Page 42 - Discover Israel Magazine - 2015 Edition
P. 42
The State of a
Dream
An exciting new
multimedia presentation
brings alive the legacy
of Theodor Herzl – the
man whose extraordinary
vision molded the reality
of the Jewish state.
Miriam Feinberg Vamosh
A bearded man leaning over the thin veneer of culture and enlightenment
a
the
hiding anti-Semitism in Europe, visiting
Basel,
in
balcony
groups are reminded.
appellation “prophet of modern-
day Zionism” and perhaps a
catchphrase (most notably, “If you will it,
the audience “visits” a period café and
it is no dream”), are all most people can
conjure up about Theodor Herzl. The Herzl Together with the actor doing his research,
watches as clips of the vintage 1931 ilm
Museum at the entrance to Mount Herzl about Dreyfus are shown. The audience
in Jerusalem aims to change that, and to learns, among other things, that the Herzl,
acquaint visitors with the man behind the who accomplished the impossible by
beard. bringing the Jewish world around to his
idea of returning the Jewish people to their
Walking through the museum's four ancestral homeland, was in fact only 5 feet
rooms, visitors follow Theodor Herzl’s life 5 inches tall.
on multiple screens. The luminary’s life
and times are seen through the eyes of an As Herzl begins to publish his writings (in
Israeli actor (played by real-life Israeli soap 1896, readers of the British weekly the
opera star Zak Berkman), who has been Jewish Chronicle were the irst to see his
called upon to play the role of Herzl in a ideas in print), other actors in the “ilm”
ilm. The other characters – a director and a supposedly under preparation depict the
woman who plays a Herzl historian – initially Jewish reaction to his ideas. A character
despair of ever getting the jeans-clad young playing a Jew from the shtetl appears willing
Israeli to understand what life was like for a to follow Herzl to the ends of the earth –
19th-century Jewish journalist living in the embodying the appellation many attached
shadow of the Dreyfus afair. The wrongful to the man – a “latter-day Moses.” On the
conviction of French-Jewish military oicer A bust of the Zionist leader with the international other hand, a inely dressed aristocratic
Alfred Dreyfus for treason in 1894 cracked medals he received lady (part of the group to which Herzl’s own
DISCOVER ISRAEL
42
Dream
An exciting new
multimedia presentation
brings alive the legacy
of Theodor Herzl – the
man whose extraordinary
vision molded the reality
of the Jewish state.
Miriam Feinberg Vamosh
A bearded man leaning over the thin veneer of culture and enlightenment
a
the
hiding anti-Semitism in Europe, visiting
Basel,
in
balcony
groups are reminded.
appellation “prophet of modern-
day Zionism” and perhaps a
catchphrase (most notably, “If you will it,
the audience “visits” a period café and
it is no dream”), are all most people can
conjure up about Theodor Herzl. The Herzl Together with the actor doing his research,
watches as clips of the vintage 1931 ilm
Museum at the entrance to Mount Herzl about Dreyfus are shown. The audience
in Jerusalem aims to change that, and to learns, among other things, that the Herzl,
acquaint visitors with the man behind the who accomplished the impossible by
beard. bringing the Jewish world around to his
idea of returning the Jewish people to their
Walking through the museum's four ancestral homeland, was in fact only 5 feet
rooms, visitors follow Theodor Herzl’s life 5 inches tall.
on multiple screens. The luminary’s life
and times are seen through the eyes of an As Herzl begins to publish his writings (in
Israeli actor (played by real-life Israeli soap 1896, readers of the British weekly the
opera star Zak Berkman), who has been Jewish Chronicle were the irst to see his
called upon to play the role of Herzl in a ideas in print), other actors in the “ilm”
ilm. The other characters – a director and a supposedly under preparation depict the
woman who plays a Herzl historian – initially Jewish reaction to his ideas. A character
despair of ever getting the jeans-clad young playing a Jew from the shtetl appears willing
Israeli to understand what life was like for a to follow Herzl to the ends of the earth –
19th-century Jewish journalist living in the embodying the appellation many attached
shadow of the Dreyfus afair. The wrongful to the man – a “latter-day Moses.” On the
conviction of French-Jewish military oicer A bust of the Zionist leader with the international other hand, a inely dressed aristocratic
Alfred Dreyfus for treason in 1894 cracked medals he received lady (part of the group to which Herzl’s own
DISCOVER ISRAEL
42
