July 19, 1940
Early Zionist leader Max Bodenheimer dies five years after immigrating to Jerusalem.
Born in 1865 in Stuttgart, Germany, Bodenheimer immigrated to Palestine in 1935, where he became a lawyer and a central figure in the Zionist movement. A close associate to Theodor Herzl, Bodenheimer was the first president of the Zionist Federation of Germany and was a leader in the establishment of the Jewish National Fund (JNF).
While studying law at the Universities of Tuebingen, Strassburg, Berlin and Freiburg, Bodenheimer concluded that the Jews are a nation and that only Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) can serve as their national home and refuge. After completing his degree, he moved to Cologne, Germany, where he practiced law until 1933. It also was where in 1891 he published his first Zionist article, “Sind die Russischen Juden eine Nation?” (“Are the Russian Jews a Nation?”), in the weekly publication Die Menorah. In 1896, Bodenheimer began corresponding with Herzl after reading Herzl’s “Der Judenstaat” (“The Jewish State”).
This led to Bodenheimer’s participation in the First Zionist Congress in 1897, where he was elected to the Zionist General Council. He served on the council until 1921. When the Jewish National Fund was incorporated in Britain in 1907, Bodenheimer was appointed its first chairman, and he served as a board member until 1921.
Disillusioned with the policies of Chaim Weizmann in the wake of the Arab riots in Palestine in 1929, he joined the Revisionist party of Ze’ev Jabotinsky. Bodenheimer eventually gave up politics.
In 1935, he settled in Jerusalem with his wife, Rosa, and began to write his memoirs.
