Beverly Hills renames street to honor famed Zionist

Beverly Hills on Sunday will formally rename a street in honor of Theodor Herzl, considered a founder of Zionism.

The 300 block of North Clark Drive, in front of the Temple Emanuel, will now be known as Herzl Way.

The Beverly Hills City Council decided to make the street-name change back in February. The rest of Clark Drive will retain its current name.

"It’s truly an honor that the city of Beverly Hills would acknowledge a visionary whose dream of the Jewish statehood came to fruition," Israeli Consul General Jacob Dayan said in a written statement issued by the consulate and reported by the Jewish Journal. "Israel is blooming today because of the dream of Theodor Herzl. It gives me tremendous pride to see a piece of Israel’s heritage and culture amidst this beautiful city.”

Beverly Hills is the sister city of Herzliya, Israel – which is named after Theodore Herzl.

Temple Emanuel "is thrilled to have Herzl Way as our address,'' Senior Rabbi Laura Geller told City News Service. "Israel really matters at Temple Emanuel and the idea that every time anyone walks on our street they understand."

Read more about Herzl's life at the Jewish Virtual Library.

-- Shelby Grad

Photo: Jewish Virtual Library

Comments

[Teach]

So when will the white supremacists get a street named after their guy?

[Unhappy]

I am sorry to see a street named after somebody who has brought so much pain and suffering to the world. Jews deserve a lot of good things because they are a great people, but naming a street after this fellow is disrespectful for many around the world who feel differently about what he espoused.

[Vladimir Yancher]

I wonder If Israel has a street named after Theodor Herzl? Any way this is a great news and I congratulate the city of Beverly Hills

[arya]

Whoo I was at the ceremony

[TheBigPicture]

nice beard....

[andrew]

wake up from Herzl's dream.. Palestine has been dispossessed by Zionism, but it's not a done deal.

[Henry]

The nicest things that can be said about this decision is that it is offensive and ignorant.

When you peel away the flowery, rose-colored rhetoric around Zionism -- as most of the world save the US and Israel has done -- you find a fatally flawed, failed ideology that is detached from reality, is unsustainable, is contrary to most progressive ideas of societies, continues to be the source of untold suffering, inhumanity, and will be viewed by history in the same vein as the failed Soviet ideology. The USSR survived for about 75 years. Let's not wait that long for the Zionist ideology of the state of Israel.