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Born Simon
Maximilian Suedfeld in Hungary, Nordau became a physician and settled
in Paris in 1880 where he pursued a career as an international journalist.
He achieved fame as a thinker and controversial social critic of society,
religion, government, art and literature. Among his most famous publications
are The Conventional Lies of Our Civilization (1883); Paradoxes
(1896); and Degeneration (1895).
Nordau became acquainted in 1895 with Theodor Herzl's idea of a Jewish
state; with great enthusiasm he promoted the idea of political Zionism
and the emigration of large numbers of Diaspora Jews to Eretz Israel.
Nordau served as vice-president and then as president of several Zionist
Congresses. He was co-founder of the World Zionist Organization. He died
in Paris in 1923 and was re-interred in Tel Aviv in 1926.
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