The Labyrinth of Exile
Ernst Pawel
Macmillan
9780374523510 "At the age of thirty-five, the fashionable Viennese 
playwright and journalist Theodor Herzl fantasized about the collective 
conversion of the Jews in a mass ceremony at the cathedral of St. 
Stephen. By the time he died, a mere nine years later, he had redefined 
Jewish identity in terms of a modern secular faith and created a 
national movement which, within less than half a century, led to the 
foundation of the Jewish state."<br>
So begins Ernst Pawel's remarkable study of Herzl. In The Labyrinth of 
Exile Pawel restores the vital link between the myth of the founding 
father of Zionism and the human being and demonstrates that the reality 
of Herzl's life is much more complicated and far more interesting. 
Legendary and all too human, Herzl remains one of the emblematic figures
 of modern times.