Herzl was stunned. If the virus of anti-Semitism was rampant even in France, where could Jews be safe? In an almost mystical trance, he conceived a tract entitled "The Jewish State," eloquently urging the re-establishment of a Jewish nation in ancient Zion.

Paradoxically, Wagner's musical nationalism struck a chord in Herzl. As the Israeli author Amos Elon writes in his biography of Herzl:

"For inspiration and to dispel occasional doubts, Herzl turned to Wagnerian music. He was enraptured by the music of the great anti-Semite . . . and faithfully attended every performance of Wagner at the Paris Opera. 'Only on those nights when no Wagner was performed did I have any doubts about the correctness of my idea.' "

The pomp and ritual of "Tannhauser" made the profoundest impression. Herzl vowed that the new Jewish state would construct a splendid opera house and "cultivate majestic processions on great festive occasions." This was scarcely a bizarre response: that song and ceremony could bind and energize stateless peoples was an article of nationalist faith that Wagner personified.

The murderous evils that might flow from the same cult of ethnicity and pageantry are more grievously evident today than when Herzl wrote "The Jewish State" in 1896. For Herzl, "Tannhauser" inspired visions of liberation that mattered far more than the Jew-baiting of its composer. And this points to an abiding truth.

Herzl was fully aware of Wagner's bigotry. Indeed his first brush with anti-Semitism occurred during student demonstrations prompted by the composer's death. But all great works of art take on an existence independent of their creators' prejudices. For a free society to bar public performances of Wagner finds an unseemly parallel in Nazi bans on performing Mendelssohn because he was Jewish. Wagner's bigotry belongs to history; his music belongs to the world, including Israel.