Herzl's Kids

An interesting piece of T’shuvah, repentance/forgiveness recently caught my attention. Two of Theodor Herzl’s children were reinterred in Jerusalem after decades of debate.

Hans and Pauline Herzl, who died in 1930 and were buried in France, were laid to final rest alongside the founder of modern Zionism in the cemetery that carries his name in Israel’s capital, Har Herzl. Herzl, who died in 1904, had said that he wanted to be buried next to his children. But Israeli authorities, after reinterring Herzl himself in 1949, were reluctant to do the same for Hans and Pauline given the controversy surrounding their deaths. Pauline died of a drug overdose in what might have been a suicide, prompting her brother to shoot himself. Hans´ conversion to Christianity shortly before his death further stoked religious opposition to his burial in Israel. But rabbis recently ruled that Hans had disavowed Christianity before dying, and that Pauline’s demise was a result of mental disturbance.

At the cemetery, next to the grave that is visited by nearly every tourist who comes to Jerusalem (including everyone who has ever taken a trip with me) Ehud Olmert said: “Having brought in the remains of Pauline and Hans, we are completing the mission and achieving historical closure.”

Even in death there is room for T’shuvah, which literally means “return”. Returning Herzl’s heirs to their father’s side, in the land of his dreams, reflects Israel’s true intent: Which is to create a Jewish homeland for all, even those who have strayed from the pathways of tradition. Israel is truly the site for the ingathering of the exiles.