Quotation from Max Nordau “I suggested Helmstatte as a synonym for state” — 1920

Co-organizer of the first Zionist congress in Basel, explaining that as early as 1897, the term Heimstatte (National Home) had been chosen rather than Judenstaat (Jewish State) in order to make it less frightening.

Author : Thematic :
" I did my best to persuade the claimants of the Jewish state in Palestine that we might find a circumlocution that would express all we meant, but would say it in a way so as to avoid provoking the Turkish rulers of the coveted land. I suggested Helmstatte as a synonym for state.... It was equivocal, but we all understood what it meant. To us it signified Judenstaat then and it signifies the same now. "

Quoted by Sykes, Crossroads to Israel , Collins, 1965, p. 24.
Quoted by Elias Sanbar, Figures du Palestinien , NRF, 2004, p. 91

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