The Blogs: Rev. Hechler’s Discovery of Der Judenstaat, 1896.

Have you heard of the surprising and critical role that a Christian Zionist played in the earliest stages of Herzl’s modern Zionism? Reverend William Henry Hechler was that man.

Hechler was a Christian who cherished a deep love for the Jewish people. He “happened” to find and read the newly published ‘Der Judenstaat’ and recognized the prophetic moment. He went on to meet Herzl and become his key connection point both to the German Kaiser and to English Christian Zionism.

Frederick I, Grand Duke of Baden was very taken with Hechler’s eschatological predictions and with Herzl’s pragmatic solution to the Jewish problem through restoration of the Jews to Palestine. The Grand Duke became a lifelong advocate of Herzl and the Zionist cause. He used his office and his relationship with his nephew, Kaiser Wilhelm II to support Herzl and Zionism.

The world press saw these events as momentous. Hechler had succeeded in bringing political legitimacy to Theodor Herzl and Zionism.*

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Rev. Hechler’s Discovery of Der Judenstaat, 1896.
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Rev. Hechler stood mesmerised before a Viennese

bookshop window in 1896 first seeing Der Judenstaat

– Zion’s cri-de-cour – his heart almost stopped, tears

of joy greeted that pivotal, prophetic pamphlet.

Herzl, anxious, obsessive, Moses-like, messianic
vainly willed for an open-minded, expectant audience
– belief in his audacious proposal: the re-establishment

of the Israel; instead – mocked, vilified, stonewalled.

Hechler long-searched Torah & New Testament texts,

anticipating Israel’s eventual return, Ezekiel’s promise:

“I will take you out of many nations, gather you

from all countries & bring you back to your land.”

Christian Zionist & secular prophet coalesce:

one doggedly calculated God’s divine timeline,
the other an orator who challenged political prejudice:

both urged reclamation of that ancient cradle land.

Yisraʾel – open harbour, holy haven, safe shelter,
Yahweh’s protection from persecution and pogrom:
twelve tribes returned, multiple kibbutzim founded:
“water gushing in the wilderness, streams form in the desert.”

Herzl, spiritual patriarch of a reborn fesity nation
got esteemed in Israel for his tireless Zionist passion;
Hechler, uncelebrated but Redeemer remembered,

cartographer of promise to the pogrom persecuted.

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‘For I know that my Redeemer lives,
And He shall stand at last on the earth’ Job 19:25

כי אני יודע שהגואל שלי חי,
והוא יעמוד סוף סוף על הארץ

Rev. Hechler – Anglican clergyman, biblical prophecy proponent and right hand man to Herzl. In 1884 Hechler wrote his treatise, “The Restoration of the Jews to Palestine”.

*Hechler collected Bibles, maps of Palestine and constructed a scale model of the Jewish Temple that had stood in Jerusalem. He studied the Bible closely, working out timelines for the Restoration of the Jews and the Second Coming of Jesus. He predicted that in 1897 or 1898 a major event would occur that would lead to the Restoration of the Jews. In early March 1896, Hechler had been perusing the Viennese book stalls when he happened upon a book, Der Judenstaat, by Theodor Herzl. It had been published just a few weeks earlier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hechler