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added family and suicide aspects
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== Family ==
{{WikipediaQuote |Title=Theodor Herzl |URL=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Herzl#Family}}
[[Theodor Herzl]]'s daughter Paulina suffered from mental illness and drug addiction. She died in 1930 at the age of 40 of a heroin overdose. His only son Hans was given a secular upbringing and the Herzls refused to allow him to be circumcised.<ref name="Shalom 2009">{{REFbook
|last=Goldman
|first=Shalom
|title=Zeal for Zion: Christians, Jews, & the Idea of the Promised Land
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ibbL2ow7gYoC&pg=PA134
|publisher=UNC Press
|year=2009
|ISBN=978-0-807-83344-5
|page=134
}}</ref><ref>{{REFbook
|last=Stewart
|init=D
|title=Theodor Herzl
|location=Garden City, New York
|publisher=Doubleday
|year=1974
|page=202
}}</ref> On Herzl's early death, after reportedly being pressured to do so by his Zionist caretakers, Hans, then a ward, submitted to circumcision on 29 May 1905;<ref name="Shalom 2009"/><ref>{{REFweb
|last=Goldman
|first=Shalom
|title=Theodor Herzl’s Cursed Children
|url=https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/history/articles/theodor-herzl-cursed-children
|website=Tablet
|date=2022-05-02
}}</ref><ref name="Sternberger">{{REFbook
|title=Princes Without a Home: Modern Zionism and the Strange Fate of Theodor Herzl's children
|last=Sternberger
|first=Ilse
|page=125
}}</ref> he subsequently converted,<ref>{{REFdocument
|title=Einstein on Theodor Herzl's Son, Hans' Conversion and Suicide
|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203012058/http://www.shapell.org/manuscript.aspx?einstein-on-jewish-identity-assimilation-and-herzl-son-conversion-and-suicide
|archived=yes
|publisher=Shapell Manuscript Collection. SMF
|date=2013-12-03
}}</ref> resenting the way he had been persuaded to be circumcised,<ref>{{REFjournal
|quote=He told the curious fact that he had not been circumcised at birth but had undergone circumcision when he was 13 while he was living in London. He declared he resented this, which, he said antagonized him against the synagogue.
|title=Hans Herzl, Son of Theodor Herzl, Commits Suicide After Funeral of Sister Paulina
|url=https://www.jta.org/archive/hans-herzl-son-of-theodor-herzl-commits-suicide-after-funeral-of-sister-paulina
|publisher=Jewish Telegraphic Agency
|date=1930-09-18
}}</ref> and became successively a Baptist, then a Catholic, and flirted with other Protestant denominations. He sought a personal salvation for his own religious needs and a universal solution, as had his father, to Jewish suffering caused by antisemitism. Hans shot himself to death on the day of his sister Paulina's funeral; he was 39 years old.<ref>{{REFweb
|last=Spiro (Rabbi)
|first=Ken
|date=2002-02-02
|title=Crash Course in Jewish History Part 63 – Modern Zionism
|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180808104749/http://www.aish.com/literacy/jewishhistory/Crash_Course_in_Jewish_History_Part_63_-_Modern_Zionism.asp
|publisher=Aish HaTorah
|archived=yes
}}</ref>
Hans left a suicide note explaining his reasons.
{{Citation
|Text=A Jew remains a Jew, no matter how eagerly he may submit himself to the disciplines of his new religion, how humbly he may place the redeeming cross upon his shoulders for the sake of his former coreligionists, to save them from eternal damnation: a Jew remains a Jew ... I can't go on living. I have lost all trust in God. All my life I've tried to strive for the truth, and must admit today at the end of the road that there is nothing but disappointment. Tonight I have said Kaddish for my parents—and for myself, the last descendant of the family. There is nobody who will say Kaddish for me, who went out to find peace—and who may find peace soon ... My instinct has latterly gone all wrong, and I have made one of those irreparable mistakes, which stamp a whole life with failure. Then it is best to scrap it.<ref name="Sternberger"/>
|Author=Hans Herzl
|ref=<ref>{{REFweb
|title=Manta – Rediscover America's Small Business
|url=http://web.archive.org/web/20110615054348/http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-6909579/Stephen-Theodore-Norman-the-last.html
|archived=yes
|publisher=Manta
|website=Goliath.ecnext.com
}}</ref>
}}
{{REF}}
[[Category:Person]]
[[Category:Male]]
[[Category:Deceased]]
[[Category:Suicide]]
[[Category:Jewish]]
[[Category:Baptist]]
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[[Category:Protestant]]
[[Category:Austria]]