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Here Herzl, the Paris correspondent of the Viennese newspaper Neue Freie Presse, asks his Viennese compatriot and fellow Jew, the sculptor Samuel Friedrich Beer, to show a Monsieur Simon “the beautiful things” in his studio. Perhaps among them was Beer’s bust of Herzl, done in 1894, or the commemorative medals Beer designed for the First and Second Zionist World Congresses…
Herzl and Beer were friends, and it was while sitting for his bust in Beer’s studio, talking about the rise of anti-Semitism and no doubt, the Dreyfus Affair then unfolding in Paris, that Herzl got the idea for his play, The New Ghetto – his last non-political attempt to overcome anti-Semitism. Dated, then, most likely after 1894 which would coincide with the tremulous events of the Dreyfus Affair.
Herzl and Beer were friends, and it was while sitting for his bust in Beer’s studio, talking about the rise of anti-Semitism and no doubt, the Dreyfus Affair then unfolding in Paris, that Herzl got the idea for his play, The New Ghetto – his last non-political attempt to overcome anti-Semitism. Dated, then, most likely after 1894 which would coincide with the tremulous events of the Dreyfus Affair.
Calling Card Signed (“Herzl”), with four lines in autograph, in German; printed “Dr. Theodore Herzl, Correspondant de la Nouvelle Presse libre," sextodecimo, Hotel Rastadt, 4 rue Daunou, [Paris], March 22, no year. To Samuel Friedrich Beer in Paris.
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