Herzl, the "father" of political Zionism, was a writer, playwright and journalist. He moved from Budapest to Vienna in 1878. Herzl first came into contact with virulent anti-Semitism at the University of Vienna, and again in Paris where he worked as a journalist.

Following the 1894 conviction of Captain Alfred Dreyfus a Jewish officer in the French army, unjustly accused of treason, Herzl published Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) in which he proposes the establishment of a Jewish state (1896). In his novel, Altneuland (Old New Land, 1902) he envisioned a socialist utopian Jewish state based on scientific and technological development.

Herzl, pivotal in organizing the First Zionist Congress, held in Basle, Switzerland in 1897, is considered the father of "political Zionism."