A Family Reunion for Grandson of Zionism's Founder

A tiny crew attended the disinterment, including Klinger, in a black velvet yarmulke, three morticians, an Israeli journalist, a cemetery employee operating a backhoe and Carrie Devorah, a photojournalist who has been helping Klinger with his campaign.

"His grandfather is what anchors us [Jews] in the world," Devorah said, gesturing to a metal box in which the morticians were placing Norman's bone fragments and wood from the disintegrated coffin they had found in the mud. "When people say, 'Go home,' we have a place to go. Before, we had nowhere to go."

Historians and others still sift through Herzl's writings and see many legacies. They note that he envisioned a Jewish state where people spoke not Hebrew, but German; that he and other early Zionists failed to understand Arab nationalism; and that in a utopian novel Herzl wrote, he describes a binational, egalitarian state.

"It's complex, not simple," said S. Ilan Troen, an Israeli studies professor at Brandeis University. "You could say, 'Who is your Herzl?' And you get different answers."

Despite Herzl's prominence, getting Norman exhumed and moved to Jerusalem was not easy. American Jewish and Israeli leaders weren't convinced of his prominence, and they were focused for several years on getting Herzl's two children moved from their graves in France (the remains of a third, Norman's mother, were never found) to Israel, a request Herzl made before he died. Jewish law also forbids suicide and the burying of people who commit suicide in Jewish cemeteries. Klinger had to commission research at the behest of Israel's chief rabbi to prove that Norman was ill, a distinction that has gained acceptance, but not among some Orthodox rabbis.

To achieve his goal, Klinger needed various approvals, including those of Adas Israel (which owns the cemetery) and the D.C. Department of Health. At Klinger's request, the Israeli Embassy signed the request to the city.

Klinger, an investment adviser, was advocating from a position of relative obscurity. He wasn't a relative of Herzl and wasn't joined by any of the large U.S. Jewish organizations. He petitioned the Israeli government through the small group he runs, the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.

"It wasn't sort of an obvious thing. Herzl didn't actually know [Norman]; it was a longer shot," said Jacob Dellal, spokesman for the Jewish Agency-World Zionist Organization, which represented Jews before the founding of the state. The group still shares jurisdiction over some state entities, including Mount Herzl.

Until Norman is buried in Israel, he is being handled as though he had just died. His remains were driven in a hearse yesterday to a Rockville funeral home, where a shomer, or guard, is reading psalms beside him, as is customary for the Jewish dead. At 10 a.m. Monday, there will be a funeral service for him at Adas Israel, in Northwest Washington. And then he will head to Israel.