While a great deal has been written and is being written about Theodor Herzl, the fact that he was the author of some thirty plays, a number of which were produced with considerable success at the Vienna Burg-Theater and at other theaters in European capitals, as well as in America, is generally lost sight of.
Among Herzl’s dramatic works there are dramas, comedies and one-act plays. When in 1897 Herzl was writing his literary testament, he said that the time had come for publishing a separate edition of his dramatic creations.
In an article about Herzl. the dramatist, Joseph Frankel makes the point that translations into Hebrew of the works of Edgar Wallace, Conan Doyle and Bettauer and other foreign writers are constantly being made, but that no one thinks of translating Herzl into Hebrew nor of producing any of his plays. “The New Ghetto” is the only one of Herzl’s plays that has been done into Hebrew. It was also translated into Yiddish, by I. H. Brener.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
