A blog from Religion News Service (RNS), the only secular newswire focused exclusively on religion and ethics. RNS is a unit of Newhouse News Service and Advance Publications.

Friday, November 30, 2007

He Still Loves Israel

Michelle Boorstein at the Post has a fascinating article on Theodor Herzl's (aka the founder of Zionism) grandson being exhumed from his grave in Washington to be buried near his relatives in Israel.

Stephen Theodore Norman was the only of Herzl's descendant to embrace Zionism, Boorstein writes.

"It wasn't sort of an obvious thing. Herzl didn't actually know [Norman]; it was a longer shot," said Jacob Dellal, spokesman for the Jewish Agency-World Zionist Organization, which represented Jews before the founding of the state. The group still shares jurisdiction over some state entities, including Mount Herzl.