Despite the mordant sarcasm of Ahad Ha’am congratulating Dr Herzl on discovering the Jews and their sorrows, there had been a Judenstaat effect, just as when American colonials read the Declaration of Independence and understood, at the most basic level, what had to be fought for; or in Ireland when Daniel O’Connell gave voice to the oppressed (at one point Herzl said he wanted to be the Parnell of the Jews); or in India when Gandhi spoke and walked. It was the nimbus around the idea of a state for the Jews, a place where being a Jew was the norm rather than a problem, which cast its glow
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