Dr Herzl Lodge

Consecrated Sunday 27 November 1904

The Consecration of the Dr Herzl Lodge was held at the Empress Victoria Hotel, Marshall Street, Johannesburg

Anniversaries

The 70th Anniversary of the Dr Herzl Lodge was held at the Carlton Hotel in 1974.

The 75^th Anniversary of the Dr Herzl Lodge was held on the 26^th May 1979. Justice Felix Landau, a past President of the Dr Herzl Lodge, was the Guest of Honour.  He undertook an extensive tour of Lodges of the Order in order to stimulate interest in the Hebrew Order of David.

The Anniversary Banquet took place at the HOD Centre, where 300 brethren and their wives were present. Thirty special guests representing major organisations were present. Justice Landau delivered the main address.

First Honorary Member of Dr Herzl Lodge

Dr Hyam Goodman, a well-known medical practitioner, became the first Honorary member of the Dr Herzl Lodge. 

Naming of the Dr Herzl Lodge

The Dr Herzl Lodge was named in honour of Theodor Herzl was an Austro-Hungarian journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer who was the father of modern political Zionism. Herzl formed the Zionist Organization and promoted Jewish immigration to Palestine to form a Jewish state. Though he died before its establishment, he is known as the father of the State of Israel.

While Herzl is specifically mentioned in the Israeli Declaration of Independence and is officially referred to as "the spiritual father of the Jewish State" i.e. the visionary who gave a concrete, practicable platform and framework to political Zionism, he was not the first Zionist theoretician or activist; scholars, many of them religious such as Rabbis Yehuda Bibas, Zvi Hirsch Kalischer and Judah Alkalai, promoted a range of proto-Zionist ideas before him.