The Dreyfus Affair

In the late 1890’s, a Jewish Frenchman named Alfred Dreyfus was wrongly accused of treason. A young Theodore Herzl was a journalist at his trial, and after witnessing this open act of anti-Semitism, concluded that the Jews needed a place of their own in order to permanently escape anti-Semitism. He realized that if the enlightened and emancipated France failed to protect an assimilated and loyal Jewish officer, the rest of Europe would be no different; the Jews needed to leave. Herzl intensified his Zionist efforts, and 50 years after the Dreyfus Affair, the State of Israel was born.