Abstract:

Even before Herzl dreamed of a Jewish state,
Evangelical minister William Hechler was meeting
with pioneering Zionists in Odessa. Calculating
that redemption would begin in 1897, the same
year as the first Zionist Congress, Hechler lent
a hand by arranging an audience for Herzl with
Kaiser Wilhelm II. Who was the Zionist visionary’s
Christian sidekick, and what were his motives?