The Israeli city of Herzliya is named after Theodor Herzl, and it is interesting that the city of Tel Aviv was named after Herzl’s utopian novel about the Jewish state in Israel. The main Israeli national cemetery in Jerusalem is named after Herzl and is located right next to the famous Yad Vashem.
The founder of the Zionist movement, aimed at creating an independent Jewish state, was the Austro-Hungarian Jew Theodor Herzl, a native of Zemun near Belgrade, and born in Pest into an Ashkenazi Jewish family. Herzl died on July 3, 1904, not awaiting the realization of the Jewish state. He died in the small town of Edlach in Lower Austria at the age of only 44 years. In his will, he asked that his funeral be as modest as possible and that he be buried in Vienna, in the Döbling cemetery, next to his father.
He also asked that his remains be transferred to Palestine, when the Jews could. Indeed, in 1949, after the formation of Israel as a Jewish state, his remains were moved from Vienna to Jerusalem and buried in the most famous Jewish cemetery, Herzl Hill (Hebrew Har Hertzel), which was named after him. Israeli prime ministers, presidents and national heroes are buried in that cemetery. Next to that cemetery is the Herzl Museum and the world-famous Yad Vashem, a monument to the victims of the Holocaust.
The Israeli city of Herzliya is named after Theodor Herzl, and it is interesting that the city of Tel Aviv was named after Herzl’s utopian novel about the Jewish state in Israel, where Herzl’s original title of the novel was translated from Tel Aviv into German – Altneuland (Old New Land).
