Why did most of Herzl's children commit suicide?

Question

I'm reading the book by Shimon Peres called "The Imaginary Voyage" and I was surprised to learn that two of Theodor Herzl's three children committed suicide, and so did his only grandson Stephen. I was wondering if there was some theory to explain that such a successful leader has such descendants.
By the way, Peres is not my favorite politician out there, but he sure is a good writer. check out his book.

Answer 1

JERUSALEM — More than a century ago, Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, sat down to write his will. His heart was growing weaker and he feared his end might be near.

He stipulated his desire to be buried in the Jewish state – once it was established – alongside his children.

On Sept. 20, two coffins draped in Israeli flags containing the remains of Pauline and Hans Herzl were carried into the national cemetery named for their father and buried in the reddish brown earth of Jerusalem.

“Today, by bringing the bones of Pauline and Hans, we are completing the mission and completing a historic circle,” Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, speaking just a few feet away from the fresh graves, which were covered in sand and marked by small white plastic signs.

The two died within a day of each other in September 1930 – Pauline after a long period of homelessness and possible addiction to morphine, and Hans by his own hand. Distraught over his sister’s death, he shot himself in the head.

They were buried in a shared grave in Bordeaux, France. Their reburial in Israel ends a bizarre and dark chapter in Zionist history.

The Zionist establishment was not eager to advertise the unhappy end that the children of their visionary leader met, and did not press for their burial in Israel. Meanwhile, the Orthodox religious establishment was opposed to bringing their remains to Israel because Hans had violated Jewish law – first by converting to Christianity and later by committing suicide.

Only after Israeli historian Ariel Feldestein pursued the case for six years, after coming across related documents in a brown enveloped marked “Top Secret” at the Central Zionist Archives, did Israeli authorities begin exploring how Herzl’s final wishes might be honoured after so many years.

“Why has this not been done before in recent times?” Feldestein asked at a ceremony Sept. 19 in Bordeaux when the coffins were disinterred. “I think it’s a question of negligence.”

Officials from the Jewish Agency for Israel “came here to Bordeaux in 1949 but decided not to move the coffins. They returned in 1956 and put up a sign marking agency recognition of the coffins, but did not touch them.

For both occasions, I cannot tell you why no transfer was made,” he told JTA.

Feldestein managed to convince Israel’s Sephardi chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar, that Hans appeared to have recanted his conversion and might be considered a Jew. Rabbi Amar subsequently wrote a ruling that Hans was a Jew, that his suicide was a result of being mentally unstable and that he should be allowed to be buried in Jerusalem.

“We had the opportunity and we did it, to bring human justice to Herzl,” Feldestein said at the ceremony marking their reburial in Jerusalem.

Afterward, talking to reporters, he said times had changed. In 1956, when the state had closed the case on the subject, Israel had “different rabbis and a different generation.”

The Herzl siblings’ remains were brought to Israel as part of a joint initiative of Olmert and Zeev Bielski, chairman of the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency.

Bielski said the mission was an especially moving and essential one, since it made amends for the way the WZO snubbed Herzl’s children – and especially Pauline when she was destitute and desperate for funds.

“This is about bringing historical justice,” Bielski said.