A Historical Essay
By José Victor “Jayvee” Salameña
September 4, 2018
The historic state visit of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to the State of Israel is just the latest intersection between the Jewish peoples and the Filipino peoples. But both nations, the Republic of the Philippines, and the State of Israel, can trace their existence from two writers: Jose Rizal and Theodor Herzl. While Rizal was just visiting Vienna, Herzl made his home there.
Left: A memorial marker in Vienna to commemorate Rizal’s visit to Vienna in May 1887; Center: José Rizal, National Hero of the Philippines; Right: Theodor Herzl, the “spiritual father of the Jewish State” in the Declaration of Establishment of the State of Israel in 1948
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte recently made a splash in international news once more, as he visited the State of Israel in early September, welcomed warmly by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This was the first time a sitting Filipino President has visited the Holy Land.
The two nations, the Philippines and Israel, already maintain warm and cordial relations. Israel and the Jewish people will never forget the kindness that the Philippine Commonwealth extended towards the persecuted European Jews in the 1930s. Whereas the Western World (including Canada, whose Prime Minister of the time, William Lyon Mackenzie King, remarked on receiving persecuted Jews that “none is too many”) did not open their doors, Philippine President Manuel Quezon and the Philippine Commonwealth welcomed in 1,200 persecuted European Jews. The Philippine people, reciprocally, are thankful that the State of Israel has welcomed them in to care for their elderly, and Filipinos enjoy a thriving diaspora community in Israel, where they are treated with respect and decency (unlike the other nations in the same region). Currently, around 28,000 Filipinos live in Israel.
Similarly, both nations and peoples, Israel and the Philippines, can trace their respective existences as independent nations and entities to two people: for Israel, Theodor Herzl, who was considered the “spiritual father of the Jewish State” in the Declaration of Establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, and for the Philippines, Jose Rizal, National Hero of the Philippines.
Both were astute political writers, whose writings would galvanize their respective peoples to action. And, like the intersection of Benjamin Netanyahu and Rodrigo Duterte, both Jose Rizal and Theodor Herzl were most likely in the same city at the same time: in Vienna, May 1887.
Both men were in their late 20’s. In fact, Theodor Herzl was only just over a year older than Jose Rizal. Like Rizal, Herzl was a writer. Unlike Rizal the tourist, Herzl was a resident of Vienna. Herzl was a journalist for a Viennese newspaper. It is his work as a journalist where he covered the Dreyfus affair, where a Jewish French army captain was accused of spying for Germany. (Sadly ironic, considering what the nation state of Germany would do to the Jewish people in the decades after the Dreyfus affair). Herzl would later cite the Dreyfus affair as the turning point of his views towards Zionism, as he witnessed the vile and abhorrent anti-Zionism that came out on display as the trial went on in France. Soon, Theodor Herzl would write his magnus opus (or Latin for “great piece”) called Der Judenstaat or “The Jewish State” where Herzl appealed to his fellow European Jewry that it was time for them to create their own nation-state, separate from a Europe plagued with vile anti-Semitism that was already on flagrant display in the 1890s, and which would reach a crescendo of evil in the Holocaust only a generation afterwards.
But Herzl would only become a Zionist in the 1890s. In 1887, when Rizal visited Vienna, he was just a humble writer and playwright, making a home in Vienna. In fact, many Jewish scholars agree: in the 1880’s, Herzl was not much of a Zionist. His political awakening would come afterwards.
Rizal, however, was already a “busy bee” in 1887, and fully involved in the Philippine Propaganda Movement of the 1880s. Just before his visit to Vienna, Jose Rizal and Maximo Viola, Rizal’s “bestie”, met with Ferdinand Blumentritt, their only face-to-face encounter in a friendship that spanned many years and many letters of correspondences. In that meeting, Blumentritt continued to encourage Rizal to publish Rizal’s own magnus opus: the infamous Noli Me Tangere, or “Touch Me Not”, which exposed the abuses of the Spanish clergy and civil guards in the Philippines. The book was published in Spanish later that year.
Both Der Judenstaat and Noli Me Tangere would galvanize the Jews and Filipinos to action. The Philippines would declare independence from Spain in 1898, less than two years after Rizal was executed for writing the Noli.
Just mere months after Rizal’s martyrdom, in 1897, Theodor Herzl, now a full-fledged Zionist, would preside over the First Zionist Congress, which called for the establishment of a Jewish state.
Unfortunately, both died before their dreams were realized. The Philippines would suffer more as their independence was ripped away from them in the early 1900s. But the suffering of the Filipinos as a nation would pale in comparison to the suffering of the Jewish people in the same era, culminating in the Holocaust, where 6 million Jews were systematically put to death.
But both our peoples prevailed. The Philippines would be granted independence in 1946. And the nation of Israel would declare itself as an independent nation in 1948. Because the Philippines was an independent nation in 1946, it was allowed to vote on United Nations Resolution 181 in 1948 – which would legitimize the creation of the State of Israel in the international stage. The Philippines was the only Asian nation who voted in favor of UN Resolution 181.
Back to Vienna, in May 1887. Could they, by random chance, have even passed each other by, unknowingly? Who knows? But what we do know is this: Two prolific writers, in the same city, at the same time, with Rizal the tourist walking the streets that Herzl the Viennese resident would have walked. Two writers who would write books that would help create the nations of the Philippines and modern Israel. That’s Vienna in May 1887 – an unlikely intersection of the fate of the Jewish and Filipino peoples.
As Rizal famously quoted, “The pen is mightier than the sword”. And in the case of Rizal and Herzl, their pens penned our nations into being.
Vienna, May 1887: Rizal and Herzl in the same city
By José Victor “Jayvee” Salameña
September 4, 2018
The historic state visit of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to the State of Israel is just the latest intersection between the Jewish peoples and the Filipino peoples. But both nations, the Republic of the Philippines, and the State of Israel, can trace their existence from two writers: Jose Rizal and Theodor Herzl. While Rizal was just visiting Vienna, Herzl made his home there.
Left: A memorial marker in Vienna to commemorate Rizal’s visit to Vienna in May 1887; Center: José Rizal, National Hero of the Philippines; Right: Theodor Herzl, the “spiritual father of the Jewish State” in the Declaration of Establishment of the State of Israel in 1948
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte recently made a splash in international news once more, as he visited the State of Israel in early September, welcomed warmly by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This was the first time a sitting Filipino President has visited the Holy Land.
The two nations, the Philippines and Israel, already maintain warm and cordial relations. Israel and the Jewish people will never forget the kindness that the Philippine Commonwealth extended towards the persecuted European Jews in the 1930s. Whereas the Western World (including Canada, whose Prime Minister of the time, William Lyon Mackenzie King, remarked on receiving persecuted Jews that “none is too many”) did not open their doors, Philippine President Manuel Quezon and the Philippine Commonwealth welcomed in 1,200 persecuted European Jews. The Philippine people, reciprocally, are thankful that the State of Israel has welcomed them in to care for their elderly, and Filipinos enjoy a thriving diaspora community in Israel, where they are treated with respect and decency (unlike the other nations in the same region). Currently, around 28,000 Filipinos live in Israel.
Similarly, both nations and peoples, Israel and the Philippines, can trace their respective existences as independent nations and entities to two people: for Israel, Theodor Herzl, who was considered the “spiritual father of the Jewish State” in the Declaration of Establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, and for the Philippines, Jose Rizal, National Hero of the Philippines.
Both were astute political writers, whose writings would galvanize their respective peoples to action. And, like the intersection of Benjamin Netanyahu and Rodrigo Duterte, both Jose Rizal and Theodor Herzl were most likely in the same city at the same time: in Vienna, May 1887.
Both men were in their late 20’s. In fact, Theodor Herzl was only just over a year older than Jose Rizal. Like Rizal, Herzl was a writer. Unlike Rizal the tourist, Herzl was a resident of Vienna. Herzl was a journalist for a Viennese newspaper. It is his work as a journalist where he covered the Dreyfus affair, where a Jewish French army captain was accused of spying for Germany. (Sadly ironic, considering what the nation state of Germany would do to the Jewish people in the decades after the Dreyfus affair). Herzl would later cite the Dreyfus affair as the turning point of his views towards Zionism, as he witnessed the vile and abhorrent anti-Zionism that came out on display as the trial went on in France. Soon, Theodor Herzl would write his magnus opus (or Latin for “great piece”) called Der Judenstaat or “The Jewish State” where Herzl appealed to his fellow European Jewry that it was time for them to create their own nation-state, separate from a Europe plagued with vile anti-Semitism that was already on flagrant display in the 1890s, and which would reach a crescendo of evil in the Holocaust only a generation afterwards.
But Herzl would only become a Zionist in the 1890s. In 1887, when Rizal visited Vienna, he was just a humble writer and playwright, making a home in Vienna. In fact, many Jewish scholars agree: in the 1880’s, Herzl was not much of a Zionist. His political awakening would come afterwards.
Rizal, however, was already a “busy bee” in 1887, and fully involved in the Philippine Propaganda Movement of the 1880s. Just before his visit to Vienna, Jose Rizal and Maximo Viola, Rizal’s “bestie”, met with Ferdinand Blumentritt, their only face-to-face encounter in a friendship that spanned many years and many letters of correspondences. In that meeting, Blumentritt continued to encourage Rizal to publish Rizal’s own magnus opus: the infamous Noli Me Tangere, or “Touch Me Not”, which exposed the abuses of the Spanish clergy and civil guards in the Philippines. The book was published in Spanish later that year.
Both Der Judenstaat and Noli Me Tangere would galvanize the Jews and Filipinos to action. The Philippines would declare independence from Spain in 1898, less than two years after Rizal was executed for writing the Noli.
Just mere months after Rizal’s martyrdom, in 1897, Theodor Herzl, now a full-fledged Zionist, would preside over the First Zionist Congress, which called for the establishment of a Jewish state.
Unfortunately, both died before their dreams were realized. The Philippines would suffer more as their independence was ripped away from them in the early 1900s. But the suffering of the Filipinos as a nation would pale in comparison to the suffering of the Jewish people in the same era, culminating in the Holocaust, where 6 million Jews were systematically put to death.
But both our peoples prevailed. The Philippines would be granted independence in 1946. And the nation of Israel would declare itself as an independent nation in 1948. Because the Philippines was an independent nation in 1946, it was allowed to vote on United Nations Resolution 181 in 1948 – which would legitimize the creation of the State of Israel in the international stage. The Philippines was the only Asian nation who voted in favor of UN Resolution 181.
Back to Vienna, in May 1887. Could they, by random chance, have even passed each other by, unknowingly? Who knows? But what we do know is this: Two prolific writers, in the same city, at the same time, with Rizal the tourist walking the streets that Herzl the Viennese resident would have walked. Two writers who would write books that would help create the nations of the Philippines and modern Israel. That’s Vienna in May 1887 – an unlikely intersection of the fate of the Jewish and Filipino peoples.
As Rizal famously quoted, “The pen is mightier than the sword”. And in the case of Rizal and Herzl, their pens penned our nations into being.