Das Neue Ghetto
Vienna: Verlag der, 1897.
First edition, text in the original German language. Bound in contemporary marbled boards over black spine cloth. Very Good with binding rubbed and worn, former owner name in light pencil to front free endpaper, pages toned, thumbed, occasionally soiled or corner creased. Herzl was the visionary founder of Zionism, and also a successful journalist and playwright. Das Neue Ghetto is a play written in 1894, but first staged in January of 1898. "The 'new ghetto' is Herzl's term for the condition of Jewish emancipation without assimilation. Written several years before Der Judenstaat, it is Herzl’s only play which contains Jewish characters and deals directly with the Jewish Question. It represents his earliest formal condemnation of assimilation as false and illusory, and as the estrangement of the Jews from their authentic selves. The play was praised by a diverse cross-section of Viennese society, from Herzl's fellow Zionist, Max Nordau, to Sigmund Freud, who attended the opening night and went on to cite the play's influence on him personally in his Interpretation of Dreams."
Price: $8,500.00