structural:reformatting, linguistic:translation
Zionist intellectual and activist

As the Paris correspondent for Neue Freie Presse, Herzl followed the Dreyfus affair, a political scandal that divided the Third French Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. It was a notorious antisemitic incident in France in which a Jewish French army captain was falsely convicted of spying for Germany. Herzl was witness to mass rallies in Paris following the Dreyfus trial. There has been some controversy surrounding the impact that this event had on Herzl and his conversion to Zionism. Herzl himself stated that the Dreyfus case turned him into a Zionist and that he was particularly affected by chants of "Death to the Jews!" from the crowds. This had been the widely held belief for some time. However, some modern scholars now believe that – due to little mention of the Dreyfus affair in Herzl's earlier accounts and a seemingly contrary reference he made in them to shouts of "Death to the traitor!" – he may have exaggerated the influence it had on him in order to create further support for his goals.

Jacques Kornberg claims that the Dreyfus influence was a myth that Herzl did not feel necessary to deflate and that he also believed that Dreyfus was guilty. Another modern claim is that, while upset by antisemitism evident in French society, Herzl, like most contemporary observers, initially believed Dreyfus was guilty and only claimed to have been inspired by the affair years later when it had become an international cause célèbre. Rather, it was the rise to power of the antisemitic demagogue Karl Lueger in Vienna in 1895 that seems to have had a greater effect on Herzl, before the pro-Dreyfus campaign had fully emerged. It was at this time that Herzl wrote his play "The New Ghetto," which shows the ambivalence and lack of real security and equality of emancipated, well-to-do Jews in Vienna. The protagonist is an assimilated Jewish lawyer who tries unsuccessfully to break through the social ghetto enforced on Western Jews.

According to Henry Wickham Steed, Herzl was initially "fanatically devoted to the propagation of Jewish-German 'Liberal' assimilationist doctrine." However, Herzl came to reject his early ideas regarding Jewish emancipation and assimilation and to believe that the Jews must remove themselves from Europe. Herzl grew to believe that antisemitism could not be defeated or cured, only avoided, and that the only way to avoid it was the establishment of a Jewish state. In June 1895, he wrote in his diary: "In Paris, as I have said, I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-semitism... Above all, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to 'combat' anti-semitism." Herzl's editors at Neue Freie Presse refused any publication of his Zionist political activities. A mental clash gripped Herzl, between the craving for literary success and a desire to act as a public figure. Around this time, Herzl started writing pamphlets about A Jewish State. Herzl claimed that these pamphlets resulted in the establishment of the Zionist Movement, and they did play a large role in the movement's rise and success. His testimony before the British Royal Commission reflected his fundamental, romantic liberal view on life as the 'Problem of the Jews.'

Beginning in late 1895, Herzl wrote Der Judenstaat (The State of the Jews), which was published February 1896 to immediate acclaim and controversy. The book argued that the Jewish people should leave Europe for Palestine, their historic homeland. The Jews possessed a nationality; all they were missing was a nation and a state of their own. Only through a Jewish state could they avoid antisemitism, express their culture freely and practice their religion without hindrance. Herzl's ideas spread rapidly throughout the Jewish world and attracted international attention. Supporters of existing Zionist movements, such as the Hovevei Zion, immediately allied themselves with him, but he also encountered bitter opposition from members of the Orthodox community and those seeking to integrate in non-Jewish society. His notorious article Mauschel, published just after the first Zionist Congress, depicted Jews who oppose Zionism as constituting a despicable type of Jew and has often been described as antisemitic.

In Der Judenstaat he writes:

"The Jewish question persists wherever Jews live in appreciable numbers. Wherever it does not exist, it is brought in together with Jewish immigrants. We are naturally drawn into those places where we are not persecuted, and our appearance there gives rise to persecution. This is the case, and will inevitably be so, everywhere, even in highly civilised countries—see, for instance, France—so long as the Jewish question is not solved on the political level."

The book concludes:

Therefore I believe that a wondrous generation of Jews will spring into existence. The Maccabeans will rise again. Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who wish for a State will have it. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes. The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness. And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity.