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."
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