Max Nordau Warns Assimilated German Jews that they too will Feel the Anti-Semitic Wrath Sweeping Through Europe

Born Simon Maximillian in Pest, in 1849, Nordau helps found the WZO with Theodore Herzl. A medical doctor, social theorist, celebrated author of over 20 works and fervent Zionist, Nordau, stirs his audiences with reality. He notes often that “there is pre-existing sentiment for detestation of Jews.” In Berlin, in January 1899, to a group of Jews he noted, “A day will come in which Zionism will be as needed by you, proud Germans, you will beg our help and suppliants for asylum in that land (Eretz Yisrael) which you now scorn.” After Herzl’s death in 1903, he remains an ideological elder in the new Zionist movement, however, he refuses to be the Zionist Organization’s president.