the streets of New York City this past year, the wild — savage — chants felt even more uncomfortable than they did in the 2019 workshop production.

Herzl had watched rising antisemitism in Europe — as well as the world’s silence: he foresaw the end of European Jewry. In 1896, Herzl published “Der Judenstaat” (“The Jewish State”) in Vienna. The pamphlet was a call to action for the establishment of an independent Jewish state in the land of Israel, at the time called Palestine.

The opera focuses on the final six months of his life when, knowing he’s sick, Herzl furiously travels to Russia, Basel, and Rome to shore up support. Following the Kishinev pogrom in 1903, Herzl meets with the Russian delegation of Zionists in Verki, Russia. The dinner party is interrupted by a group of young supporters from Vilna who sing “Hatikvah.”

“As long as in the heart, within,

A Jewish soul yearns,

And onward, toward the end of the East,

An eye still looks toward Zion”

The next year, in Basel, Switzerland, heated arguments ensue over Britain’s provisional offer to settle Jews who were in immediate danger in a Jewish colony in what is now part of Kenya. At the opening of the Sixth Zionist Congress, Herzl announces the “Uganda Project.” A divided Congress erupts in discord. 

Later that year, Herzl is granted an audience with Pope Pius X. Herzl refuses to kiss his ring, and the Pope flatly rejects any deal on theological grounds — for precisely the reason a plan was essential.

All the while, we watch how Herzl’s noble quest strained his marriage, especially since his wife, Julie, thought of herself as Austrian first, was ashamed of her people (she told Herzl that the Jews coming to visit them “smell”), and had zero interest in returning to the land of Israel. One could call Julie the original status leftist.

Kristin Gornstein and Gideon Dabi as Julie and Theodor Herzl (Photo by Steven Pisano)

Herzl died of a heart condition in 1904, at 44. He never saw the results of all his hard work; he thought it was all for nothing. In 1949, in accordance with his will, he was reinterred in Mount Herzl, Jerusalem.

The opera ends with a Hebrew prayer for peace, “Oseh shalom.” “The questions that plagued Theodor Herzl and his contemporaries remain very much alive for us as Jews living in New York City today,” said Weiser. “How much should our Jewishness define us? What is the best way to fight antisemitism? Where is the future of the Jewish people?”

Indeed, the opera puts in stark relief the promise of Israel — returning to our homeland with dignity, free from the pain of incessant persecution — and the current reality. As Herzl put it: “We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes.” It was not a promise of babies held captive, incessant rockets and burials, rapes and beheadings. 

Herzl was right to be worried about the Sultan and all that Islamic colonization represented. But as we well know, all of this would be happening in Uganda as well — it has little to do with the land.

The truth is, Herzl — the early Zionist movement — understood the eternal scourge of antisemitism even more than many do today. There’s no question that the threat from Islamic terrorism would be far worse if we didn’t have the IDF and the Mossad; we might not even exist as a people right now. The fact that the promise of Israel hasn’t been completely fulfilled has everything to do with our enemies — and the world’s silence.  

How are we supposed to bring light into this world if we can’t even bring it for ourselves? The opera is a stark reminder of what the dream was — and how the current reality falls far short. 

Yes, the world is still against us — it may always be. But as Herzl well knew, that doesn’t mean appeasement, acquiescing to relentless violence, negotiating with terrorists. How are we supposed to bring light into this world if we can’t even bring it for ourselves? The opera is a stark reminder of what the dream was — and how the current reality falls far short. 

If we are to be a free people — to live in dignity in our homeland — we must fully understand that our current enemies will not change, unless we force them to. Only then will we be able to leave behind the centuries of persecution that propelled this noble quest.


Karen Lehrman Bloch is editor in chief of White Rose Magazine.

Did you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.

Editor's Picks

Latest Articles

More news and opinions than at a
Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.