(1874–1924), publisher and Zionist leader active mainly in Brno (Brünn), Moravia. Born in Slavkov u Brna (Austerlitz), Moravia, Max Hickl came from a poor family and was self-taught. As a friend of Theodor Herzl, he helped to found the organization that eventually became Labor Zionism.
At the Second Zionist Congress (1898), Hickl represented Emunah, the Association of Zionist Mercantile Employees. In 1900, he published and was editor in chief of the weekly (originally bimonthly) Jüdische Volksstimme, the oldest Zionist publication in the region. He also published Hickls jüdischer Volkskalender, an annual publication in which leading Zionists published pieces, which appeared from 1902 to 1938. Hickl founded his own publishing firm in Brno, Jüdischer Buch- und Kunstverlag (1900?–1939, with a branch office in Prague from 1932).
Hickl’s efforts to promote Zionism included leading a successful struggle by Zionists to gain control of Brno’s Jewish community administration. During World War I, he aided refugees who arrived in Moravia from Galicia. Despite an atmosphere of increasing assimilation, he remained strictly Orthodox and for several years headed Makhzikey ha-Das, Brno’s Orthodox prayer association.
The Jews of Czechoslovakia, vols. 1–3 (Philadelphia, 1968–1984), see esp. vol. 1, pp. 525, 534–535; and vol. 2, p. 77; Julius Schuller, “In Memoriam,” Jüdische Volksstimme (15 March 1930): 2; Salomon Wininger, Grosse jüdische National-biographie, vol. 3, p. 100 (Cernăuți, Rom., [1929?]).