History of Zionism
Encyclopedia
Zionism as an organized movement is generally considered to have been fathered by Theodor Herzl
in 1897; however the history of Zionism began earlier and related to Judaism
and Jewish history
. The Hovevei Zion
, or the Lovers of Zion, were responsible for the creation of 20 new Jewish settlements in Palestine between 1870 and 1897.
Before the Holocaust
the movement's central aims were the creation of a Jewish National Home and cultural centre in Palestine by facilitating Jewish migration
. After the Holocaust, the movement focussed on creation of a "Jewish state
" (usually defined as a secular state with a Jewish majority), attaining its goal in 1948 with the creation of Israel
.
Since the creation of Israel, the importance of the Zionist movement as an organization has declined, as the Israeli state has grown stronger.
The Zionist movement continues to exist, working to support Israel, assist persecuted Jews and encourage Jewish emigration to Israel
. While most Israeli political parties continue to define themselves as Zionist, modern Israeli political thought is no longer formulated within the Zionist movement.
The success of Zionism has meant that the percentage of the world's Jewish population
who live in Israel has steadily grown over the years and today 40% of the world's Jews live in Israel. There is no other example in human history of a "nation
" being restored after such a long period of existence as a Diaspora
.
, and thus later adopted in the Christian
Old Testament
. After Jacob
and his sons had gone down to Egypt to escape a drought, they were enslaved and became a nation. Later, as commanded by God, Moses
went before Pharaoh, demanded, "Let my people go!", and foretold severe consequences
, if this was not done. Most of the Torah is devoted to the story of the plagues and the Exodus
from Egypt, which is estimated at about 1400 BCE. These are celebrated annually during Passover
, and the Passover meal traditionally ends with the words "Next Year in Jerusalem."
The theme of return to their traditional homeland came up again after the Babylon
ians conquered Judea in 641 BCE and the Judeans were exiled to Babylon. In the book of Psalms
(Psalm 137
), Jews lamented their exile while Prophets like Ezekiel
foresaw their return. The Bible recounts how, in 538 BCE Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon and issued a proclamation
granting the people of Judah their freedom. 50,000 Judeans, led by Zerubbabel
returned. A second group of 5000, led by Ezra
and Nehemiah
, returned to Judea
in 456 BCE.
led a Jewish uprising in Kurdistan which aimed to reconquer the promised land. In 1648 Sabbatai Zevi
from modern Turkey claimed he would lead the Jews back to Israel. In 1868 Judah ben Shalom
led a large movement of Yemenite Jews
to Israel. A dispatch from the British Consulate in Jerusalem in 1839 reported that "the Jews of Algiers and its dependencies, are numerous in Palestine. . . ." There was also significant migration from Central Asia (Bukharan Jews
).
In addition to Messianic movements, the population of the Holy Land was slowly bolstered by Jews fleeing Christian persecution
especially after the Reconquista
of Al-Andalus
(the Muslim name of the Iberian Peninsula
). Safed became an important center of Kabbalah
. Jerusalem, Hebron
and Tiberias also had significant Jewish populations.
Eretz Israel was revered in a religious sense. They thought of a return to it in a future messianic age. Return remained a recurring theme among generations, particularly in Passover
and Yom Kippur
prayers which traditionally concluded with, "Next year in Jerusalem", and in the thrice-daily Amidah
(Standing prayer).
Jewish daily prayers include many references to "your people Israel", "your return to Jerusalem" and associate salvation with a restored presence in Israel and Jerusalem (usually accompanied by a Messiah); for example the prayer Uva Letzion
(Isiah 59"20): "And a redeemer shall come to Zion..." Aliyah (immigration to Israel) has always been considered a praiseworthy act for Jews according to Jewish law
and some Rabbis consider it one of the core 613 commandments
in Judaism. From the Middle Ages
and onwards, many famous rabbis (and often their followers) immigrated to the Land of Israel. These included Nahmanides
, Yechiel of Paris
with several hundred of his students, Joseph ben Ephraim Karo, Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk
and 300 of his followers, and over 500 disciples (and their families) of the Vilna Gaon
known as Perushim
, among others.
Jews in Catholic states were banned from owning land and from pursuing a variety of professions. From the 13th century Jews were required to wear identifying clothes such as special hats or stars on their clothing
. This form of persecution originated in tenth century Baghdad and was copied by Christian rulers. Constant expulsions and insecurity led Jews to adopt artisan professions that were easily transferable between locations (such as furniture making or tailoring).
Persecution in Spain and Portugal led large number of Jews there to convert to Christianiy, however many continued to secretly practice Jewish
rituals. The Church responded by creating the Inquisition
in 1478 and by expelling all remaining Jews in 1492
. In 1542 the inquisition expanded to include the Papal States
. Inquisitors could arbitrarily torture suspects and many victims were burnt alive.
In 1516 the state of Venice decreed that Jews would only be allowed to reside in a walled area adjacent to Venice
called the Ghetto
. Ghetto residents had to pay a daily poll tax
and could only stay a limited amount of time. In 1555 the Pope decreed that Jews in Rome were to face similar restrictions. The requirement for Jews to live in Ghettos spread across Europe and Ghettos were frequently highly overcrowded and heavily taxed. They also provided a convenient target for mobs (pogrom
).
Jews were expelled from England
in 1290. A ban remained in force that was only lifted when Oliver Cromwell
overthrew
the Catholic monarchy in 1649 (see Resettlement of the Jews in England
).
Persecution of Jews began to decline following Napoleon
's conquest of Europe after the French Revolution
although the short lived Nazi Empire resurrected most practices.
In 1965 the Catholic Church formally ended
the doctrine of holding Jews collectively responsible for the death of Jesus.
in Europe led to an 18th and 19th century Jewish enlightenment movement in Europe, called the Haskalah
. In 1791, the French Revolution
led France to become the first country in Europe to grant Jews legal equality. Britain gave Jews equal rights in 1856, Germany in 1871. The spread of western liberal ideas among newly emancipated Jews created for the first time a class of secular Jews who absorbed the prevailing ideas of enlightenment, including rationalism
, romanticism
, and nationalism
.
However, the formation of modern nations in Europe accompanied changes in the prejudices against Jews. What had previously been religious persecution now became a new phenomenon, Racial antisemitism and acquired a new name: antisemitism. Antisemites saw Jews as an alien religious, national and racial group and actively tried to prevent Jews from acquiring equal rights and citizenship. The Catholic press was at the forefront of these efforts and was quietly encouraged by the Vatican which saw its own decline in status as linked to the equality granted to Jews. By the late 19th century, the more extreme nationalist movements in Europe often promoted physical violence against Jews who they regarded as interlopers and exploiters threatening the well-being of their nations.
s and persecution in Tzarist Russia. From 1791 they were only allowed to live in the Pale of Settlement
. In response to the Jewish drive for integration and modern education (Haskalah
) and the movement for emancipation, the Tzars imposed tight quotas
on schools, universities and cities to prevent entry by Jews.
From 1827 to 1917 Russian Jewish boys were required to serve 25 years in the Russian army, starting at the age of 12. The intention was to forcibly destroy their ethnic identity, however the move severely radicalized Russia's Jews and familiarized them with nationalism and socialism.
The tsar's chief adviser Konstantin Pobedonostsev
, was reported as saying that one-third of Russia's Jews was expected to emigrate, one-third to accept baptism, and one-third to starve.
Famous incidents includes the 1913 Menahem Mendel Beilis
trial (Blood libel against Jews) and the 1903 Kishinev pogrom
.
Between 1880 and 1928, two million Jews left Russia; most emigrated to the United States
, a minority chose Palestine.
, (Russian) Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk
, (Bosnian) Rabbi Judah Alkalai
and (German) Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer
. Other advocates of Jewish independence include (American) Mordecai Manuel Noah
, (Russian) Leon Pinsker and (German) Moses Hess
.
In 1862 Moses Hess
, an associate of Karl Marx, wrote Rome and Jerusalem. The Last National Question calling for the Jews to create a socialist state in Palestine
as a means of settling the Jewish question
. Also in 1862, German Orthodox Rabbi Kalischer published his tractate Derishat Zion, arguing that the salvation of the Jews, promised by the Prophets, can come about only by self-help. In 1882, after the Odessa pogrom
, Judah Leib Pinsker published the pamphlet Auto-Emancipation
, arguing that Jews could only be truly free (automatically emancipated) in their own country and analyzing the persistent tendency of Europeans to regard Jews as aliens:
Pinsker established the Hibbat Zion
movement to actively promote Jewish settlement in Palestine. In 1890, the "Society for the Support of Jewish Farmers and Artisans in Syria and Eretz Israel" (better known as the Odessa Committee
) was officially registered as a charitable organization
in the Russian Empire
, and by 1897, it counted over 4,000 members.
public discourse in the early 19th century, at about the same time as the British Protestant Revival.
Not all such attitudes were favorable towards the Jews; they were shaped in part by a variety of Protestant beliefs,
or by a streak of philo-Semitism
among the classically educated British elite, or by hopes to extend the Empire. (See The Great Game
)
At the urging of Lord Shaftesbury, Britain established a consulate in Jerusalem in 1838, the first diplomatic appointment in the city. In 1839, the Church of Scotland
sent Andrew Bonar
and Robert Murray M'Cheyne
to report on the condition of the Jews there. The report was widely published and was followed by a "Memorandum to Protestant Monarchs of Europe for the restoration of the Jews to Palestine." In August 1840, The Times reported that the British government was considering Jewish restoration. Correspondence in 1841-42 between Moses Montefiore
, the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews
and Charles Henry Churchill
, the British consul in Damascus, is seen as the first recorded plan proposed for political Zionism.
Lord Lindsay wrote in 1847: "The soil of Palestine still enjoys her sabbaths, and only waits for the return of her banished children, and the application of industry, commensurate with her agricultural capabilities, to burst once more into universal luxuriance, and be all that she ever was in the days of Solomon."
In 1851, correspondence between Lord Stanley
, whose father became British Prime Minister the following year, and Benjamin Disraeli, who became Chancellor of the Exchequer
alongside him, records Disraeli's proto-Zionist views: "He then unfolded a plan of restoring the nation to Palestine
- said the country was admirably suited for them - the financiers all over Europe might help - the Porte
is weak - the Turks/holders of property could be bought out - this, he said, was the object of his life...."Coningsby
was merely a feeler - my views were not fully developed at that time - since then all I have written has been for one purpose. The man who should restore the Hebrew race to their country would be the Messiah - the real saviour of prophecy!" He did not add formally that he aspired to play this part, but it was evidently implied. He thought very highly of the capabilities of the country, and hinted that his chief object in acquiring power here would be to promote the return". 26 years later, Disraeli wrote in his article entitled "The Jewish Question is the Oriental Quest" (1877) that within fifty years, a nation of one million Jews would reside in Palestine under the guidance of the British.
Moses Montefiore
visited the Land of Israel seven times and fostered its development.
In 1842, Mormon leader Joseph Smith, Jr. sent a representative, Orson Hyde
, to dedicate the land of Israel for the return of the Jews. Protestant theologian William Eugene Blackstone
submitted a petition to the US president in 1891; the Blackstone Memorial
called for the return of Palestine to the Jews.
and the Rothschild
s responded to the persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe by sponsoring agricultural settlements for Russian Jews in Palestine. The Jews who migrated in this period are known as the First Aliyah
. Aliyah is a Hebrew word meaning "ascent," referring to the act of spiritually "ascending" to the Holy Land and a basic tenet of Zionism.
The movement of Jews to Palestine was opposed by the Haredi communities who lived in the Four Holy Cities
, since they were very poor and lived off charitable donations from Europe, which they feared would be used by the newcomers. However from 1800 there was a movement of Sephardi businessmen from North Africa and the Balkans to Jaffa and the growing community there perceived modernity and Aliyah as the key to salvation. Unlike the Haredi communities, the Jaffa community did not maintain separate Ashkenazi and Sephardi institutions and functioned as a single unified community.
Founded in 1878, Rosh Pinna
and Petah Tikva
were the first modern Jewish settlements.
In 1881-1882 the Tzar sponsored a huge wave of progroms in the Russian Empire
and a massive wave of Jews began leaving, mainly for America. So many Russian Jews arrived in Jaffa that the town ran out of accommodation and the local Jews began forming communities outside the Jaffa city walls. However the migrants faced difficulty finding work (the new settlements mainly needed farmers and builders) and 70% ultimately left, mostly moving on to America. One of the migrants in this period, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda
set about modernizing Hebrew so that it could be used as a national language.
Rishon LeZion was founded on 31 July 1882 by a group of ten members of Hovevei Zion
from Kharkov (today's Ukraine
). In 1887 Neve Tzedek
was built just outside Jaffa. Over 50 Jewish settlements were established in this period.
In 1890, Palestine, which was part of the Ottoman Empire
, was inhabited by about half a million people, mostly Muslim
and Christian Arabs, but also some dozens of thousands Jews.
, 19 years old, founded Kadimah, the first Jewish student association in Vienna and printed Pinsker's pamphlet Auto-Emancipation
.
The Dreyfus Affair
, which erupted in France
in 1894, profoundly shocked emancipated Jews. The depth of antisemitism in the first country to grant Jews equal rights led many to question their future prospects among Christians. Among those who witnessed the Affair was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist, Theodor Herzl
. Herzl was born in Budapest
and lived in Vienna (Jews were only allowed to live in Vienna from 1848), who published his pamphlet Der Judenstaat
("The Jewish State") in 1896 and Altneuland
("The Old New Land") in 1897. He described the Affair as a personal turning point, Herzl argued that the creation of a Jewish state would enable the Jews to join the family of nations and escape antisemitism.
Herzl
infused political Zionism with a new and practical urgency. He brought the World Zionist Organization
into being and, together with Nathan Birnbaum, planned its First Congress at Basel
in 1897.
, the following agreement, commonly known as the Basel Program, was reached:
"Under public law" is generally understood to mean seeking legal permission from the Ottoman rulers for Jewish migration. In this text the word "home" was substituted for "state" and "public law" for "international law" so as not to alarm the Ottoman Sultan.
(WZO) met every year, then, up to the Second World War, they gathered every second year. Since the creation of Israel, the Congress has met every four years.
Congress delegates were elected by the membership. Members were required to pay dues known as a "shekel," At the congress, delegates elected a 30-man executive council, which in turn elected the movement's leader. The movement was democratic and women had the right to vote, which was still absent in Great Britain in 1914.
The WZO's initial strategy was to obtain permission from the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II
to allow systematic Jewish settlement in Palestine. The support of the German Emperor, Wilhelm II, was sought, but unsuccessfully. Instead, the WZO pursued a strategy of building a homeland through persistent small-scale immigration and the founding of such bodies as the Jewish National Fund
(1901 - a charity which bought land for Jewish settlement) and the Anglo-Palestine Bank (1903 - provided loans for Jewish businesses and farmers).
While Herzl believed that the Jews needed to return to their historic homeland as a refuge from antisemitism, the opposition, led by Ahad Ha'am, believed that the Jews must revive and foster a Jewish national culture and, in particular strove to revive the Hebrew language. Many also adopted Hebraized surnames.
The opposition became known as Cultural Zionists.
Important Cultural Zionists include Ahad Ha'am, Chaim Weizmann
, Nahum Sokolow
and Menachem Ussishkin.
, suggested the British Uganda Programme, land for a Jewish state in "Uganda
" (in today's Uasin Gishu District
, Eldoret
, Kenya
). Herzl initially rejected the idea, preferring Palestine, but after the April 1903 Kishinev pogrom
, Herzl introduced a controversial proposal to the Sixth Zionist Congress to investigate the offer as a temporary measure for Russian Jews in danger. Despite its emergency and temporary nature, the proposal proved very divisive, and widespread opposition to the plan was fueled by a walkout led by the Russian Jewish delegation to the Congress. Nevertheless, a committee was established to investigate the possibility, which was eventually dismissed in the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905. After that, Palestine became the sole focus of Zionist aspirations.
Israel Zangwill
left the main Zionist movement over this decision and founded the Jewish Territorialist Organization
(ITO). The territorialists
were willing to establish a Jewish homeland anywhere, but failed to attract significant support and were dissolved in 1925.
In 1903, following the Kishinev Pogrom
, a variety of Russian antisemities, including the Black Hundreds and the Tsarist Secret Police, began combining earlier works alleging a Jewish plot to take control of the world into new formats. One particular version of these allegations, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
" (subtitle "Protocols extracted from the secret archives of the central chancery of Zion"), arranged by Sergei Nilus
, achieved global notability. In 1903, the editor claimed that the protocols revealed the menace of Zionism:
The book contains fictional minutes of an imaginary
meeting in which alleged Jewish leaders plotted to take over the world. Nilus later claimed they were presented to the elders by Herzl (the "Prince of Exile") at the first Zionist congress. A Polish edition claimed they were taken from Herzl's flat in Austria and a 1920 German version renamed them "The Zionist Protocols".
, who led the movement until 1911. During this period, the movement was based in Berlin (Germany's Jews were the most assimilated
) and made little progress, failing to win support among the Young Turks
after the collapse of the Ottoman Regime. From 1911 to 1921, the movement was led by Dr. Otto Warburg
.
. However, as the cultural and socialist Zionists increasingly broke with tradition and used language contrary to the outlook of most religious Jewish communities, many orthodox religious organizations began opposing Zionism. Their opposition was based on its secularism and on the grounds that only the Messiah
could re-establish Jewish rule in Israel. Therefore, most Orthodox Jews maintained the traditional Jewish belief that while the Land of Israel was given to the ancient Israelites by God
, and the right of the Jews to that land was permanent and inalienable, the Messiah must appear before the land could return to Jewish control.
While Zionism aroused Ashkenazi
orthodox antagonism in Europe (probably due to Modernist European antagonism to organized religion), and also in the United States, it aroused no such antagonism in the Islamic world.
Prior to the Holocaust
, Reform Judaism
rejected Zionism as inconsistent with the requirements of Jewish citizenship in the diaspora.
, Leon Trotsky
provided arms so the Zionists could protect the Jewish community and this prevented a pogrom. Zionist leader Jabotinsky eventually led the Jewish resistance in Odessa. During his subsequent trial Trotsky produced evidence that the Police had organized the effort to create a pogrom in Odessa.
The vicious pogroms led to a wave of immigrants to Palestine. This new wave expanded the Revival of the Hebrew language. In 1909 a group of 65 Zionists laid the foundations for a modern city in Palestine. The city was named after the Hebrew title of Herzl's book "The Old New Land
" - Tel-Aviv.
Tel Aviv
had a modern "scientific" school, the Herzliya Hebrew High School
, the first such school to teach only in Hebrew. All the cities affairs were conducted in Hebrew.
In Jerusalem, foundations were laid for a Jewish University (the Hebrew University), one which would teach only in Hebrew and which the Zionists hoped would help them prove their usefulness to the Turks (this did not come to fruition until 1918). In Haifa, the cornerstone was laid for a Jewish Technical school, the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.
Jewish migrants and organizations began making large land purchases, in particular buying malarial swamps (of which there were many) and draining them to produce highly fertile land.
In 1911 a socialist commune was given some land near the Sea of Galilee, forming the first Kibbutz
, Degania.
, Karl Marx
wrote "Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist." Concluding with the words: "the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism". Marx specifically stated that there would be no Jews in a socialist paradise and Marxist Jews were often highly anxious to reject their association with orthodox Jews and make a new start.
In Eastern Europe the General Jewish Labour Bund called for Jewish autonomy
within Eastern Europe and promoted Yiddish as the Jewish language. Like Zionism, the Bund was founded in 1897. It also claimed national rights for Jews, but within Eastern Europe. The Bund was part of the socialist movement and claimed Jewish national rights within the socialist movement, which recognized various national groups but not Jews. The socialist movement had failed to publicly condemn the pogroms. The Bund leadership opposed Zionism and Orthodox Judaism. Socialist Zionism competed with the Bund (and other socialist parties) for the hearts and minds of Jewish socialists.
In 1917 there was a Russian revolution and the Bolsheviks took power. At this point the Bund had 30,000 members in Russia, compared to 300,000 Zionist members (about 10% of these were Marxists). Antisemites assumed the Bolsheviks were largely Jewish (calling it Jewish Bolshevism
) and the Bolsheviks did give Jews equal rights as individuals, however they were intolerant of religious Judaism and of Zionism, both of which were eventually banned.
The Bund disbanded and most members joined the Yevsektsia, a Jewish section of the Bolshevik organization created by Stalin who was People's Commissariat of Nationalities.The Yevsektsia worked to end Jewish communal and religious life:
The 1918 - 1923 Russian civil war
followed the revolution and saw terrible atrocities against Jews, particularly in the Ukraine:
During the Civil War, the Marxist Zionist movement, Poale Zion
led by Ber Borochov
, requested to form Jewish Brigades within the Red Army. Trotsky supported the request but opposition from the Yevsektsia led to the proposal's failure. Poale Zion continued to exist in the USSR until 1928. The future Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion was a member of the Israeli branch of the movement.
In 1924 Stalin became the ruler of the USSR and in 1928 Trotsky was sent into exile. In 1928 a Jewish Autonomous Oblast
was created in the Russian Far East
and Hebrew was outlawed (the only language to be outlawed in the USSR). Few Jews were tempted by the Soviet Jewish Republic and as of 2002 Jews constitute only about 1.2% of its population.
mentality" among the Jewish people and established rural communes in Israel called "Kibbutz
im". Major theoreticians of Socialist Zionism included Moses Hess
, Nachman Syrkin
, Ber Borochov
and A. D. Gordon
, and leading figures in the movement included David Ben-Gurion
and Berl Katznelson
. Socialist Zionists rejected Yiddish as a language of exile, embracing Hebrew as the common Jewish tongue.
Gordon believed that the Jews lacked a "normal" class structure and that the various classes that constitute a nation had to be created artificially. Socialist Zionists therefore set about becoming Jewish peasants and proletarians and focused on settling land and working on it. According to Gordon "the land if Israel is bought with labour: not with blood and not with fire".
Socialist Zionism became a dominant force in Israel. However, it exacerbated the schism between Zionism and Orthodox Judaism
.
Socialist Zionists formed youth movements which became influential organizations in their own right including Habonim Dror
, Hashomer Hatzair
, Machanot Halolim and HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed
. During British rule the lack of available immigration permits to Palestine, led the youth movements to operate training programs in Europe which prepared Jews for migration to Palestine. As a result most Socialist-Zionist immigrants arrived already speaking Hebrew, trained in agriculture and prepared for life in Palestine.
In 1911, Zionist activist Hannah Meisel Shochat established Havat Ha'Almot (the girl's farm) to train Zionist women in farming so as to assist in the Zionist program of developing the land for mass settlement. The famous poet Rachel Bluwstein
was one of the graduates. Zionist settlers were usually young and far from their families so a relatively permissive culture was able to develop. Within the Kibbutz movement child rearing was done communally thus freeing women to work (and fight) alongside the men.
Roza Pomerantz-Meltzer
was the first woman elected to the Sejm
, the Parliament of Poland
. She was elected in 1919 as a member of a Zionist party.
In Mandatory Palestine women in Jewish towns could vote in elections before women won the right to vote in Britain.
noted the movement's spread: "not only in the number of Jews affiliated with the Zionist organization and congress, but also in the fact that there is hardly a nook or corner of the Jewish world in which Zionistic societies are not to be found."
Support for Zionism was not a purely European and Ashkenazi phenomenon. In the Arab world, the first Zionist branches opened in Morocco
only a few years after the Basel conference, and the movement became popular among Jews living within the Arab and Muslim world. Although levels of persecution were generally lower there, Jewish residents still faced some religious persecution, prejudice and occasional violence. A number of the founders of the city of Tel Aviv
were Moroccan Jewish immigrants. Ottoman Salonika had a vigorous Zionist movement by 1908.
While Zionist leaders and advocates followed conditions in the land of Israel and travelled there regularly, their concern before 1917 was with the future of the small Jewish settlement. A Jewish state seemed highly unlikely at this point and realistic aspirations focussed on creating a new centre for Jewish life. The future of the land's Arab inhabitants concerned them as little as the welfare of the Jews concerned Arab leaders.
became involved in Zionism, just before the First World War, that Zionism gained significant support. By 1917, the American Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs, which Brandeis chaired had increased American Zionist membership ten times to 200,000 members, and “thenceforth became the financial center for the world Zionist movement”.
As in the US, England had experienced a rapid growth in their Jewish minority. About 150,000 Jews migrated there from Russia in the period 1881–1914. With this immigration influx, pressure grew from British voters to halt it; added to the established knowledge in British society of Old Testament
scripture, Zionism became an attractive solution for both Britain and the Empire.
In the search for support, Herzl, before his death, had made the most progress with the German Kaiser, joining him on his 1898 trip to Palestine. At the outbreak of war in 1914, the offices of the Zionist Organization were located in Berlin and led by Otto Warburg
, a German citizen. With different national sections of the movement supporting different sides in the war, Zionist policy was to maintain strict neutrality and "to demonstrate complete loyalty to Turkey," the German ally controlling Palestine.
Following Turkey's entry into World War I
in August however, the Zionists were expelled from Tel Aviv and its environs. When the war started in 1914, most Jews viewed Tsarist Russia
, on the Allied side, as the historic enemy of the Jewish people and there was tremendous support for Germany. In much of Eastern Europe the advancing Germans were regarded as liberators by the Jews. Russian Jewish immigrants to Britain avoided the draft. In England the Polish Zionist, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, worked to create a Jewish division in the British army. For the British, the Jewish Legion
, was a means of recruiting Russian immigrants to the British war effort. The legion was dominated by Zionist volunteers.
In the United States, still officially neutral, most Russian and German Jews supported the Germans as did much of the large Irish American
community. Britain was anxious to win US support for its war effort, and winning over Jewish financial and popular support in the US was considered vital.
The most prominent Russian-Zionist migrant in Britain was chemist Chaim Weizmann
. Weizmann developed a new process to produce Acetone
, a critical ingredient in manufacturing explosives that Britain was unable to manufacture in sufficient quantity. In 1915, the British government fell as a result of its inability to manufacture enough artillery shells
for the war effort. In the new Government, David Lloyd George
became the minister responsible for armaments, and asked Weizmann to develop his process for mass production.
Lloyd George was an evangelical Christian and pro-Zionist. According to Lloyd George when he asked Weizmann about payment for his efforts to help Britain, Weizmann told him that he wanted no money, just the rights over Palestine. Weizmann became a close associate of Lloyd George (Prime Minister from 1916) and the First Lord of the Admiralty (Foreign Secretary from 1916), Arthur Balfour
.
In 1916 Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca
(in Arabia), began an "Arab Revolt
" hoping to create an Arab state in the Middle East. In the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence British representatives promised they would allow him to create such a state. They also provided him with large sums of money to fund his revolt.
In February 1917 the Tsar was overthrown
and Alexander Kerensky
became Prime Minister of the Russian Empire. Jews were prominent in the new government and the British hoped that Jewish support would help keep Russia in the war. In June 1917 the British army, led by Edmund Allenby, invaded Palestine. The Jewish Legion
participated in the invasion and Jabotinsky was awarded for bravery. Arab forces conquered Transjordan
and later took over Damascus.
In August 1917, as the British cabinet discussed the Balfour Declaration, Edwin Samuel Montagu
, the only Jew in the British Cabinet and a staunch anti-Zionist, "was passionately opposed to the declaration on the grounds that (a) it was a capitulation to anti-Semitic bigotry, with its suggestion that Palestine was the natural destination of the Jews, and that (b) it would be a grave cause of alarm to the Muslim world.". Additional references to the future rights of non-Jews in Palestine and the status of Jews worldwide, were thus inserted by the British cabinet, reflecting the opinion of the only Jew within it. As the draft was finalized, the term "state" was replaced with "home", and comments were sought from Zionists abroad. Louis Brandeis, a member of the US Supreme Court, influenced the style of the text and changed the words "Jewish race" to "Jewish people".
On November 2, the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour
, made his landmark Balfour Declaration of 1917, expressing the government's view in favour of "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people", and specifically noting that its establishment must not "prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
As the declaration was being finalized, the Bolsheviks took over
Russia. On 23 November, they released a copy of the previously secret Sykes–Picot Agreement, among others, publishing its full text in Izvestia
and Pravda
, and it was subsequently printed in the Manchester Guardian on November 26. This caused Britain great embarrassment, because of the conflicting plans and promises it revealed.
(who had also spent the first world war in Britain). Weizmann resumed presidency of the WZO in 1935 and led it until 1946.
After the defeat and dismantling of the Ottoman Empire by European colonial powers in 1918, the League of Nations
endorsed the full text of the Balfour Declaration and established the British Mandate
for Palestine (Full text:).
In addition to accepting the Balfour Declaration policy statement, the League included that “[a]n appropriate Jewish agency
shall be recognised as a public body for the purpose of advising and co-operating with the Administration of Palestine..." This inclusion paralleled a similar proposal made by the Zionist Organization
during the Paris Peace Conference
.
The Zionist movement entered a new phase of activity. Its priorities were encouraging Jewish settlement in Palestine, building the institutional foundations of a Jewish state and raising funds for these purposes. The 1920s did see a steady growth in the Jewish population and the construction of state-like Jewish institutions, but also saw the emergence of Palestinian Arab nationalism and growing resistance to Jewish immigration.
(the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine) and his son Zevi Judah, began to develop the concept of Religious Zionism
. At the time, Kook was concerned that growing secularism of Zionist supporters and increasing antagonism towards the movement from the largely non-Zionist Orthodox community might lead to a schism between them. He therefore sought to create a brand of Zionism which would serve as a bridge between Jewish Orthodoxy and secular Jewish Zionists, for the benefit of the overall Zionist endeavor.
The Religious Zionists established a youth movement called Bnei Akiva
in 1929, and a number of Religious Kibbutzim
.
, the British banned Jabotinsky from re-entering Palestine, and until his death in 1940, he advocated the more militant revisionist ideology in Europe and America. In 1935, he and the Revisionists left the mainstream Zionist Organization
and formed the New Zionist Organization. Following mainstream Zionism's' acceptance of their earlier militant demand for a Jewish state they eventually rejoined in 1946.
During this period, Revisionist Zionism was detested by the competing Socialist Zionist movement, which saw them as being capitalist and influenced by Fascism
; the movement also caused a great deal of concern among Arab Palestinians.
Revisionism was popular in Poland but lacked large support in Palestine. The Revisionists refused to comply with British quotas on Jewish migration, and, following the election of Hitler in Germany, the Revisionist youth movements HeHalutz
and Beitar began to organize illegal Jewish migration to Palestine. In Europe and America they advocated pressing Britain to allow mass Jewish emigration and the formation of a Jewish Army in Palestine. The army would force the Arab population to accept mass Jewish migration and promote British interests in the region.
" program. The latter was an effort to increase Jewish immigrant employment, secure the creation of a Jewish proletariat, and to prevent Zionist settlement from turning into a standard colonial enterprise. Initially, it sought to develop separate settlements and economies and campaigned for the exclusive employment of Jews; it later campaigned against the employment of Arabs. Its adverse effects on the Arab majority were increasingly noted by the mandatory administration.
In 1919 Hashemite
Emir Faisal
, signed the Faisal–Weizmann Agreement. He wrote:
In their first meeting in June 1918 Weizmann had assured Faisal that
Initially Palestinian Arabs looked to the Arab-nationalist leaders to create a single Arab state, however Faisal's agreement with Weizmann led Palestinian-Arabs to develop their own brand of nationalism and call for Palestine to become a state governed by the Arab majority, in particular they demanded an elected assembly.
Zionist supporters were by now aware of Arab opposition, and this led the movement in 1921 to pass a motion calling on the leadership to "forge a true understanding with the Arab nation".
In 1921, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
was appointed as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
by the Palestine High Commissioner Herbert Samuel
, after he had been pardoned for his role in the 1920 Palestine riots
. During the following decades, he became the focus of Palestinian opposition to Zionism.
The Mufti believed that Jews were seeking to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem
on the site of the Dome of the Rock
and Al-Aqsa Mosque
. This led to a long confrontation over the use of the Kotel
, also known as the Wailing Wall, which was owned by the Moslem authorities
but was sacred to Jews.
Religious tension, an international economic crisis (affecting crop prices) and nationalist tension (over Zionist immigration) led to the 1929 Palestine riots
. In these religious-nationalist riots Jews were massacred in Hebron
and the survivors forced to leave the town. Devastation also took place in Safed
and Jerusalem.
In 1936 an Arab uprising occurred, which lasted for three years. The Supreme Muslim Council
in Palestine, led by the Mufti, organized the revolt. During the revolt the Mufti was forced to flee to Iraq, where he was involved in a pro-Nazi coup during which the Jewish areas of Baghdad were subjected to a pogrom
.
In 1939 he rejected as insufficient the British White Paper
which imposed restrictions on Jewish immigration and land acquisition by Jews.
After the British reoccupied Iraq the Mufti joined the Nazis. He worked with Himmler
and aided the SS
his main role was broadcasting propaganda and recruiting Moslems, primarily for the Waffen SS in Bosnia
. There is also evidence that he was implicated in the Nazi extermination program.
In 1948 the Mufti returned to Egypt. He was involved in the short-lived All-Palestine Government
sponsored by Egypt but was sidelined by most of the Arab countries.
expressed his concern in a letter to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt
lest the US support for Zionism will infringe on the rights of the Arabs of Palestine. On April 5, 1945, the President replied in a letter to the King that
Following Roosevelt's death, the Truman administration publicly adhered to the policy announced in the letter in an official statement released on October 18, 1945.
Churchill also restricted Jewish migration to an annual quota decided by the British. Certificates allowing migration were distributed by the Jewish Agency. Jews with 1000 Pounds in cash or Jewish professionals with 500 Pounds in cash could emigrate freely. Churchill's reforms made it hard for Arab Jews
, Orthodox Jews and Revisionist Zionists from Poland to migrate to Palestine as the Jewish Agency was dominated by European Zionists, and increasingly by Socialist Zionists.
Immigration restrictions did, however mean that Jewish immigrants to Palestine had to prove their loyalty and dedication by spending years preparing for migration. Many immigrants arrived after rigorous preparation including agricultural and ideological training and learning Hebrew.
The rise to power of Adolf Hitler
in Germany in 1933 produced a powerful new impetus for increased Zionist support and immigration to Palestine. The long-held assimilationist and non-Zionist view that Jews could live securely as minorities in European societies was deeply undermined, since Germany had been regarded previously as the country in which Jews had been most successfully integrated. With nearly all other countries closed to Jewish immigration, a new wave of migrants headed for Palestine. Those unable to pay the fees required for immediate entry by the British had to join the waiting lists.
Nazi efforts to induce Jews to leave Germany were made, but were undermined by their refusal to allow them to take their property also. In response, Haim Arlozorov of the Jewish Agency negotiated the Haavara Agreement
with the Nazis, whereby German Jews could buy and then export German manufactured goods to Palestine. In Palestine the goods were later sold and the income returned to the migrants. As a result of this agreement, the influx of capital gave a much-needed economic boost in the midst of the great depression
. Arlozorov, however, was assassinated shortly after his return, it was generally believed by members of the Irgun
(in recent years it has been suggested that Nazi propaganda Minister Goebbels
may have ordered the assassination to hide Arlozorov's connection with his wife
).
Starting in 1934, the Revisionists also began organizing illegal immigration, and combined, the Jewish population of Palestine rose rapidly. While these conditions also led to increased Arab immigration, the rapid rise in Jewish immigrants eventually led to the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine.
By 1938, the increasing pressure put on European Jews also led mainstream Zionists to organize illegal immigration.
, established a new party, the British Union of Fascists
, which claimed that "the Jews" were leading Britain to war and campaigned for peace with Germany. British support for Zionism was further undermined by the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine and concern that millions of Jews would soon be seeking entry to Palestine. The Nuremberg Laws
effectively revoked the citizenship of the 500,000 Jews of Germany, making them refugees in their own country. In March 1938 Hitler annexed Austria
making its 200,000 Jews stateless refugees. In September the British agreed to Nazi annexation
of the Sudetenland
making a further 100,000 Jews refugees.
In the absence of alternative destinations
, over 100,000 German Jews headed for Palestine.
In 1939 the British issued a White Paper
, in which they declared that a Jewish National Home now existed and that their obligations under the mandate were fulfilled. Further migration would be harmful to the Arab population.
A further 10,000 Jews a year were to be admitted from 1939 to 1944 as well as a one-time allowance of 25,000 in view of the situation in Europe. After that Jewish migration would require (the extremely unlikely) agreement of the Arab majority (by this time Jews were about a third of the population). The British promised Palestinians independence by 1949 and imposed restrictions on land purchases by Jews.
The British were concerned about maintaining Arab support as Italian Fascist and German Nazi propaganda was targeting the Arab world (and winning support). Jewish support in the fight against Fascism was guaranteed. In Palestine, Zionists increasingly viewed the British as an enemy, but they deemed the fight against the Nazis more important. In 1940 a group led by Avraham Stern
, later known as Lehi
, left the Irgun
over its refusal to fight the British.
. Zionism and Orthodox Judaism were banned and Jews were prominent among the victims of the Soviet genocide. These figures suggest Zionism was very popular among Jews.
The following figures relate to the last pre-war Zionist congress in Geneva, 1939. Elections for the congress were held in 48 countries and 529 delegates attended. Members of the movement voted for the parties. Each party submitted a delegate list. Seats were distributed to the parties according to the number of votes they obtained and candidates elected in the order in which they were named on the list. This system today forms the basis for Israeli elections.
, a group of 1213 Jews who survived the whole war while making trouble for the Nazis. Nazi allies Hungary
, Romania
, Slovakia
and Croatia
(mainly Romania) were responsible for the deaths of at least 10% of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust. Axis governments, local police forces and local volunteers across Europe played a critical role in rounding up or executing Jews for the Nazis.
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
of January and April 1943 included the participation of both right- and left-leaning Zionist organizations. Zionists of all political spectra played a leading role in the struggle. The uprising's left-leaning survivors eventually made their way to Palestine and founded two Kibbutzim, Lohamei HaGeta'ot and Yad Mordechai
.
In Palestine the Zionist leadership instructed all able-bodied Jews to volunteer for the British Army. In addition there was an effort to parachute fighters into Europe, though little came of this. Fearing a Nazi invasion, the Jewish community prepared for a final stand to be made against the Nazis.
Overall the yishuv leaders had not done enough in publicizing and trying to stop the Holocaust. While they could have succeeded in saving thousands of Jews if rescuing Jews had been their top priority, rather than state creation, they had no power to "stop" the Holocaust. In the words of Tom Segev
:
Efforts were made to offer the Nazis money for the release of Jews. However, these efforts were systematically (and, according to Segev, cynically) destroyed by the British.
The 1942 Zionist conference could not be held because of the war. Instead 600 Jewish leaders (not just Zionists) met at the Biltmore Hotel in New York and adopted a statement known as the Biltmore Program. They agreed that the Zionist movement would seek the creation of a Jewish state after the war and that all Jewish organizations would fight to ensure free Jewish migration into Palestine.
This calamity led to important changes in Jewish and Zionist politics:
, to investigate the situation of the Jewish survivors ("Sh'erit ha-Pletah
") in Europe. Harrison reported that
Despite winning the 1945 British election with a manifesto promising to create a Jewish state in Palestine, the Labour Government succumbed to Foreign Office pressure and kept Palestine closed to Jewish migration.
In Europe former Jewish partisans
led by Abba Kovner
began to organize escape routes ("Berihah
") taking Jews from Eastern Europe down to the Mediterranean where the Jewish Agency organized ships ("Aliyah Bet") to illegally carry them to Palestine.
The British government responded by trying to force Jews to return to their places of origin. Holocaust survivors entering the British Zone were denied assistance or forced to live in hostels with former Nazi collaborators (Britain gave asylum to a large number of Belorussian Nazi collaborators
after the war). In American-controlled zones, political pressure from Washington allowed Jews to live in their own quarters and meant the US Army helped Jews trying to escape the centres of genocide.
Despite the death of almost a third of the world's Jews during the Second World War, the number of fee paying members of the Zionist movement continued to grow. The December 1946 Zionist congress in Basle (Switzerland) attracted 375 delegates from 43 countries representing two million fee paying members. As before the largest parties were the Socialist Zionist parties although these lacked a full majority. Only ten of the delegates were British Jews.
investigated the situation and offered two solutions :
From the Zionist point of view, the second option corresponded to their goal and they gave full support to this.
On 29 November the United Nations General Assembly
voted to partition Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state (with Jerusalem becoming an international enclave). Amid public rejoicing in Jewish communities in Palestine, the Jewish Agency accepted the plan. The Palestinian Arab leadership and the Arab League rejected the decision and announced that they would not abide by it. Civil conflict between the Arabs and Jews in Palestine
ensued immediately.
.
David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel objected to the Zionist Organization's more moderate approach in attaining Jewish statehood, and later objected to its continued existence, which he saw as competition and largely irrelevant following the formation of the state; he clashed with the leadership of the international Zionist Organization. The ZO's main activities at this point were relegated to assisting persecuted Jews, usually in countries where Zionism was illegal, and assisting immigration to Israel in countries where Jews faced little persecution, plus raising awareness and encouraging support for Israel.
Most Diaspora Jews identify with Zionism and have done so since the 1930s, in the sense that they support the State of Israel, even if they do not choose to emigrate; the Zionist movement also has undertaken a variety of roles to encourage support for Israel. These have included encouraging immigration and assisting immigrants in absorption and integration, fund-raising on behalf of needs and development, encouraging private capital investment, and mobilizing public opinion support for Israel internationally. Worldwide Jewish political and financial support has been of vital importance for Israel.
The 1967 war between Israel and the Arab states (the "Six-Day War
") marked a major turning point in the history of both Israel and of Zionism. Israeli forces captured the eastern half of Jerusalem, including the holiest of Jewish religious sites, the Western Wall
of the ancient Temple. They also took over the remaining territories of pre-1948 Palestine, the West Bank
(from Jordan) the Gaza Strip
(from Egypt
) as well as the Golan Heights (from Syria).
The 28th Zionist Congress (Jerusalem, 1968) adopted the following five principles, known as the "Jerusalem Program", as the aims of contemporary Zionism:
The election of 1977
, characterized as “the revolution”, brought the nationalistic, right-wing, Revisionist Zionist
, Likud
Party to power, after thirty years in opposition to the dominant Labor party and indicated further movement to the political right. Joel Greenburg, writing in The New York Times
twenty years after the election, notes its significance and that of related events; he writes:
Control of the West Bank and Gaza placed Israel in the position of control over a large population of Palestinian Arabs. Over the years this has generated conflict between competing core Zionist ideals of an egalitarian democratic state on the one hand, and territorial loyalty to historic Jewish areas, particularly the old city of Jerusalem, on the other. Zionism and its ideological underpinnings have become less important in Israeli politics, except for on-going national debate over the nature of what is meant by a "Jewish State," and the geographic limits of the State of Israel. These debates however, have largely taken place outside Zionist organizations, and within Israeli national politics.
In 1975 the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 was passed. It stated that "zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination." Resolution 3379 was rescinded in 1991 by the Resolution 4686.
In 2001, the first ever environmental Zionist organization, the Green Zionist Alliance
, was founded by a group of American and Israeli environmentalists led by Dr. Alon Tal, Rabbi Michael Cohen and Dr. Eilon Schwartz. The Green Zionist Alliance
focuses on the environment of Israel and its region.
Soviet propaganda backfired in 1967 and led to a major spurt of Jews applying to leave for Israel. The Zionist movement mounted a major campaign to pressure the USSR to allow Soviet Jews to migrate to Israel.
Zionist activists in the USSR studied Hebrew (illegal in the USSR), held clandestine religious ceremonies (circumcision was illegal) and monitored Human Rights
abuses on behalf of western organizations. The most prominent activist was Anatoly Sharansky, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his actions before being exchanged for a Soviet spy.
Over the years a number of Israeli and American Jewish organizations, most notably SSSJ
and NCSJ
, mounted a political campaign to free Soviet Jews. Aided with the efforts of Reagan administration
, this campaign eventually succeeded in 1987 when most refusniks we released from prison and allowed to immigrate to Israel.
Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl , born Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl was an Ashkenazi Jew Austro-Hungarian journalist and the father of modern political Zionism and in effect the State of Israel.-Early life:...
in 1897; however the history of Zionism began earlier and related to Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
and Jewish history
Jewish history
Jewish history is the history of the Jews, their religion and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions and cultures. Since Jewish history is over 4000 years long and includes hundreds of different populations, any treatment can only be provided in broad strokes...
. The Hovevei Zion
Hovevei Zion
Hovevei Zion , also known as Hibbat Zion , refers to organizations that are now considered the forerunners and foundation-builders of modern Zionism....
, or the Lovers of Zion, were responsible for the creation of 20 new Jewish settlements in Palestine between 1870 and 1897.
Before the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
the movement's central aims were the creation of a Jewish National Home and cultural centre in Palestine by facilitating Jewish migration
Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...
. After the Holocaust, the movement focussed on creation of a "Jewish state
Jewish state
A homeland for the Jewish people was an idea that rose to the fore in the 19th century in the wake of growing anti-Semitism and Jewish assimilation. Jewish emancipation in Europe paved the way for two ideological solutions to the Jewish Question: cultural assimilation, as envisaged by Moses...
" (usually defined as a secular state with a Jewish majority), attaining its goal in 1948 with the creation of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
.
Since the creation of Israel, the importance of the Zionist movement as an organization has declined, as the Israeli state has grown stronger.
The Zionist movement continues to exist, working to support Israel, assist persecuted Jews and encourage Jewish emigration to Israel
Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...
. While most Israeli political parties continue to define themselves as Zionist, modern Israeli political thought is no longer formulated within the Zionist movement.
The success of Zionism has meant that the percentage of the world's Jewish population
Jewish population
Jewish population refers to the number of Jews in the world. Precise figures are difficult to calculate because the definition of "Who is a Jew" is a source of controversy.-Total population:...
who live in Israel has steadily grown over the years and today 40% of the world's Jews live in Israel. There is no other example in human history of a "nation
Nation
A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...
" being restored after such a long period of existence as a Diaspora
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
.
Biblical precedents
The precedence for Jews to return to their ancestral homeland, motivated by strong divine intervention, first appears in the TorahTorah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
, and thus later adopted in the Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
. After Jacob
Jacob
Jacob "heel" or "leg-puller"), also later known as Israel , as described in the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the New Testament and the Qur'an was the third patriarch of the Hebrew people with whom God made a covenant, and ancestor of the tribes of Israel, which were named after his descendants.In the...
and his sons had gone down to Egypt to escape a drought, they were enslaved and became a nation. Later, as commanded by God, Moses
Moses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
went before Pharaoh, demanded, "Let my people go!", and foretold severe consequences
Plagues of Egypt
The Plagues of Egypt , also called the Ten Plagues or the Biblical Plagues, were ten calamities that, according to the biblical Book of Exodus, Israel's God, Yahweh, inflicted upon Egypt to persuade Pharaoh to release the ill-treated Israelites from slavery. Pharaoh capitulated after the tenth...
, if this was not done. Most of the Torah is devoted to the story of the plagues and the Exodus
The Exodus
The Exodus is the story of the departure of the Israelites from ancient Egypt described in the Hebrew Bible.Narrowly defined, the term refers only to the departure from Egypt described in the Book of Exodus; more widely, it takes in the subsequent law-givings and wanderings in the wilderness...
from Egypt, which is estimated at about 1400 BCE. These are celebrated annually during Passover
Passover
Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...
, and the Passover meal traditionally ends with the words "Next Year in Jerusalem."
The theme of return to their traditional homeland came up again after the Babylon
Babylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
ians conquered Judea in 641 BCE and the Judeans were exiled to Babylon. In the book of Psalms
Psalms
The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...
(Psalm 137
Psalm 137
Psalm 137 is one of the best known of the Biblical psalms. Its opening lines, "By the rivers of Babylon..." have been set to music on several occasions....
), Jews lamented their exile while Prophets like Ezekiel
Ezekiel
Ezekiel , "God will strengthen" , is the central protagonist of the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible. In Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Ezekiel is acknowledged as a Hebrew prophet...
foresaw their return. The Bible recounts how, in 538 BCE Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon and issued a proclamation
Proclamation
A proclamation is an official declaration.-England and Wales:In English law, a proclamation is a formal announcement , made under the great seal, of some matter which the King in Council or Queen in Council desires to make known to his or her subjects: e.g., the declaration of war, or state of...
granting the people of Judah their freedom. 50,000 Judeans, led by Zerubbabel
Zerubbabel
Zerubbabel was a governor of the Persian Province of Judah and the grandson of Jehoiachin, penultimate king of Judah. Zerubbabel led the first group of Jews, numbering 42,360, who returned from the Babylonian Captivity in the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia . The date is generally thought to...
returned. A second group of 5000, led by Ezra
Ezra
Ezra , also called Ezra the Scribe and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible he returned from the Babylonian exile and reintroduced the Torah in Jerusalem...
and Nehemiah
Nehemiah
Nehemiah ]]," Standard Hebrew Nəḥemya, Tiberian Hebrew Nəḥemyāh) is the central figure of the Book of Nehemiah, which describes his work rebuilding Jerusalem and purifying the Jewish community. He was the son of Hachaliah, Nehemiah ]]," Standard Hebrew Nəḥemya, Tiberian Hebrew Nəḥemyāh) is the...
, returned to Judea
Judea
Judea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...
in 456 BCE.
Precursors
In 1160 David AlroyDavid Alroy
David Alroy was a Jewish pseudo-Messiah born in Amadiya, Iraq. David Alroy studied Torah and Talmud under Hisdai the Exilarch, and Ali, the head of the Academy in Baghdad. He was also well-versed in Muslim literature and known as a worker of magic....
led a Jewish uprising in Kurdistan which aimed to reconquer the promised land. In 1648 Sabbatai Zevi
Sabbatai Zevi
Sabbatai Zevi, , was a Sephardic Rabbi and kabbalist who claimed to be the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. He was the founder of the Jewish Sabbatean movement...
from modern Turkey claimed he would lead the Jews back to Israel. In 1868 Judah ben Shalom
Judah ben Shalom
Judah ben Shalom , also known as Mori Shooker Kohail II or Shukr Kuhayl II , was a Yemenite messianic pretender of the mid-19th century....
led a large movement of Yemenite Jews
Yemenite Jews
Yemenite Jews are those Jews who live, or whose recent ancestors lived, in Yemen . Between June 1949 and September 1950, the overwhelming majority of Yemen's Jewish population was transported to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet...
to Israel. A dispatch from the British Consulate in Jerusalem in 1839 reported that "the Jews of Algiers and its dependencies, are numerous in Palestine. . . ." There was also significant migration from Central Asia (Bukharan Jews
Bukharan Jews
Bukharan Jews, also Bukharian Jews or Bukhari Jews, or яҳудиёни Бухоро Yahūdieni Bukhoro , Bukhori Hebrew Script: יהודיאני בוכאראי and יהודיאני בוכארי), also called the Binai Israel, are Jews from Central Asia who speak Bukhori, a dialect of the Tajik-Persian language...
).
In addition to Messianic movements, the population of the Holy Land was slowly bolstered by Jews fleeing Christian persecution
Inquisition
The Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis , was the "fight against heretics" by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It started in the 12th century, with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heresy...
especially after the Reconquista
Reconquista
The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...
of Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
(the Muslim name of the Iberian Peninsula
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
). Safed became an important center of Kabbalah
Kabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
. Jerusalem, Hebron
Hebron
Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
and Tiberias also had significant Jewish populations.
Aliyah and the ingathering of the exiles
Among Jews in the DiasporaJewish diaspora
The Jewish diaspora is the English term used to describe the Galut גלות , or 'exile', of the Jews from the region of the Kingdom of Judah and Roman Iudaea and later emigration from wider Eretz Israel....
Eretz Israel was revered in a religious sense. They thought of a return to it in a future messianic age. Return remained a recurring theme among generations, particularly in Passover
Passover
Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...
and Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur , also known as Day of Atonement, is the holiest and most solemn day of the year for the Jews. Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Jews traditionally observe this holy day with a 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue...
prayers which traditionally concluded with, "Next year in Jerusalem", and in the thrice-daily Amidah
Amidah
The Amidah , also called the Shmoneh Esreh , is the central prayer of the Jewish liturgy. This prayer, among others, is found in the siddur, the traditional Jewish prayer book...
(Standing prayer).
Jewish daily prayers include many references to "your people Israel", "your return to Jerusalem" and associate salvation with a restored presence in Israel and Jerusalem (usually accompanied by a Messiah); for example the prayer Uva Letzion
Uva Letzion
Uva letzion are the Hebrew opening words, and colloquially the name, of the closing prayer of the weekday morning service, before which one should not leave the synagogue...
(Isiah 59"20): "And a redeemer shall come to Zion..." Aliyah (immigration to Israel) has always been considered a praiseworthy act for Jews according to Jewish law
Halakha
Halakha — also transliterated Halocho , or Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish...
and some Rabbis consider it one of the core 613 commandments
613 mitzvot
The 613 commandments is a numbering of the statements and principles of law, ethics, and spiritual practice contained in the Torah or Five Books of Moses...
in Judaism. From the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
and onwards, many famous rabbis (and often their followers) immigrated to the Land of Israel. These included Nahmanides
Nahmanides
Nahmanides, also known as Rabbi Moses ben Naḥman Girondi, Bonastruc ça Porta and by his acronym Ramban, , was a leading medieval Jewish scholar, Catalan rabbi, philosopher, physician, kabbalist, and biblical commentator.-Name:"Nahmanides" is a Greek-influenced formation meaning "son of Naḥman"...
, Yechiel of Paris
Yechiel of Paris
Yechiel ben Joseph of Paris was a major Talmudic scholar and Tosafist from northern France, father-in-law of Isaac ben Joseph of Corbeil. He was a disciple of Rabbi Judah Messer Leon, and succeeded him in 1225 as head of the Yeshiva of Paris, which then boasted some 300 students; his best known...
with several hundred of his students, Joseph ben Ephraim Karo, Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk
Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk
Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk , also known as Menachem Mendel of Horodok, was an early leader of Hasidic Judaism. Part of the third generation of Hasidic leaders, he was the primary disciple of the Maggid of Mezeritch...
and 300 of his followers, and over 500 disciples (and their families) of the Vilna Gaon
Vilna Gaon
Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman Kramer, known as the Vilna Gaon or Elijah of Vilna and simply by his Hebrew acronym Gra or Elijah Ben Solomon, , was a Talmudist, halachist, kabbalist, and the foremost leader of non-hasidic Jewry of the past few centuries...
known as Perushim
Perushim
The Perushim were disciples of the Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, who left Lithuania at the beginning of the 19th century to settle in the Land of Israel, then under Ottoman rule...
, among others.
Persecution of the Jews
Persecution of Jews played a key role in preserving Jewish identity and keeping Jewish communities transient, it would later provide a key role in inspiring Zionists to reject European forms of identity.Jews in Catholic states were banned from owning land and from pursuing a variety of professions. From the 13th century Jews were required to wear identifying clothes such as special hats or stars on their clothing
Yellow badge
The yellow badge , also referred to as a Jewish badge, was a cloth patch that Jews were ordered to sew on their outer garments in order to mark them as Jews in public. It is intended to be a badge of shame associated with antisemitism...
. This form of persecution originated in tenth century Baghdad and was copied by Christian rulers. Constant expulsions and insecurity led Jews to adopt artisan professions that were easily transferable between locations (such as furniture making or tailoring).
Persecution in Spain and Portugal led large number of Jews there to convert to Christianiy, however many continued to secretly practice Jewish
Marrano
Marranos were Jews living in the Iberian peninsula who converted to Christianity rather than be expelled but continued to observe rabbinic Judaism in secret...
rituals. The Church responded by creating the Inquisition
Inquisition
The Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis , was the "fight against heretics" by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It started in the 12th century, with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heresy...
in 1478 and by expelling all remaining Jews in 1492
Alhambra decree
The Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of Jews from the Kingdom of Spain and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.The edict was formally revoked on 16 December 1968, following the Second...
. In 1542 the inquisition expanded to include the Papal States
Papal States
The Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...
. Inquisitors could arbitrarily torture suspects and many victims were burnt alive.
In 1516 the state of Venice decreed that Jews would only be allowed to reside in a walled area adjacent to Venice
Venetian Ghetto
The Venetian Ghetto was the area of Venice in which Jews were compelled to live under the Venetian Republic. It is from its name in Italian , that the English word "ghetto" is derived: in the Venetian language it was named "ghèto".-Etymology:...
called the Ghetto
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
. Ghetto residents had to pay a daily poll tax
Poll tax
A poll tax is a tax of a portioned, fixed amount per individual in accordance with the census . When a corvée is commuted for cash payment, in effect it becomes a poll tax...
and could only stay a limited amount of time. In 1555 the Pope decreed that Jews in Rome were to face similar restrictions. The requirement for Jews to live in Ghettos spread across Europe and Ghettos were frequently highly overcrowded and heavily taxed. They also provided a convenient target for mobs (pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
).
Jews were expelled from England
Edict of Expulsion
In 1290, King Edward I issued an edict expelling all Jews from England. Lasting for the rest of the Middle Ages, it would be over 350 years until it was formally overturned in 1656...
in 1290. A ban remained in force that was only lifted when Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
overthrew
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
the Catholic monarchy in 1649 (see Resettlement of the Jews in England
Resettlement of the Jews in England
The resettlement of the Jews in England was a historic commercial policy dealing with Jews in England in the 17th century, and forms a prominent part of the history of the Jews in England.-Background:...
).
Persecution of Jews began to decline following Napoleon
Napoleon and the Jews
The ascendancy of Napoleon Bonaparte proved to be an important event in European Jewish emancipation from old laws restricting them to ghettos, as well as the many laws that limited Jews' rights to property, worship, and careers.- Napoleon's Law and the Jews :...
's conquest of Europe after the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
although the short lived Nazi Empire resurrected most practices.
In 1965 the Catholic Church formally ended
Nostra Aetate
Nostra Aetate is the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions of the Second Vatican Council. Passed by a vote of 2,221 to 88 of the assembled bishops, this declaration was promulgated on October 28, 1965, by Pope Paul VI.The first draft, entitled "Decretum de...
the doctrine of holding Jews collectively responsible for the death of Jesus.
Pre-Zionist Initiatives 1799–1897
The Enlightenment and the Jews
The Age of EnlightenmentAge of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
in Europe led to an 18th and 19th century Jewish enlightenment movement in Europe, called the Haskalah
Haskalah
Haskalah , the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews in the 18th–19th centuries that advocated adopting enlightenment values, pressing for better integration into European society, and increasing education in secular studies, Hebrew language, and Jewish history...
. In 1791, the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
led France to become the first country in Europe to grant Jews legal equality. Britain gave Jews equal rights in 1856, Germany in 1871. The spread of western liberal ideas among newly emancipated Jews created for the first time a class of secular Jews who absorbed the prevailing ideas of enlightenment, including rationalism
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
, romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
, and nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
.
However, the formation of modern nations in Europe accompanied changes in the prejudices against Jews. What had previously been religious persecution now became a new phenomenon, Racial antisemitism and acquired a new name: antisemitism. Antisemites saw Jews as an alien religious, national and racial group and actively tried to prevent Jews from acquiring equal rights and citizenship. The Catholic press was at the forefront of these efforts and was quietly encouraged by the Vatican which saw its own decline in status as linked to the equality granted to Jews. By the late 19th century, the more extreme nationalist movements in Europe often promoted physical violence against Jews who they regarded as interlopers and exploiters threatening the well-being of their nations.
Persecution in Russia (before the revolution)
Jews in Eastern Europe faced constant pogromPogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
s and persecution in Tzarist Russia. From 1791 they were only allowed to live in the Pale of Settlement
Pale of Settlement
The Pale of Settlement was the term given to a region of Imperial Russia, in which permanent residency by Jews was allowed, and beyond which Jewish permanent residency was generally prohibited...
. In response to the Jewish drive for integration and modern education (Haskalah
Haskalah
Haskalah , the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews in the 18th–19th centuries that advocated adopting enlightenment values, pressing for better integration into European society, and increasing education in secular studies, Hebrew language, and Jewish history...
) and the movement for emancipation, the Tzars imposed tight quotas
May Laws
Temporary regulations regarding the Jews were proposed by minister of internal affairs Nikolai Ignatyev and enacted on May 15 , 1882, by Tsar Alexander III of Russia...
on schools, universities and cities to prevent entry by Jews.
From 1827 to 1917 Russian Jewish boys were required to serve 25 years in the Russian army, starting at the age of 12. The intention was to forcibly destroy their ethnic identity, however the move severely radicalized Russia's Jews and familiarized them with nationalism and socialism.
The tsar's chief adviser Konstantin Pobedonostsev
Konstantin Pobedonostsev
Konstantin Petrovich Pobyedonostsyev was a Russian jurist, statesman, and adviser to three Tsars...
, was reported as saying that one-third of Russia's Jews was expected to emigrate, one-third to accept baptism, and one-third to starve.
Famous incidents includes the 1913 Menahem Mendel Beilis
Menahem Mendel Beilis
Menahem Mendel Beilis, 1874 – July 7, 1934, was a Ukrainian Jew accused of ritual murder in Kiev in the Russian Empire in a notorious 1913 trial, known as the "Beilis trial" or "Beilis affair". The process sparked international criticism of the antisemitic policies of the Russian Empire...
trial (Blood libel against Jews) and the 1903 Kishinev pogrom
Kishinev pogrom
The Kishinev pogrom was an anti-Jewish riot that took place in Chişinău, then the capital of the Bessarabia province of the Russian Empire on April 6-7, 1903.-First pogrom:...
.
Between 1880 and 1928, two million Jews left Russia; most emigrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, a minority chose Palestine.
Proto-Zionism
Proto-Zionists include the (Lithuanian) Vilna GaonVilna Gaon
Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman Kramer, known as the Vilna Gaon or Elijah of Vilna and simply by his Hebrew acronym Gra or Elijah Ben Solomon, , was a Talmudist, halachist, kabbalist, and the foremost leader of non-hasidic Jewry of the past few centuries...
, (Russian) Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk
Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk
Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk , also known as Menachem Mendel of Horodok, was an early leader of Hasidic Judaism. Part of the third generation of Hasidic leaders, he was the primary disciple of the Maggid of Mezeritch...
, (Bosnian) Rabbi Judah Alkalai
Judah Alkalai
Judah ben Solomon Chai Alkalai was a Sephardic rabbi in Zemun in the Austrian Empire's District of Velika Kikinda and one of pioneers of modern Zionism....
and (German) Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer
Zvi Hirsch Kalischer
Zvi Hirsch Kalischer was an Orthodox German rabbi and one of Zionism's early pioneers in Germany.-Life:...
. Other advocates of Jewish independence include (American) Mordecai Manuel Noah
Mordecai Manuel Noah
Mordecai Manuel Noah was an American playwright, diplomat, journalist, and utopian...
, (Russian) Leon Pinsker and (German) Moses Hess
Moses Hess
Moses Hess was a Jewish philosopher and socialist, and one of the founders of Labor Zionism.-Life:Hess was born in Bonn, which was under French rule at the time. In his French-language birth certificate, his name is given as "Moises"; he was named after his maternal grandfather...
.
Moses Hess
Moses Hess was a Jewish philosopher and socialist, and one of the founders of Labor Zionism.-Life:Hess was born in Bonn, which was under French rule at the time. In his French-language birth certificate, his name is given as "Moises"; he was named after his maternal grandfather...
, an associate of Karl Marx, wrote Rome and Jerusalem. The Last National Question calling for the Jews to create a socialist state in Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
as a means of settling the Jewish question
Jewish Question
The Jewish question encompasses the issues and resolutions surrounding the historically unequal civil, legal and national statuses between minority Ashkenazi Jews and non-Jews, particularly in Europe. The first issues discussed and debated by societies, politicians and writers in western and...
. Also in 1862, German Orthodox Rabbi Kalischer published his tractate Derishat Zion, arguing that the salvation of the Jews, promised by the Prophets, can come about only by self-help. In 1882, after the Odessa pogrom
Odessa pogrom
Odessa pogrom may refer to antisemitic communal violence in the city of Odessa . Such events took place in 1821, 1859, 1871, 1881, 1886 and 1905...
, Judah Leib Pinsker published the pamphlet Auto-Emancipation
Auto-Emancipation
right|thumb|upright|The book "Auto-Emancipation" by Pinsker, 1882Auto-Emancipation is an early Zionist pamphlet written in German by Russian-Polish Jewish doctor and activist Leo Pinsker in 1882....
, arguing that Jews could only be truly free (automatically emancipated) in their own country and analyzing the persistent tendency of Europeans to regard Jews as aliens:
"Since the Jew is nowhere at home, nowhere regarded as a native, he remains an alien everywhere. That he himself and his ancestors as well are born in the country does not alter this fact in the least...
...to the living the Jew is a corpse, to the native a foreigner, to the homesteader a vagrant, to the proprietary a beggar, to the poor an exploiter and a millionaire, to the patriot a man without a country, for all a hated rival."
Pinsker established the Hibbat Zion
Hovevei Zion
Hovevei Zion , also known as Hibbat Zion , refers to organizations that are now considered the forerunners and foundation-builders of modern Zionism....
movement to actively promote Jewish settlement in Palestine. In 1890, the "Society for the Support of Jewish Farmers and Artisans in Syria and Eretz Israel" (better known as the Odessa Committee
Odessa Committee
The Odessa Committee, officially known as the Society for the Support of Jewish Farmers and Artisans in Syria and Palestine, was a charitable, pre-Zionist organization in the Russian Empire, which supported emigration to the Biblical Land of Israel, then Ottoman Syria.The pogroms of 1881-1884 and...
) was officially registered as a charitable organization
Charitable organization
A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization . It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization (NPO). It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A...
in the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
, and by 1897, it counted over 4,000 members.
Early British and American support for Jewish return
Ideas of the restoration of the Jews in the Land of Israel entered BritishBritish Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
public discourse in the early 19th century, at about the same time as the British Protestant Revival.
Not all such attitudes were favorable towards the Jews; they were shaped in part by a variety of Protestant beliefs,
or by a streak of philo-Semitism
Philo-Semitism
Philo-Semitism or Judeophilia is an interest in, respect for, and appreciation of the Jewish people, their historical significance and the positive impacts of Judaism in the history of the western world, in particular, generally on the part of a gentile...
among the classically educated British elite, or by hopes to extend the Empire. (See The Great Game
The Great Game
The Great Game or Tournament of Shadows in Russia, were terms for the strategic rivalry and conflict between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running approximately from the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813...
)
At the urging of Lord Shaftesbury, Britain established a consulate in Jerusalem in 1838, the first diplomatic appointment in the city. In 1839, the Church of Scotland
Church of Scotland
The Church of Scotland, known informally by its Scots language name, the Kirk, is a Presbyterian church, decisively shaped by the Scottish Reformation....
sent Andrew Bonar
Andrew Bonar
Andrew Alexander Bonar was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland and youngest brother of Horatius Bonar....
and Robert Murray M'Cheyne
Robert Murray M'Cheyne
Robert Murray M'Cheyne was a minister in the Church of Scotland from 1835 to 1843. He was born at Edinburgh, was educated at the University of Edinburgh and at the Divinity Hall of his native city, where he was taught by Thomas Chalmers. He first served as an assistant to John Bonar in the parish...
to report on the condition of the Jews there. The report was widely published and was followed by a "Memorandum to Protestant Monarchs of Europe for the restoration of the Jews to Palestine." In August 1840, The Times reported that the British government was considering Jewish restoration. Correspondence in 1841-42 between Moses Montefiore
Moses Montefiore
Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, Kt was one of the most famous British Jews of the 19th century. Montefiore was a financier, banker, philanthropist and Sheriff of London...
, the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews
Board of Deputies of British Jews
The Board of Deputies of British Jews is the main representative body of British Jews. Founded in 1760 as a joint committee of the Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jewish communities in London, it has since become a widely recognised forum for the views of the different sectors of the UK Jewish...
and Charles Henry Churchill
Charles Henry Churchill
Colonel Charles Henry Churchill , also known as "Churchill Bey", was a British officer and diplomat and a British consul in Ottoman Syria who created the first political plan for Zionism and the creation of the state of Israel in the region of Ottoman Palestine.-British Consul in Ottoman Syria:In...
, the British consul in Damascus, is seen as the first recorded plan proposed for political Zionism.
Lord Lindsay wrote in 1847: "The soil of Palestine still enjoys her sabbaths, and only waits for the return of her banished children, and the application of industry, commensurate with her agricultural capabilities, to burst once more into universal luxuriance, and be all that she ever was in the days of Solomon."
In 1851, correspondence between Lord Stanley
Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby
Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby KG, PC, FRS , known as Lord Stanley from 1844 to 1869, was a British statesman...
, whose father became British Prime Minister the following year, and Benjamin Disraeli, who became Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
alongside him, records Disraeli's proto-Zionist views: "He then unfolded a plan of restoring the nation to Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
- said the country was admirably suited for them - the financiers all over Europe might help - the Porte
Porte
The Sublime Porte, also Ottoman Porte or High Porte , is a synecdoche for the central government of the Ottoman Empire, by reference to the High Gate of the Divan of the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul.The particular term was used in the context of diplomacy by Western states, as their diplomats were...
is weak - the Turks/holders of property could be bought out - this, he said, was the object of his life...."Coningsby
Coningsby (novel)
Coningsby, or The New Generation, is an English political novel by Benjamin Disraeli published in 1844.-Background:The book is set against a background of the real political events of the 1830s in England that followed the enactment of the Reform Bill of 1832...
was merely a feeler - my views were not fully developed at that time - since then all I have written has been for one purpose. The man who should restore the Hebrew race to their country would be the Messiah - the real saviour of prophecy!" He did not add formally that he aspired to play this part, but it was evidently implied. He thought very highly of the capabilities of the country, and hinted that his chief object in acquiring power here would be to promote the return". 26 years later, Disraeli wrote in his article entitled "The Jewish Question is the Oriental Quest" (1877) that within fifty years, a nation of one million Jews would reside in Palestine under the guidance of the British.
Moses Montefiore
Moses Montefiore
Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, Kt was one of the most famous British Jews of the 19th century. Montefiore was a financier, banker, philanthropist and Sheriff of London...
visited the Land of Israel seven times and fostered its development.
In 1842, Mormon leader Joseph Smith, Jr. sent a representative, Orson Hyde
Orson Hyde
Orson Hyde was a leader in the early Latter Day Saint movement and an original member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles...
, to dedicate the land of Israel for the return of the Jews. Protestant theologian William Eugene Blackstone
William Eugene Blackstone
William Eugene Blackstone was an American evangelist and Christian Zionist. he was the author of the proto- Zionist Blackstone Memorial of 1891. Blackstone was influenced by Dwight Lyman Moody, James H...
submitted a petition to the US president in 1891; the Blackstone Memorial
Blackstone Memorial
The Blackstone Memorial of 1891 was a petition written by William Eugene Blackstone, a Christian Restorationist, in favor of the delivery of Palestine to the Jews. It was signed by many leading American citizens and presented to President Harrison....
called for the return of Palestine to the Jews.
The first aliya
In the late 1870s, Jewish philanthropists such as the MontefioresMoses Montefiore
Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, Kt was one of the most famous British Jews of the 19th century. Montefiore was a financier, banker, philanthropist and Sheriff of London...
and the Rothschild
Rothschild family
The Rothschild family , known as The House of Rothschild, or more simply as the Rothschilds, is a Jewish-German family that established European banking and finance houses starting in the late 18th century...
s responded to the persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe by sponsoring agricultural settlements for Russian Jews in Palestine. The Jews who migrated in this period are known as the First Aliyah
First Aliyah
The First Aliyah was the first modern widespread wave of Zionist aliyah. Jews who migrated to Palestine in this wave came mostly from Eastern Europe and from Yemen. This wave of aliyah began in 1881–82 and lasted until 1903. An estimated 25,000–35,000 Jews immigrated to Ottoman Syria during the...
. Aliyah is a Hebrew word meaning "ascent," referring to the act of spiritually "ascending" to the Holy Land and a basic tenet of Zionism.
The movement of Jews to Palestine was opposed by the Haredi communities who lived in the Four Holy Cities
Four Holy Cities
The Four Holy Cities , is the collective term in Jewish tradition applied to the cities of Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias, and Safed: "Since the sixteenth century the holiness of Palestine, especially for burial, has been almost wholly transferred to four cities—Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias, and...
, since they were very poor and lived off charitable donations from Europe, which they feared would be used by the newcomers. However from 1800 there was a movement of Sephardi businessmen from North Africa and the Balkans to Jaffa and the growing community there perceived modernity and Aliyah as the key to salvation. Unlike the Haredi communities, the Jaffa community did not maintain separate Ashkenazi and Sephardi institutions and functioned as a single unified community.
Founded in 1878, Rosh Pinna
Rosh Pinna
Rosh Pinna is a town of approximately 2,500 people located in the Upper Galilee on the eastern slopes of Mount Kna'anin, the Northern District of Israel. The town was founded in 1882 by thirty immigrant families from Romania, making it one of the oldest Zionist settlements in Israel...
and Petah Tikva
Petah Tikva
Petah Tikva known as Em HaMoshavot , is a city in the Center District of Israel, east of Tel Aviv.According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, at the end of 2009, the city's population stood at 209,600. The population density is approximately...
were the first modern Jewish settlements.
In 1881-1882 the Tzar sponsored a huge wave of progroms in the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
and a massive wave of Jews began leaving, mainly for America. So many Russian Jews arrived in Jaffa that the town ran out of accommodation and the local Jews began forming communities outside the Jaffa city walls. However the migrants faced difficulty finding work (the new settlements mainly needed farmers and builders) and 70% ultimately left, mostly moving on to America. One of the migrants in this period, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda
Eliezer Ben‑Yehuda was a Jewish lexicographer and newspaper editor. He was the driving spirit behind the revival of the Hebrew language in the modern era.-Biography:...
set about modernizing Hebrew so that it could be used as a national language.
Rishon LeZion was founded on 31 July 1882 by a group of ten members of Hovevei Zion
Hovevei Zion
Hovevei Zion , also known as Hibbat Zion , refers to organizations that are now considered the forerunners and foundation-builders of modern Zionism....
from Kharkov (today's Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
). In 1887 Neve Tzedek
Neve Tzedek
Neve Tzedek is a neighborhood located in southwestern Tel Aviv, Israel. It was the first Jewish neighborhood to be built outside the walls of the ancient port of Jaffa. For years, the neighborhood prospered as Tel Aviv, the first modern Hebrew city, grew up around it...
was built just outside Jaffa. Over 50 Jewish settlements were established in this period.
In 1890, Palestine, which was part of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, was inhabited by about half a million people, mostly Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
and Christian Arabs, but also some dozens of thousands Jews.
Formation
In 1883, Nathan BirnbaumNathan Birnbaum
----Nathan Birnbaum was an Austrian writer and journalist, Jewish thinker and nationalist. His life had three main phases, representing a progression in his thinking: Zionist phase ; Jewish cultural autonomy phase which included the promotion of the Yiddish language; and religious phase...
, 19 years old, founded Kadimah, the first Jewish student association in Vienna and printed Pinsker's pamphlet Auto-Emancipation
Auto-Emancipation
right|thumb|upright|The book "Auto-Emancipation" by Pinsker, 1882Auto-Emancipation is an early Zionist pamphlet written in German by Russian-Polish Jewish doctor and activist Leo Pinsker in 1882....
.
  |
| Theodor Herzl and his 1896 book, The Jewish State. |
The Dreyfus Affair
Dreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent...
, which erupted in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in 1894, profoundly shocked emancipated Jews. The depth of antisemitism in the first country to grant Jews equal rights led many to question their future prospects among Christians. Among those who witnessed the Affair was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist, Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl , born Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl was an Ashkenazi Jew Austro-Hungarian journalist and the father of modern political Zionism and in effect the State of Israel.-Early life:...
. Herzl was born in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
and lived in Vienna (Jews were only allowed to live in Vienna from 1848), who published his pamphlet Der Judenstaat
Der Judenstaat
Der Judenstaat is a book written by Theodor Herzl and published in 1896 in Leipzig and Vienna by M. Breitenstein's Verlags-Buchhandlung...
("The Jewish State") in 1896 and Altneuland
The Old New Land
The Old New Land is a utopian novel published by Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, in 1902. Outlining Herzl’s vision for a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, Altneuland became one of Zionism's establishing texts. It was translated into Yiddish by Israel Isidor Elyashev...
("The Old New Land") in 1897. He described the Affair as a personal turning point, Herzl argued that the creation of a Jewish state would enable the Jews to join the family of nations and escape antisemitism.
Herzl
Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl , born Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl was an Ashkenazi Jew Austro-Hungarian journalist and the father of modern political Zionism and in effect the State of Israel.-Early life:...
infused political Zionism with a new and practical urgency. He brought the World Zionist Organization
World Zionist Organization
The World Zionist Organization , or WZO, was founded as the Zionist Organization , or ZO, in 1897 at the First Zionist Congress, held from August 29 to August 31 in Basel, Switzerland...
into being and, together with Nathan Birnbaum, planned its First Congress at Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
in 1897.
The objectives of Zionism
During the First Zionist CongressFirst Zionist Congress
The First Zionist Congress was the inaugural congress of the Zionist Organization held in Basel , Switzerland, from August 29 to August 31, 1897. It was convened and chaired by Theodor Herzl, the founder of the modern Zionism movement...
, the following agreement, commonly known as the Basel Program, was reached:
Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in PalestinePalestinePalestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
secured under public law. The Congress contemplates the following means to the attainment of this end:
- The promotion by appropriate means of the settlement in Palestine of Jewish farmers, artisans, and manufacturers.
- The organization and uniting of the whole of Jewry by means of appropriate institutions, both local and international, in accordance with the laws of each country.
- The strengthening and fostering of Jewish national sentiment and national consciousness.
- Preparatory steps toward obtaining the consent of governments, where necessary, in order to reach the goals of Zionism.
"Under public law" is generally understood to mean seeking legal permission from the Ottoman rulers for Jewish migration. In this text the word "home" was substituted for "state" and "public law" for "international law" so as not to alarm the Ottoman Sultan.
The organizational structure of the Zionist movement
For the first four years, the World Zionist OrganizationWorld Zionist Organization
The World Zionist Organization , or WZO, was founded as the Zionist Organization , or ZO, in 1897 at the First Zionist Congress, held from August 29 to August 31 in Basel, Switzerland...
(WZO) met every year, then, up to the Second World War, they gathered every second year. Since the creation of Israel, the Congress has met every four years.
Congress delegates were elected by the membership. Members were required to pay dues known as a "shekel," At the congress, delegates elected a 30-man executive council, which in turn elected the movement's leader. The movement was democratic and women had the right to vote, which was still absent in Great Britain in 1914.
The WZO's initial strategy was to obtain permission from the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II
Abdul Hamid II
His Imperial Majesty, The Sultan Abdülhamid II, Emperor of the Ottomans, Caliph of the Faithful was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire...
to allow systematic Jewish settlement in Palestine. The support of the German Emperor, Wilhelm II, was sought, but unsuccessfully. Instead, the WZO pursued a strategy of building a homeland through persistent small-scale immigration and the founding of such bodies as the Jewish National Fund
Jewish National Fund
The Jewish National Fund was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Palestine for Jewish settlement. The JNF is a quasi-governmental, non-profit organisation...
(1901 - a charity which bought land for Jewish settlement) and the Anglo-Palestine Bank (1903 - provided loans for Jewish businesses and farmers).
Cultural Zionism and opposition to Herzl
Herzl's strategy relied on winning support from foreign rulers, in particular the Ottoman Sultan. He also made efforts to cultivate Orthodox rabbinical support. Rabbinical support depended on the Zionist movement making no challenges to existing Jewish tradition. However, an opposition movement arose which emphasized the need for a revolution in Jewish thought.While Herzl believed that the Jews needed to return to their historic homeland as a refuge from antisemitism, the opposition, led by Ahad Ha'am, believed that the Jews must revive and foster a Jewish national culture and, in particular strove to revive the Hebrew language. Many also adopted Hebraized surnames.
The opposition became known as Cultural Zionists.
Important Cultural Zionists include Ahad Ha'am, Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann, , was a Zionist leader, President of the Zionist Organization, and the first President of the State of Israel. He was elected on 1 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952....
, Nahum Sokolow
Nahum Sokolow
Nahum Sokolow was a Zionist leader, author, translator, and a pioneer of Hebrew journalism....
and Menachem Ussishkin.
The "Uganda" proposal
In 1903, the British Colonial Secretary, Joseph ChamberlainJoseph Chamberlain
Joseph Chamberlain was an influential British politician and statesman. Unlike most major politicians of the time, he was a self-made businessman and had not attended Oxford or Cambridge University....
, suggested the British Uganda Programme, land for a Jewish state in "Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
" (in today's Uasin Gishu District
Uasin Gishu District
Uasin Gishu District is one of the seventy-one districts of Kenya, located in the Rift Valley Province. The city of Eldoret is its capital, administrative center and commercial center....
, Eldoret
Eldoret
Eldoret is a town in western Kenya and the administrative centre of Uasin Gishu District of Rift Valley Province. Lying south of the Cherangani Hills, the local elevation varies from about 2100 metres above sea level at the airport to more than 2700 metres in nearby areas...
, Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
). Herzl initially rejected the idea, preferring Palestine, but after the April 1903 Kishinev pogrom
Kishinev pogrom
The Kishinev pogrom was an anti-Jewish riot that took place in Chişinău, then the capital of the Bessarabia province of the Russian Empire on April 6-7, 1903.-First pogrom:...
, Herzl introduced a controversial proposal to the Sixth Zionist Congress to investigate the offer as a temporary measure for Russian Jews in danger. Despite its emergency and temporary nature, the proposal proved very divisive, and widespread opposition to the plan was fueled by a walkout led by the Russian Jewish delegation to the Congress. Nevertheless, a committee was established to investigate the possibility, which was eventually dismissed in the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905. After that, Palestine became the sole focus of Zionist aspirations.
Israel Zangwill
Israel Zangwill
Israel Zangwill was a British humorist and writer.-Biography:Zangwill was born in London on January 21, 1864 in a family of Jewish immigrants from Czarist Russia, to Moses Zangwill from what is now Latvia and Ellen Hannah Marks Zangwill from what is now Poland. He dedicated his life to championing...
left the main Zionist movement over this decision and founded the Jewish Territorialist Organization
Jewish Territorialist Organization
The Jewish Territorial Organization, known as the ITO, was a Jewish political movement which first arose in 1903 in response to the British Uganda Offer, but which was institutionalized in 1905....
(ITO). The territorialists
Territorialism
Territorialism, also known as Statism , was a Jewish political movement calling for creation of a sufficiently large and compact Jewish territory , not necessarily in the Land of Israel and not necessarily fully autonomous.-Development of territorialism:Before 1905 some Zionist leaders took...
were willing to establish a Jewish homeland anywhere, but failed to attract significant support and were dissolved in 1925.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
In 1903, following the Kishinev Pogrom
Kishinev pogrom
The Kishinev pogrom was an anti-Jewish riot that took place in Chişinău, then the capital of the Bessarabia province of the Russian Empire on April 6-7, 1903.-First pogrom:...
, a variety of Russian antisemities, including the Black Hundreds and the Tsarist Secret Police, began combining earlier works alleging a Jewish plot to take control of the world into new formats. One particular version of these allegations, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fraudulent, antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for achieving global domination. It was first published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the twentieth century...
" (subtitle "Protocols extracted from the secret archives of the central chancery of Zion"), arranged by Sergei Nilus
Sergei Nilus
Sergei Aleksandrovich Nilus was a Russian religious writer and self-described mystic....
, achieved global notability. In 1903, the editor claimed that the protocols revealed the menace of Zionism:
The book contains fictional minutes of an imaginary
Imagination
Imagination, also called the faculty of imagining, is the ability of forming mental images, sensations and concepts, in a moment when they are not perceived through sight, hearing or other senses...
meeting in which alleged Jewish leaders plotted to take over the world. Nilus later claimed they were presented to the elders by Herzl (the "Prince of Exile") at the first Zionist congress. A Polish edition claimed they were taken from Herzl's flat in Austria and a 1920 German version renamed them "The Zionist Protocols".
The death of Herzl
By 1904, cultural Zionism was accepted by most Zionists and a schism was beginning to develop between the Zionist movement and Orthodox Judaism. In 1904, Herzl died unexpectedly at the age of 44 and the leadership was taken over by David WolffsohnDavid Wolffsohn
David Wolffsohn was a Jewish businessman, prominent early Zionist and second president of the Zionist Organization .Wolffsohn was born in Darbėnai, Lithuania, to religious parents, Isaac and Feiga. He received an observant religious education from his parents and in 1872 was sent to Germany to...
, who led the movement until 1911. During this period, the movement was based in Berlin (Germany's Jews were the most assimilated
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
) and made little progress, failing to win support among the Young Turks
Young Turks
The Young Turks , from French: Les Jeunes Turcs) were a coalition of various groups favouring reformation of the administration of the Ottoman Empire. The movement was against the absolute monarchy of the Ottoman Sultan and favoured a re-installation of the short-lived Kanûn-ı Esâsî constitution...
after the collapse of the Ottoman Regime. From 1911 to 1921, the movement was led by Dr. Otto Warburg
Otto Warburg (botanist)
Otto Warburg , was a German botanist and industrial agriculture expert, as well as an active member of the Zionist Organization...
.
Jewish Orthodox and Reform opposition
Under Herzl's leadership, Zionism relied on Orthodox Jews for religious support, with the main party being the orthodox MizrachiMizrachi (political party)
Mizrachi was a political party in Israel and is one of the ancestors of the modern-day National Religious Party.-History:The Mizrachi movement was founded in 1902 in Vilnius as a religious Zionist organisation. It also had a trade union, Hapoel HaMizrachi, started in 1921...
. However, as the cultural and socialist Zionists increasingly broke with tradition and used language contrary to the outlook of most religious Jewish communities, many orthodox religious organizations began opposing Zionism. Their opposition was based on its secularism and on the grounds that only the Messiah
Jewish eschatology
Jewish eschatology is concerned with the Jewish Messiah, afterlife, and the revival of the dead. Eschatology, generically, is the area of theology and philosophy concerned with the final events in the history of the world, the ultimate destiny of humanity, and related concepts.-The Messiah:The...
could re-establish Jewish rule in Israel. Therefore, most Orthodox Jews maintained the traditional Jewish belief that while the Land of Israel was given to the ancient Israelites by God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
, and the right of the Jews to that land was permanent and inalienable, the Messiah must appear before the land could return to Jewish control.
While Zionism aroused Ashkenazi
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
orthodox antagonism in Europe (probably due to Modernist European antagonism to organized religion), and also in the United States, it aroused no such antagonism in the Islamic world.
Prior to the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
, Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism refers to various beliefs, practices and organizations associated with the Reform Jewish movement in North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In general, it maintains that Judaism and Jewish traditions should be modernized and should be compatible with participation in the...
rejected Zionism as inconsistent with the requirements of Jewish citizenship in the diaspora.
The second aliya
Widespread pogroms accompanied the 1905 Russian Revolution, inspired by the Pro-Tzarist Black Hundreds. In OdessaOdessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
, Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
provided arms so the Zionists could protect the Jewish community and this prevented a pogrom. Zionist leader Jabotinsky eventually led the Jewish resistance in Odessa. During his subsequent trial Trotsky produced evidence that the Police had organized the effort to create a pogrom in Odessa.
The vicious pogroms led to a wave of immigrants to Palestine. This new wave expanded the Revival of the Hebrew language. In 1909 a group of 65 Zionists laid the foundations for a modern city in Palestine. The city was named after the Hebrew title of Herzl's book "The Old New Land
The Old New Land
The Old New Land is a utopian novel published by Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, in 1902. Outlining Herzl’s vision for a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, Altneuland became one of Zionism's establishing texts. It was translated into Yiddish by Israel Isidor Elyashev...
" - Tel-Aviv.
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
had a modern "scientific" school, the Herzliya Hebrew High School
Herzliya Hebrew High School
The Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium , originally known as HaGymnasia HaIvrit is a historic high school in Tel Aviv, Israel.-History:...
, the first such school to teach only in Hebrew. All the cities affairs were conducted in Hebrew.
In Jerusalem, foundations were laid for a Jewish University (the Hebrew University), one which would teach only in Hebrew and which the Zionists hoped would help them prove their usefulness to the Turks (this did not come to fruition until 1918). In Haifa, the cornerstone was laid for a Jewish Technical school, the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.
Jewish migrants and organizations began making large land purchases, in particular buying malarial swamps (of which there were many) and draining them to produce highly fertile land.
In 1911 a socialist commune was given some land near the Sea of Galilee, forming the first Kibbutz
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
, Degania.
Communism
In his 1843 work, On the Jewish QuestionOn the Jewish Question
On the Jewish Question is a work by Karl Marx, written in 1843, and first published in Paris in 1844 under the German title Zur Judenfrage in the Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher. It was one of Marx's first attempts to deal with categories that would later be called the materialist conception of...
, Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
wrote "Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist." Concluding with the words: "the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism". Marx specifically stated that there would be no Jews in a socialist paradise and Marxist Jews were often highly anxious to reject their association with orthodox Jews and make a new start.
In Eastern Europe the General Jewish Labour Bund called for Jewish autonomy
Jewish Autonomism
Jewish Autonomism was a non-Zionist political movement that emerged in Eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century. One of its major proponents was a historian and activist Simon Dubnow, who also called his ideology folkism....
within Eastern Europe and promoted Yiddish as the Jewish language. Like Zionism, the Bund was founded in 1897. It also claimed national rights for Jews, but within Eastern Europe. The Bund was part of the socialist movement and claimed Jewish national rights within the socialist movement, which recognized various national groups but not Jews. The socialist movement had failed to publicly condemn the pogroms. The Bund leadership opposed Zionism and Orthodox Judaism. Socialist Zionism competed with the Bund (and other socialist parties) for the hearts and minds of Jewish socialists.
In 1917 there was a Russian revolution and the Bolsheviks took power. At this point the Bund had 30,000 members in Russia, compared to 300,000 Zionist members (about 10% of these were Marxists). Antisemites assumed the Bolsheviks were largely Jewish (calling it Jewish Bolshevism
Jewish Bolshevism
Jewish Bolshevism, Judeo-Bolshevism, and known as Żydokomuna in Poland, is an antisemitic stereotype based on the claim that Jews have been the driving force behind or are disproportionately involved in the modern Communist movement, or sometimes more specifically Russian Bolshevism.The expression...
) and the Bolsheviks did give Jews equal rights as individuals, however they were intolerant of religious Judaism and of Zionism, both of which were eventually banned.
The Bund disbanded and most members joined the Yevsektsia, a Jewish section of the Bolshevik organization created by Stalin who was People's Commissariat of Nationalities.The Yevsektsia worked to end Jewish communal and religious life:
The Communist party and its Jewish sections regarded the values of the Jewish community as so alien to Marxist ideology and to the new society to be based on it that they were determined to eradicate them as soon as possible.
The 1918 - 1923 Russian civil war
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
followed the revolution and saw terrible atrocities against Jews, particularly in the Ukraine:
...the one and a half million Jews of the Ukraine became the victims of the most vicious attacks since the days of KhmelnitskyBohdan KhmelnytskyBohdan Zynoviy Mykhailovych Khmelnytsky was a hetman of the Zaporozhian Cossack Hetmanate of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . He led an uprising against the Commonwealth and its magnates which resulted in the creation of a Cossack state...
. Estimates of the numbers killed run as high as one Jew out of every thirteen. Hundreds of thousands were left homeless.
During the Civil War, the Marxist Zionist movement, Poale Zion
Poale Zion
Poale Zion was a Movement of Marxist Zionist Jewish workers circles founded in various cities of the Russian Empire about the turn of the century after the Bund rejected Zionism in 1901.-Formation and early years:Poale Zion parties and organisations were started across the Jewish diaspora in the...
led by Ber Borochov
Ber Borochov
Dov Ber Borochov was a Marxist Zionist and one of the founders of the Labor Zionist movement as well as a pioneer in the study of Yiddish as a language....
, requested to form Jewish Brigades within the Red Army. Trotsky supported the request but opposition from the Yevsektsia led to the proposal's failure. Poale Zion continued to exist in the USSR until 1928. The future Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion was a member of the Israeli branch of the movement.
In 1924 Stalin became the ruler of the USSR and in 1928 Trotsky was sent into exile. In 1928 a Jewish Autonomous Oblast
Jewish Autonomous Oblast
The Jewish Autonomous Oblast is a federal subject of Russia situated in the Russian Far East, bordering Khabarovsk Krai and Amur Oblast of Russia and Heilongjiang province of China. Its administrative center is the town of Birobidzhan....
was created in the Russian Far East
Russian Far East
Russian Far East is a term that refers to the Russian part of the Far East, i.e., extreme east parts of Russia, between Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia and the Pacific Ocean...
and Hebrew was outlawed (the only language to be outlawed in the USSR). Few Jews were tempted by the Soviet Jewish Republic and as of 2002 Jews constitute only about 1.2% of its population.
Socialist Zionism
Socialist Zionists believed that the Jews' centuries of being oppressed in anti-Semitic societies had reduced Jews to a meek, despairing existence which invited further anti-Semitism. They argued that Jews should redeem themselves by becoming farmers, workers, and soldiers in a country of their own. Socialist Zionists rejected religion as perpetuating a "DiasporaDiaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
mentality" among the Jewish people and established rural communes in Israel called "Kibbutz
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
im". Major theoreticians of Socialist Zionism included Moses Hess
Moses Hess
Moses Hess was a Jewish philosopher and socialist, and one of the founders of Labor Zionism.-Life:Hess was born in Bonn, which was under French rule at the time. In his French-language birth certificate, his name is given as "Moises"; he was named after his maternal grandfather...
, Nachman Syrkin
Nachman Syrkin
Nachman Syrkin was a political theorist, founder of Labour Zionism and a prolific writer in Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian, German and English language....
, Ber Borochov
Ber Borochov
Dov Ber Borochov was a Marxist Zionist and one of the founders of the Labor Zionist movement as well as a pioneer in the study of Yiddish as a language....
and A. D. Gordon
A. D. Gordon
Aaron David Gordon , more commonly known as A. D. Gordon, was a Zionist ideologue and the spiritual force behind practical Zionism and Labor Zionism. He founded Hapoel Hatzair, a movement that set the tone for the Zionist movement for many years to come. Influenced by Leo Tolstoy and others, it is...
, and leading figures in the movement included David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion
' was the first Prime Minister of Israel.Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946...
and Berl Katznelson
Berl Katznelson
Berl Katznelson was one the intellectual founders of Labor Zionism, instrumental to the establishment of the modern State of Israel, and the editor of Davar, the first daily newspaper of the workers' movement.-Biography:...
. Socialist Zionists rejected Yiddish as a language of exile, embracing Hebrew as the common Jewish tongue.
Gordon believed that the Jews lacked a "normal" class structure and that the various classes that constitute a nation had to be created artificially. Socialist Zionists therefore set about becoming Jewish peasants and proletarians and focused on settling land and working on it. According to Gordon "the land if Israel is bought with labour: not with blood and not with fire".
Socialist Zionism became a dominant force in Israel. However, it exacerbated the schism between Zionism and Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
.
Socialist Zionists formed youth movements which became influential organizations in their own right including Habonim Dror
Habonim Dror
Habonim Dror is a Jewish Labour Zionist youth movement formed by the merger in 1982 of the Habonim and Dror youth movements. Habonim Dror's sister movement in Israel is Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed, the Working and Studying Youth.-Ideology:...
, Hashomer Hatzair
Hashomer Hatzair
Hashomer Hatzair is a Socialist–Zionist youth movement founded in 1913 in Galicia, Austria-Hungary, and was also the name of the group's political party in the Yishuv in the pre-1948 British Mandate of Palestine...
, Machanot Halolim and HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed
Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed
Histadrut HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed , sometimes abbreiviated to No'al is an Israeli youth movement, a sister movement of Habonim Dror, the Labor Zionist movement....
. During British rule the lack of available immigration permits to Palestine, led the youth movements to operate training programs in Europe which prepared Jews for migration to Palestine. As a result most Socialist-Zionist immigrants arrived already speaking Hebrew, trained in agriculture and prepared for life in Palestine.
Zionism and Feminism
The Zionist movement never restricted female suffrage. Women were active in Zionist parties in many countries before women gained the franchise, and ran for office in Poland where Zionist and other Jewish parties won seats in parliament.In 1911, Zionist activist Hannah Meisel Shochat established Havat Ha'Almot (the girl's farm) to train Zionist women in farming so as to assist in the Zionist program of developing the land for mass settlement. The famous poet Rachel Bluwstein
Rachel Bluwstein
Sela was a Hebrew poet who immigrated to Palestine in 1909. She is known by her first name, Rachel, or as Rachel the poetess .-Biography:...
was one of the graduates. Zionist settlers were usually young and far from their families so a relatively permissive culture was able to develop. Within the Kibbutz movement child rearing was done communally thus freeing women to work (and fight) alongside the men.
Roza Pomerantz-Meltzer
Roza Pomerantz-Meltzer
Róża Pomerantz-Meltzer, also Róża Melcerowa of Lvov, was the first woman elected to the Sejm, the Parliament of Poland. She was elected in 1919 as a member of a Zionist party....
was the first woman elected to the Sejm
Sejm
The Sejm is the lower house of the Polish parliament. The Sejm is made up of 460 deputies, or Poseł in Polish . It is elected by universal ballot and is presided over by a speaker called the Marshal of the Sejm ....
, the Parliament of Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. She was elected in 1919 as a member of a Zionist party.
In Mandatory Palestine women in Jewish towns could vote in elections before women won the right to vote in Britain.
Zionism in the Arab World
The 1911 edition of the Jewish EncyclopediaJewish Encyclopedia
The Jewish Encyclopedia is an encyclopedia originally published in New York between 1901 and 1906 by Funk and Wagnalls. It contained over 15,000 articles in 12 volumes on the history and then-current state of Judaism and the Jews as of 1901...
noted the movement's spread: "not only in the number of Jews affiliated with the Zionist organization and congress, but also in the fact that there is hardly a nook or corner of the Jewish world in which Zionistic societies are not to be found."
Support for Zionism was not a purely European and Ashkenazi phenomenon. In the Arab world, the first Zionist branches opened in Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
only a few years after the Basel conference, and the movement became popular among Jews living within the Arab and Muslim world. Although levels of persecution were generally lower there, Jewish residents still faced some religious persecution, prejudice and occasional violence. A number of the founders of the city of Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
were Moroccan Jewish immigrants. Ottoman Salonika had a vigorous Zionist movement by 1908.
Early Zionism and the non-Jewish population of Palestine
Before 1917, Palestine's Arab population mostly saw themselves as Ottoman subjects. They feared the objectives of the Zionist movement, but they assumed the movement would fail. After the Young Turk revolution in 1908, Arab Nationalism grew rapidly in the area and most Arab Nationalists regarded Zionism as a threat, although a minority perceived Zionism as providing a path to modernity.While Zionist leaders and advocates followed conditions in the land of Israel and travelled there regularly, their concern before 1917 was with the future of the small Jewish settlement. A Jewish state seemed highly unlikely at this point and realistic aspirations focussed on creating a new centre for Jewish life. The future of the land's Arab inhabitants concerned them as little as the welfare of the Jews concerned Arab leaders.
The Zionist Movement in World War I and the Balfour Declaration
The Jewish population of the USA increased about ten times between 1880 and 1920, with the immigration of poorer, more liberal and radical, "downtown", Eastern European immigrants fleeing persecution. It was not until 1912, when the secular “people’s lawyer” Louis BrandeisLouis Brandeis
Louis Dembitz Brandeis ; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939.He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Jewish immigrant parents who raised him in a secular mode...
became involved in Zionism, just before the First World War, that Zionism gained significant support. By 1917, the American Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs, which Brandeis chaired had increased American Zionist membership ten times to 200,000 members, and “thenceforth became the financial center for the world Zionist movement”.
As in the US, England had experienced a rapid growth in their Jewish minority. About 150,000 Jews migrated there from Russia in the period 1881–1914. With this immigration influx, pressure grew from British voters to halt it; added to the established knowledge in British society of Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
scripture, Zionism became an attractive solution for both Britain and the Empire.
In the search for support, Herzl, before his death, had made the most progress with the German Kaiser, joining him on his 1898 trip to Palestine. At the outbreak of war in 1914, the offices of the Zionist Organization were located in Berlin and led by Otto Warburg
Otto Warburg (botanist)
Otto Warburg , was a German botanist and industrial agriculture expert, as well as an active member of the Zionist Organization...
, a German citizen. With different national sections of the movement supporting different sides in the war, Zionist policy was to maintain strict neutrality and "to demonstrate complete loyalty to Turkey," the German ally controlling Palestine.
Following Turkey's entry into World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
in August however, the Zionists were expelled from Tel Aviv and its environs. When the war started in 1914, most Jews viewed Tsarist Russia
Tsardom of Russia
The Tsardom of Russia was the name of the centralized Russian state from Ivan IV's assumption of the title of Tsar in 1547 till Peter the Great's foundation of the Russian Empire in 1721.From 1550 to 1700, Russia grew 35,000 km2 a year...
, on the Allied side, as the historic enemy of the Jewish people and there was tremendous support for Germany. In much of Eastern Europe the advancing Germans were regarded as liberators by the Jews. Russian Jewish immigrants to Britain avoided the draft. In England the Polish Zionist, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, worked to create a Jewish division in the British army. For the British, the Jewish Legion
Jewish Legion
The Jewish Legion was the name for five battalions of Jewish volunteers established as the British Army's 38th through 42nd Battalions of the Royal Fusiliers...
, was a means of recruiting Russian immigrants to the British war effort. The legion was dominated by Zionist volunteers.
In the United States, still officially neutral, most Russian and German Jews supported the Germans as did much of the large Irish American
Irish American
Irish Americans are citizens of the United States who can trace their ancestry to Ireland. A total of 36,278,332 Americans—estimated at 11.9% of the total population—reported Irish ancestry in the 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau...
community. Britain was anxious to win US support for its war effort, and winning over Jewish financial and popular support in the US was considered vital.
The most prominent Russian-Zionist migrant in Britain was chemist Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann, , was a Zionist leader, President of the Zionist Organization, and the first President of the State of Israel. He was elected on 1 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952....
. Weizmann developed a new process to produce Acetone
Acetone
Acetone is the organic compound with the formula 2CO, a colorless, mobile, flammable liquid, the simplest example of the ketones.Acetone is miscible with water and serves as an important solvent in its own right, typically as the solvent of choice for cleaning purposes in the laboratory...
, a critical ingredient in manufacturing explosives that Britain was unable to manufacture in sufficient quantity. In 1915, the British government fell as a result of its inability to manufacture enough artillery shells
Shell Crisis of 1915
The Shell Crisis of 1915 was a shortage of artillery shells on the front lines of World War I, which largely contributed to weakening public appreciation of government of the United Kingdom because it was widely perceived that the production of artillery shells for use by the British Army was...
for the war effort. In the new Government, David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
became the minister responsible for armaments, and asked Weizmann to develop his process for mass production.
Lloyd George was an evangelical Christian and pro-Zionist. According to Lloyd George when he asked Weizmann about payment for his efforts to help Britain, Weizmann told him that he wanted no money, just the rights over Palestine. Weizmann became a close associate of Lloyd George (Prime Minister from 1916) and the First Lord of the Admiralty (Foreign Secretary from 1916), Arthur Balfour
Arthur Balfour
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC, DL was a British Conservative politician and statesman...
.
In 1916 Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca
Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca
Sayyid Hussein bin Ali, GCB was the Sharif of Mecca, and Emir of Mecca from 1908 until 1917, when he proclaimed himself King of Hejaz, which received international recognition. He initiated the Arab Revolt in 1916 against the increasingly nationalistic Ottoman Empire during the course of the...
(in Arabia), began an "Arab Revolt
Arab Revolt
The Arab Revolt was initiated by the Sherif Hussein bin Ali with the aim of securing independence from the ruling Ottoman Turks and creating a single unified Arab state spanning from Aleppo in Syria to Aden in Yemen.- Background :...
" hoping to create an Arab state in the Middle East. In the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence British representatives promised they would allow him to create such a state. They also provided him with large sums of money to fund his revolt.
In February 1917 the Tsar was overthrown
February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...
and Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky was a major political leader before and during the Russian Revolutions of 1917.Kerensky served as the second Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government until Vladimir Lenin was elected by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets following the October Revolution...
became Prime Minister of the Russian Empire. Jews were prominent in the new government and the British hoped that Jewish support would help keep Russia in the war. In June 1917 the British army, led by Edmund Allenby, invaded Palestine. The Jewish Legion
Jewish Legion
The Jewish Legion was the name for five battalions of Jewish volunteers established as the British Army's 38th through 42nd Battalions of the Royal Fusiliers...
participated in the invasion and Jabotinsky was awarded for bravery. Arab forces conquered Transjordan
Transjordan
The Emirate of Transjordan was a former Ottoman territory in the Southern Levant that was part of the British Mandate of Palestine...
and later took over Damascus.
In August 1917, as the British cabinet discussed the Balfour Declaration, Edwin Samuel Montagu
Edwin Samuel Montagu
Edwin Samuel Montagu PC was a British Liberal politician. He notably served as Secretary of State for India between 1917 and 1922.-Background and education:...
, the only Jew in the British Cabinet and a staunch anti-Zionist, "was passionately opposed to the declaration on the grounds that (a) it was a capitulation to anti-Semitic bigotry, with its suggestion that Palestine was the natural destination of the Jews, and that (b) it would be a grave cause of alarm to the Muslim world.". Additional references to the future rights of non-Jews in Palestine and the status of Jews worldwide, were thus inserted by the British cabinet, reflecting the opinion of the only Jew within it. As the draft was finalized, the term "state" was replaced with "home", and comments were sought from Zionists abroad. Louis Brandeis, a member of the US Supreme Court, influenced the style of the text and changed the words "Jewish race" to "Jewish people".
On November 2, the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour
Arthur Balfour
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC, DL was a British Conservative politician and statesman...
, made his landmark Balfour Declaration of 1917, expressing the government's view in favour of "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people", and specifically noting that its establishment must not "prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
As the declaration was being finalized, the Bolsheviks took over
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
Russia. On 23 November, they released a copy of the previously secret Sykes–Picot Agreement, among others, publishing its full text in Izvestia
Izvestia
Izvestia is a long-running high-circulation daily newspaper in Russia. The word "izvestiya" in Russian means "delivered messages", derived from the verb izveshchat . In the context of newspapers it is usually translated as "news" or "reports".-Origin:The newspaper began as the News of the...
and Pravda
Pravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
, and it was subsequently printed in the Manchester Guardian on November 26. This caused Britain great embarrassment, because of the conflicting plans and promises it revealed.
Weizmann becomes leader
In late 1921, the 12th Zionist congress was held in Carlsbad, Czechoslovakia; it was the first congress to be held since 1913, because of World War I, and much change, both positive and less-so, had occurred. Four hundred-fifty delegates attended, representing 780,000 fee paying Zionist members worldwide. Following Chaim Weizmann's "clash" with Louis Brandeis and American Zionism, and the latter's resignation as honorary president of the Zionist Organization, Weizmann was elected its president in recognition of his role in obtaining the Balfour Declaration and the international acceptance of it that had accrued since. With this new impetus however, conditions in Palestine were less than favorable, and the conference passed a proposal for an "Arab-Jewish Entente", which called on Zionist leadership to "forge a true understanding with the Arab nation". Weizmann led the movement until 1931. From 1931 to 1935 the WZO was presided by Nahum SokolowNahum Sokolow
Nahum Sokolow was a Zionist leader, author, translator, and a pioneer of Hebrew journalism....
(who had also spent the first world war in Britain). Weizmann resumed presidency of the WZO in 1935 and led it until 1946.
The League of Nations endorses Zionism
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
endorsed the full text of the Balfour Declaration and established the British Mandate
League of Nations mandate
A League of Nations mandate was a legal status for certain territories transferred from the control of one country to another following World War I, or the legal instruments that contained the internationally agreed-upon terms for administering the territory on behalf of the League...
for Palestine (Full text:).
In addition to accepting the Balfour Declaration policy statement, the League included that “[a]n appropriate Jewish agency
Jewish Agency for Israel
The Jewish Agency for Israel , also known as the Sochnut or JAFI, served as the organization in charge of immigration and absorption of Jews from the Diaspora into the state of Israel.-History:...
shall be recognised as a public body for the purpose of advising and co-operating with the Administration of Palestine..." This inclusion paralleled a similar proposal made by the Zionist Organization
World Zionist Organization
The World Zionist Organization , or WZO, was founded as the Zionist Organization , or ZO, in 1897 at the First Zionist Congress, held from August 29 to August 31 in Basel, Switzerland...
during the Paris Peace Conference
Paris Peace Conference, 1919
The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers following the armistices of 1918. It took place in Paris in 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities...
.
The Zionist movement entered a new phase of activity. Its priorities were encouraging Jewish settlement in Palestine, building the institutional foundations of a Jewish state and raising funds for these purposes. The 1920s did see a steady growth in the Jewish population and the construction of state-like Jewish institutions, but also saw the emergence of Palestinian Arab nationalism and growing resistance to Jewish immigration.
Expansion of the movement: the third and fourth aliya
The success of Zionism in getting international recognition for its project led to growth in the membership and development of new forms of Zionism. The period 1919-1923 saw migration by Jews escaping the civil war in Russia, the period 1924-1929 migration by Jews escaping antisemitic regimes in Poland and Hungary.Religious Zionism
In the 1920s and 1930s, a small but vocal group of religious Jews, under such leaders as Rabbi Abraham Isaac KookAbraham Isaac Kook
Abraham Isaac Kook was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the British Mandate for Palestine, the founder of the Religious Zionist Yeshiva Merkaz HaRav, Jewish thinker, Halachist, Kabbalist and a renowned Torah scholar...
(the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine) and his son Zevi Judah, began to develop the concept of Religious Zionism
Religious Zionism
Religious Zionism is an ideology that combines Zionism and Jewish religious faith...
. At the time, Kook was concerned that growing secularism of Zionist supporters and increasing antagonism towards the movement from the largely non-Zionist Orthodox community might lead to a schism between them. He therefore sought to create a brand of Zionism which would serve as a bridge between Jewish Orthodoxy and secular Jewish Zionists, for the benefit of the overall Zionist endeavor.
The Religious Zionists established a youth movement called Bnei Akiva
Bnei Akiva
Bnei Akiva is the largest religious Zionist youth movement in the world, with over 125,000 members in 37 countries. It was established in Mandate Palestine in 1929.-History:...
in 1929, and a number of Religious Kibbutzim
Religious Kibbutz Movement
The Religious Kibbutz Movement is an organizational framework for Orthodox kibbutzim in Israel. Its membership includes 19 communities, 16 of them traditional kibbutzim, and two others in the category of moshav shitufi , meaning that they have no communal dining hall or children's house but...
.
Revisionist Zionism
The Revisionist Zionists were established in 1923 and originally led by Ze'ev Jabotinsky. After his involvement against the 1929 Arab riots1929 Palestine riots
The 1929 Palestine riots, also known as the Western Wall Uprising, the 1929 Massacres, , or the Buraq Uprising , refers to a series of demonstrations and riots in late August 1929 when a long-running dispute between Muslims and Jews over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem escalated into violence...
, the British banned Jabotinsky from re-entering Palestine, and until his death in 1940, he advocated the more militant revisionist ideology in Europe and America. In 1935, he and the Revisionists left the mainstream Zionist Organization
World Zionist Organization
The World Zionist Organization , or WZO, was founded as the Zionist Organization , or ZO, in 1897 at the First Zionist Congress, held from August 29 to August 31 in Basel, Switzerland...
and formed the New Zionist Organization. Following mainstream Zionism's' acceptance of their earlier militant demand for a Jewish state they eventually rejoined in 1946.
During this period, Revisionist Zionism was detested by the competing Socialist Zionist movement, which saw them as being capitalist and influenced by Fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
; the movement also caused a great deal of concern among Arab Palestinians.
Revisionism was popular in Poland but lacked large support in Palestine. The Revisionists refused to comply with British quotas on Jewish migration, and, following the election of Hitler in Germany, the Revisionist youth movements HeHalutz
Hehalutz
Hechalutz was an association of Jewish youth whose aim was to train its members to settle in the Land of Israel, which became an umbrella organization of the pioneering Zionist youth movements....
and Beitar began to organize illegal Jewish migration to Palestine. In Europe and America they advocated pressing Britain to allow mass Jewish emigration and the formation of a Jewish Army in Palestine. The army would force the Arab population to accept mass Jewish migration and promote British interests in the region.
Zionism and the Arabs
Arab nationalists predominantly perceived Zionism as a threat to their own aspirations. This sense was heightened, by the growth of Zionist labor movement and its "Hebrew laborHebrew labor
Hebrew labor refers to the concept of hiring Jewish workers in Ottoman and Mandate Palestine.-Ottoman era:During the Second Aliyah period many Jewish immigrants to Palestine sought year round jobs on the agricultural tracts and plantations of their co-religionists who had arrived during the First...
" program. The latter was an effort to increase Jewish immigrant employment, secure the creation of a Jewish proletariat, and to prevent Zionist settlement from turning into a standard colonial enterprise. Initially, it sought to develop separate settlements and economies and campaigned for the exclusive employment of Jews; it later campaigned against the employment of Arabs. Its adverse effects on the Arab majority were increasingly noted by the mandatory administration.
In 1919 Hashemite
Hashemite
Hashemite is the Latinate version of the , transliteration: Hāšimī, and traditionally refers to those belonging to the Banu Hashim, or "clan of Hashim", a clan within the larger Quraish tribe...
Emir Faisal
Faisal I of Iraq
Faisal bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi, was for a short time King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria or Greater Syria in 1920, and was King of the Kingdom of Iraq from 23 August 1921 to 1933...
, signed the Faisal–Weizmann Agreement. He wrote:
We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our delegation here in Paris is fully acquainted with the proposals submitted yesterday by the Zionist organization to the Peace Conference, and we regard them as moderate and proper.
In their first meeting in June 1918 Weizmann had assured Faisal that
the Jews did not propose to set up a government of their own but wished to work under British protection, to colonize and develop Palestine without encroaching on any legitimate interests
Initially Palestinian Arabs looked to the Arab-nationalist leaders to create a single Arab state, however Faisal's agreement with Weizmann led Palestinian-Arabs to develop their own brand of nationalism and call for Palestine to become a state governed by the Arab majority, in particular they demanded an elected assembly.
Zionist supporters were by now aware of Arab opposition, and this led the movement in 1921 to pass a motion calling on the leadership to "forge a true understanding with the Arab nation".
The Mufti and the emergence of Palestinian Nationalism
Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
Haj Mohammed Effendi Amin el-Husseini was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and Muslim leader in the British Mandate of Palestine. From as early as 1920, in order to secure the independence of Palestine as an Arab state he actively opposed Zionism, and was implicated as a leader of a violent riot...
was appointed as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem is the Sunni Muslim cleric in charge of Jerusalem's Islamic holy places, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque.-Ottoman era:...
by the Palestine High Commissioner Herbert Samuel
Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel
Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel GCB OM GBE PC was a British politician and diplomat.-Early years:...
, after he had been pardoned for his role in the 1920 Palestine riots
1920 Palestine riots
The 1920 Palestine riots, or Nabi Musa riots, took place in British Mandate of Palestine April 4–7, 1920 in and around the Old City of Jerusalem....
. During the following decades, he became the focus of Palestinian opposition to Zionism.
The Mufti believed that Jews were seeking to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem
Temple in Jerusalem
The Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple , refers to one of a series of structures which were historically located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, the current site of the Dome of the Rock. Historically, these successive temples stood at this location and functioned as the centre of...
on the site of the Dome of the Rock
Dome of the Rock
The Dome of the Rock is a shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. The structure has been refurbished many times since its initial completion in 691 CE at the order of Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik...
and Al-Aqsa Mosque
Al-Aqsa Mosque
Al-Aqsa Mosque also known as al-Aqsa, is the third holiest site in Sunni Islam and is located in the Old City of Jerusalem...
. This led to a long confrontation over the use of the Kotel
Western Wall
The Western Wall, Wailing Wall or Kotel is located in the Old City of Jerusalem at the foot of the western side of the Temple Mount...
, also known as the Wailing Wall, which was owned by the Moslem authorities
Waqf
A waqf also spelled wakf formally known as wakf-alal-aulad is an inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law, typically denoting a building or plot of land for Muslim religious or charitable purposes. The donated assets are held by a charitable trust...
but was sacred to Jews.
Religious tension, an international economic crisis (affecting crop prices) and nationalist tension (over Zionist immigration) led to the 1929 Palestine riots
1929 Palestine riots
The 1929 Palestine riots, also known as the Western Wall Uprising, the 1929 Massacres, , or the Buraq Uprising , refers to a series of demonstrations and riots in late August 1929 when a long-running dispute between Muslims and Jews over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem escalated into violence...
. In these religious-nationalist riots Jews were massacred in Hebron
1929 Hebron massacre
The Hebron massacre refers to the killing of sixty-seven Jews on 23 and 24 August 1929 in Hebron, then part of the British Mandate of Palestine, by Arabs incited to violence by rumors that Jews were massacring Arabs in Jerusalem and seizing control of Muslim holy places...
and the survivors forced to leave the town. Devastation also took place in Safed
Safed
Safed , is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and of Israel. Due to its high elevation, Safed experiences warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters...
and Jerusalem.
In 1936 an Arab uprising occurred, which lasted for three years. The Supreme Muslim Council
Supreme Muslim Council
The Supreme Muslim Council was the highest body in charge of Muslim community affairs in Mandate Palestine under British control. It was established to create an advisory body composed of Muslims and Christians with whom the High Commissioner could consult...
in Palestine, led by the Mufti, organized the revolt. During the revolt the Mufti was forced to flee to Iraq, where he was involved in a pro-Nazi coup during which the Jewish areas of Baghdad were subjected to a pogrom
Farhud
Farhud refers to the pogrom or "violent dispossession" carried out against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq, on June 1-2, 1941 during the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. The riots occurred in a power vacuum following the collapse of the pro-Nazi government of Rashid Ali while the city was in a...
.
In 1939 he rejected as insufficient the British White Paper
White Paper of 1939
The White Paper of 1939, also known as the MacDonald White Paper after Malcolm MacDonald, the British Colonial Secretary who presided over it, was a policy paper issued by the British government under Neville Chamberlain in which the idea of partitioning the Mandate for Palestine, as recommended in...
which imposed restrictions on Jewish immigration and land acquisition by Jews.
After the British reoccupied Iraq the Mufti joined the Nazis. He worked with Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
and aided the SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
his main role was broadcasting propaganda and recruiting Moslems, primarily for the Waffen SS in Bosnia
13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian)
The 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar was one of the thirty-eight divisions fielded as part of the Waffen-SS during World War II. Its recruits were composed of Muslim Bosniaks. The Handschar division was a mountain infantry formation, the equivalent of the German "Gebirgsjäger" ...
. There is also evidence that he was implicated in the Nazi extermination program.
In 1948 the Mufti returned to Egypt. He was involved in the short-lived All-Palestine Government
All-Palestine Government
The All-Palestine Government was established by the Arab League on 22 September 1948, during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Shortly thereafter, an Arab-Palestinian Congress named King Abdullah I of Transjordan, "King of Arab Palestine"...
sponsored by Egypt but was sidelined by most of the Arab countries.
Roosevelt-Ibn Saud correspondence
As the Second World War was drawing to its close, the King of Saudi ArabiaSaudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
expressed his concern in a letter to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
lest the US support for Zionism will infringe on the rights of the Arabs of Palestine. On April 5, 1945, the President replied in a letter to the King that
I would take no action, in my capacity as Chief of the Executive Branch of this Government, which might prove hostile to the Arab people.
Following Roosevelt's death, the Truman administration publicly adhered to the policy announced in the letter in an official statement released on October 18, 1945.
Growing conflict with the Palestinian Arab population
One issue fatally divided Arab and Jew in Palestine: immigration. Jews would not compromise over immigration which they needed as a means of escaping European persecution and which was a core doctrine of Zionism. The Arabs for their part could not compromise on immigration because to do so would effectively end their majority in Palestine. As time went on the conflict between the two communities became increasingly bitter.British immigration restrictions
British support for Zionism was always controversial and the issue was periodically debated in Parliament.Churchill also restricted Jewish migration to an annual quota decided by the British. Certificates allowing migration were distributed by the Jewish Agency. Jews with 1000 Pounds in cash or Jewish professionals with 500 Pounds in cash could emigrate freely. Churchill's reforms made it hard for Arab Jews
Arab Jews
Arab Jews is a term referring to Jews living in the Arab World, or Jews descended from such persons.The term was occasionally used in the early 20th century, mainly by Arab nationalists, to describe the 1 million Jews living in the Arab world at the time...
, Orthodox Jews and Revisionist Zionists from Poland to migrate to Palestine as the Jewish Agency was dominated by European Zionists, and increasingly by Socialist Zionists.
Immigration restrictions did, however mean that Jewish immigrants to Palestine had to prove their loyalty and dedication by spending years preparing for migration. Many immigrants arrived after rigorous preparation including agricultural and ideological training and learning Hebrew.
The rise of Hitler: the Fifth Aliyah and illegal migration
During the 1920s concerns about antisemitism increased across Europe. By 1928, nations were increasingly legislating immigration, which at times prevented Jews from entering, and some of the new European states, established after the First World War, perceived Jewish immigrants as a threat to their political stability. Many countries feared that immigrating Jews from the east would bring revolutionary political ideas with them; Jews were also perceived as being a negative moral influence on society.The rise to power of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
in Germany in 1933 produced a powerful new impetus for increased Zionist support and immigration to Palestine. The long-held assimilationist and non-Zionist view that Jews could live securely as minorities in European societies was deeply undermined, since Germany had been regarded previously as the country in which Jews had been most successfully integrated. With nearly all other countries closed to Jewish immigration, a new wave of migrants headed for Palestine. Those unable to pay the fees required for immediate entry by the British had to join the waiting lists.
Nazi efforts to induce Jews to leave Germany were made, but were undermined by their refusal to allow them to take their property also. In response, Haim Arlozorov of the Jewish Agency negotiated the Haavara Agreement
Haavara Agreement
The Haavara Agreement was signed on 25 August 1933 after three months of talks by the Zionist Federation of Germany , the Anglo-Palestine Bank and the economic authorities of Nazi Germany...
with the Nazis, whereby German Jews could buy and then export German manufactured goods to Palestine. In Palestine the goods were later sold and the income returned to the migrants. As a result of this agreement, the influx of capital gave a much-needed economic boost in the midst of the great depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. Arlozorov, however, was assassinated shortly after his return, it was generally believed by members of the Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...
(in recent years it has been suggested that Nazi propaganda Minister Goebbels
Goebbels
Goebbels, alternatively Göbbels, is a common surname in the western areas of Germany. It is probably derived from the Old Low German word gibbler, meaning brewer...
may have ordered the assassination to hide Arlozorov's connection with his wife
Magda Goebbels
Johanna Maria Magdalena "Magda" Goebbels was the wife of Nazi Germany's Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels...
).
Starting in 1934, the Revisionists also began organizing illegal immigration, and combined, the Jewish population of Palestine rose rapidly. While these conditions also led to increased Arab immigration, the rapid rise in Jewish immigrants eventually led to the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine.
By 1938, the increasing pressure put on European Jews also led mainstream Zionists to organize illegal immigration.
The 1939 White Paper and the British break with Zionism
In Britain as elsewhere in Europe, the 1930s saw an increase in antisemitism. British Labour Party politician, Oswald MosleyOswald Mosley
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists...
, established a new party, the British Union of Fascists
British Union of Fascists
The British Union was a political party in the United Kingdom formed in 1932 by Sir Oswald Mosley as the British Union of Fascists, in 1936 it changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists and then in 1937 to simply the British Union...
, which claimed that "the Jews" were leading Britain to war and campaigned for peace with Germany. British support for Zionism was further undermined by the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine and concern that millions of Jews would soon be seeking entry to Palestine. The Nuremberg Laws
Nuremberg Laws
The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were antisemitic laws in Nazi Germany introduced at the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. After the takeover of power in 1933 by Hitler, Nazism became an official ideology incorporating scientific racism and antisemitism...
effectively revoked the citizenship of the 500,000 Jews of Germany, making them refugees in their own country. In March 1938 Hitler annexed Austria
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
making its 200,000 Jews stateless refugees. In September the British agreed to Nazi annexation
Munich Agreement
The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...
of the Sudetenland
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
making a further 100,000 Jews refugees.
In the absence of alternative destinations
Evian Conference
The Évian Conference was convened at the initiative of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in July 1938 to discuss the issue of increasing numbers of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. For eight days, from July 6 to July 13, representatives from 31 countries met at Évian-les-Bains, France...
, over 100,000 German Jews headed for Palestine.
In 1939 the British issued a White Paper
White Paper of 1939
The White Paper of 1939, also known as the MacDonald White Paper after Malcolm MacDonald, the British Colonial Secretary who presided over it, was a policy paper issued by the British government under Neville Chamberlain in which the idea of partitioning the Mandate for Palestine, as recommended in...
, in which they declared that a Jewish National Home now existed and that their obligations under the mandate were fulfilled. Further migration would be harmful to the Arab population.
A further 10,000 Jews a year were to be admitted from 1939 to 1944 as well as a one-time allowance of 25,000 in view of the situation in Europe. After that Jewish migration would require (the extremely unlikely) agreement of the Arab majority (by this time Jews were about a third of the population). The British promised Palestinians independence by 1949 and imposed restrictions on land purchases by Jews.
The British were concerned about maintaining Arab support as Italian Fascist and German Nazi propaganda was targeting the Arab world (and winning support). Jewish support in the fight against Fascism was guaranteed. In Palestine, Zionists increasingly viewed the British as an enemy, but they deemed the fight against the Nazis more important. In 1940 a group led by Avraham Stern
Avraham Stern
Avraham Stern , alias Yair was a Jewish paramilitary leader who founded and led the militant Zionist organization later known as Lehi .-Early life:Stern was born in Suwałki, Poland...
, later known as Lehi
Lehi (group)
Lehi , commonly referred to in English as the Stern Group or Stern Gang, was a militant Zionist group founded by Avraham Stern in the British Mandate of Palestine...
, left the Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...
over its refusal to fight the British.
State of the Zionist movement on the eve of World War II
In 1938–39 the Zionist movement had 1,040,540 members in 61 countries. Total world Jewish population at this time was about 18 million. Zionism was banned in Turkey. Likewise though a significant proportion of the movement's supporters originally came from the USSR, under StalinJoseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
. Zionism and Orthodox Judaism were banned and Jews were prominent among the victims of the Soviet genocide. These figures suggest Zionism was very popular among Jews.
The following figures relate to the last pre-war Zionist congress in Geneva, 1939. Elections for the congress were held in 48 countries and 529 delegates attended. Members of the movement voted for the parties. Each party submitted a delegate list. Seats were distributed to the parties according to the number of votes they obtained and candidates elected in the order in which they were named on the list. This system today forms the basis for Israeli elections.
| Country | Members | Delegates |
|---|---|---|
| Poland | 299,165 | 109 |
| USA | 263,741 | 114 |
| Palestine | 167,562 | 134 |
| Rumania | 60,013 | 28 |
| United Kingdom | 23,513 | 15 |
| South Africa | 22,343 | 14 |
| Canada | 15,220 | 8 |
| Party | Number | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Worker's Party | 216 | 41 |
| General Zionists (centre) | 143 | 27 |
| General Zionists (conservative) | 28 | 5 |
| Mizrahi (Orthodox religious) | 65 | 12 |
| Radical Workers [far left] | 3 | 2.5 |
| State Party [right-wing] | 8 | 1.5 |
| Others | 66 | 11 |
Zionism during the Holocaust
During the Holocaust Europe's Jews were cut off from and disowned by the outside world. Jews were systematically impoverished, starved and murdered. Where Jews did try to fight the Nazis, Zionists were prominent in the resistance. However those fighting never had a chance of success, and were always bloodily suppressed by the Nazis. The only instances where Jews had been successful, were when they fought in the woods as partisans, for example the Bielski partisansBielski partisans
The Bielski partisans were an organisation of Jewish partisans who rescued Jews from extermination and fought against the Nazi German occupiers and their collaborators in the vicinity of Nowogródek and Lida in German-occupied Poland...
, a group of 1213 Jews who survived the whole war while making trouble for the Nazis. Nazi allies Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
and Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
(mainly Romania) were responsible for the deaths of at least 10% of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust. Axis governments, local police forces and local volunteers across Europe played a critical role in rounding up or executing Jews for the Nazis.
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the Jewish resistance that arose within the Warsaw Ghetto in German occupied Poland during World War II, and which opposed Nazi Germany's effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to Treblinka extermination camp....
of January and April 1943 included the participation of both right- and left-leaning Zionist organizations. Zionists of all political spectra played a leading role in the struggle. The uprising's left-leaning survivors eventually made their way to Palestine and founded two Kibbutzim, Lohamei HaGeta'ot and Yad Mordechai
Yad Mordechai
Yad Mordechai is a kibbutz in southern Israel. Located 10 km south of Ashkelon, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hof Ashkelon Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 710.-History:...
.
In Palestine the Zionist leadership instructed all able-bodied Jews to volunteer for the British Army. In addition there was an effort to parachute fighters into Europe, though little came of this. Fearing a Nazi invasion, the Jewish community prepared for a final stand to be made against the Nazis.
Overall the yishuv leaders had not done enough in publicizing and trying to stop the Holocaust. While they could have succeeded in saving thousands of Jews if rescuing Jews had been their top priority, rather than state creation, they had no power to "stop" the Holocaust. In the words of Tom Segev
Tom Segev
Tom Segev is an Israeli historian, author and journalist. He is associated with Israel's so-called New Historians, a group challenging many of the country's traditional narratives.-Early life:Segev was born in Jerusalem in 1945...
:
"The story of the yishuv leaders during the Holocaust was essentially one of helplessness. They rescued a few thousand Jews from Europe. They could, perhaps have saved more, but they could not save millions."
Efforts were made to offer the Nazis money for the release of Jews. However, these efforts were systematically (and, according to Segev, cynically) destroyed by the British.
The 1942 Zionist conference could not be held because of the war. Instead 600 Jewish leaders (not just Zionists) met at the Biltmore Hotel in New York and adopted a statement known as the Biltmore Program. They agreed that the Zionist movement would seek the creation of a Jewish state after the war and that all Jewish organizations would fight to ensure free Jewish migration into Palestine.
Impact of the Holocaust
The Nazi-inspired genocide in Europe had grave consequences for the Zionists.- A large section of the membership was wiped out. The damage was particularly great in Poland where about a third of the Zionist members had lived (the Russian membership had been lost to communism).
- Those Jews who were not killed lost their possessions; the ability of the Zionist movement to raise money in Europe was severely reduced.
This calamity led to important changes in Jewish and Zionist politics:
- Many Jews were now desperate to leave Europe and willing to take grave risks for that purpose
- All Jews now agreed on the need for a Jewish state where Jews could live free of the fear of persecution and which would provide a haven in times of persecution.
- The Jews of the USA were now the dominant force in Jewish politics.
- More Jews were prepared to mobilize on behalf of their brethren.
- Britain was now weakened and less able to resist international pressure.
The rapid growth of illegal immigration to Palestine
In 1945, President Truman sent a personal representative, Earl G. HarrisonEarl G. Harrison
Earl Grant Harrison was an American attorney, academician, and public servant. He is chiefly remembered for his work on behalf of displaced persons in the aftermath of the Second World War, when he brought attention to the plight of Jewish refugees in a crucial report he submitted to President...
, to investigate the situation of the Jewish survivors ("Sh'erit ha-Pletah
Sh'erit ha-Pletah
Sh'erit ha-Pletah is a biblical term used by Jewish survivors of the Nazi Holocaust to refer to themselves and the communities they formed following their liberation in the spring of 1945....
") in Europe. Harrison reported that
substantial unofficial and unauthorized movements of people must be expected, and these will require considerable force to prevent, for the patience of many of the persons involved is, and in my opinion with justification, nearing the breaking point. It cannot be overemphasized that many of these people are now desperate, that they have become accustomed under German rule to employ every possible means to reach their end, and that the fear of death does not restrain them.
Despite winning the 1945 British election with a manifesto promising to create a Jewish state in Palestine, the Labour Government succumbed to Foreign Office pressure and kept Palestine closed to Jewish migration.
In Europe former Jewish partisans
Jewish partisans
Jewish partisans were fighters in irregular military groups participating in the Jewish resistance movement against Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II....
led by Abba Kovner
Abba Kovner
Abba Kovner was a Lithuanian Jewish Hebrew poet, writer, and partisan leader. He became one of the great poets of modern Israel. He was a cousin of the Israeli Communist Party leader Meir Vilner.-Biography:...
began to organize escape routes ("Berihah
Berihah
Bricha was the underground organized effort that helped Jewish Holocaust survivors escape post-World War II Europe to the British Mandate for Palestine in violation of the White Paper of 1939...
") taking Jews from Eastern Europe down to the Mediterranean where the Jewish Agency organized ships ("Aliyah Bet") to illegally carry them to Palestine.
The British government responded by trying to force Jews to return to their places of origin. Holocaust survivors entering the British Zone were denied assistance or forced to live in hostels with former Nazi collaborators (Britain gave asylum to a large number of Belorussian Nazi collaborators
30th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (2nd Russian)
The 30th SS Grenadier Division was a German Waffen SS infantry division formed largely from Belarussian, Russian and Ukrainian personnel of the Schutzmannschaft-Brigade Siegling in August 1944 at Warsaw, Poland. The division was moved by rail to southeastern France by mid-August 1944 to combat the...
after the war). In American-controlled zones, political pressure from Washington allowed Jews to live in their own quarters and meant the US Army helped Jews trying to escape the centres of genocide.
Despite the death of almost a third of the world's Jews during the Second World War, the number of fee paying members of the Zionist movement continued to grow. The December 1946 Zionist congress in Basle (Switzerland) attracted 375 delegates from 43 countries representing two million fee paying members. As before the largest parties were the Socialist Zionist parties although these lacked a full majority. Only ten of the delegates were British Jews.
The 1947 UN decision to partition Palestine
In 1947 Britain announced its intention to withdraw from Palestine. An United Nations Special CommitteeUnited Nations Special Committee on Palestine
The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine was formed in May 1947 in response to a United Kingdom government request that the General Assembly "make recommendations under article 10 of the Charter, concerning the future government of Palestine"...
investigated the situation and offered two solutions :
- to establish a bi-national state in Palestine (the minority option);
- to partition Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state.
From the Zionist point of view, the second option corresponded to their goal and they gave full support to this.
On 29 November the United Nations General Assembly
United Nations General Assembly
For two articles dealing with membership in the General Assembly, see:* General Assembly members* General Assembly observersThe United Nations General Assembly is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation...
voted to partition Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state (with Jerusalem becoming an international enclave). Amid public rejoicing in Jewish communities in Palestine, the Jewish Agency accepted the plan. The Palestinian Arab leadership and the Arab League rejected the decision and announced that they would not abide by it. Civil conflict between the Arabs and Jews in Palestine
1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine
The 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine lasted from 30 November 1947, the date of the United Nations vote in favour of the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the UN Partition Plan, to the termination of the British Mandate itself on 14 May 1948.This period constitutes the...
ensued immediately.
Zionism after the creation of Israel
On 14 May 1948 the leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine declared independence in accordance with the UN resolution, and Israel was established as the Jewish state. This marked a major turning point, since the Zionist movement had accomplished its principal goal. As a result, many Zionist institutions became government institutions, and the three Zionist militias were combined to form the Israel Defense ForcesIsrael Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
.
David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel objected to the Zionist Organization's more moderate approach in attaining Jewish statehood, and later objected to its continued existence, which he saw as competition and largely irrelevant following the formation of the state; he clashed with the leadership of the international Zionist Organization. The ZO's main activities at this point were relegated to assisting persecuted Jews, usually in countries where Zionism was illegal, and assisting immigration to Israel in countries where Jews faced little persecution, plus raising awareness and encouraging support for Israel.
Most Diaspora Jews identify with Zionism and have done so since the 1930s, in the sense that they support the State of Israel, even if they do not choose to emigrate; the Zionist movement also has undertaken a variety of roles to encourage support for Israel. These have included encouraging immigration and assisting immigrants in absorption and integration, fund-raising on behalf of needs and development, encouraging private capital investment, and mobilizing public opinion support for Israel internationally. Worldwide Jewish political and financial support has been of vital importance for Israel.
The 1967 war between Israel and the Arab states (the "Six-Day War
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
") marked a major turning point in the history of both Israel and of Zionism. Israeli forces captured the eastern half of Jerusalem, including the holiest of Jewish religious sites, the Western Wall
Western Wall
The Western Wall, Wailing Wall or Kotel is located in the Old City of Jerusalem at the foot of the western side of the Temple Mount...
of the ancient Temple. They also took over the remaining territories of pre-1948 Palestine, the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
(from Jordan) the Gaza Strip
Gaza Strip
thumb|Gaza city skylineThe Gaza Strip lies on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Strip borders Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the south, east and north. It is about long, and between 6 and 12 kilometres wide, with a total area of...
(from Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
) as well as the Golan Heights (from Syria).
The 28th Zionist Congress (Jerusalem, 1968) adopted the following five principles, known as the "Jerusalem Program", as the aims of contemporary Zionism:
- The unity of the Jewish people and the centrality of Israel in Jewish life
- The ingathering of the Jewish people in the historic homeland, Eretz Israel, through aliyahAliyahAliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...
from all countries - The strengthening of the State of Israel, based on the "prophetic vision of justice and peace"
- The preservation of the identity of the Jewish people through the fostering of Jewish, Hebrew and Zionist education and of Jewish spiritual and cultural values
- The protection of Jewish rights everywhere.
The election of 1977
Israeli legislative election, 1977
The Elections for the ninth Knesset were held on 17 May 1977. For the first time in Israeli political history, the right-wing, led by Likud, won the election, ending almost 30 years of rule by the left-wing Alignment and its predecessor, Mapai...
, characterized as “the revolution”, brought the nationalistic, right-wing, Revisionist Zionist
Revisionist Zionism
Revisionist Zionism is a nationalist faction within the Zionist movement. It is the founding ideology of the non-religious right in Israel, and was the chief ideological competitor to the dominant socialist Labor Zionism...
, Likud
Likud
Likud is the major center-right political party in Israel. It was founded in 1973 by Menachem Begin in an alliance with several right-wing and liberal parties. Likud's victory in the 1977 elections was a major turning point in the country's political history, marking the first time the left had...
Party to power, after thirty years in opposition to the dominant Labor party and indicated further movement to the political right. Joel Greenburg, writing in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
twenty years after the election, notes its significance and that of related events; he writes:
The seed was sown in 1977, when Menachem Begin of Likud brought his party to power for the first time in a stunning election victory over Labor. A decade before, in the 1967 war, Israeli troops had in effect undone the partition accepted in 1948 by overrunning the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Ever since, Mr. Begin had preached undying loyalty to what he called Judea and Samaria (the West Bank lands) and promoted Jewish settlement there. But he did not annex the West Bank and Gaza to Israel after he took office, reflecting a recognition that absorbing the Palestinians could turn Israel it into a binational state instead of a Jewish one.
Control of the West Bank and Gaza placed Israel in the position of control over a large population of Palestinian Arabs. Over the years this has generated conflict between competing core Zionist ideals of an egalitarian democratic state on the one hand, and territorial loyalty to historic Jewish areas, particularly the old city of Jerusalem, on the other. Zionism and its ideological underpinnings have become less important in Israeli politics, except for on-going national debate over the nature of what is meant by a "Jewish State," and the geographic limits of the State of Israel. These debates however, have largely taken place outside Zionist organizations, and within Israeli national politics.
In 1975 the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 was passed. It stated that "zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination." Resolution 3379 was rescinded in 1991 by the Resolution 4686.
In 2001, the first ever environmental Zionist organization, the Green Zionist Alliance
Green Zionist Alliance
The Green Zionist Alliance is a New York-based secular and pluralistic Jewish environmental organization that is a U.S.-registered 501 tax-deductible nonprofit charity...
, was founded by a group of American and Israeli environmentalists led by Dr. Alon Tal, Rabbi Michael Cohen and Dr. Eilon Schwartz. The Green Zionist Alliance
Green Zionist Alliance
The Green Zionist Alliance is a New York-based secular and pluralistic Jewish environmental organization that is a U.S.-registered 501 tax-deductible nonprofit charity...
focuses on the environment of Israel and its region.
The campaign to free the Jews of the USSR
In the 1950s, the USSR became increasingly anti-Jewish and accusations of Zionism were frequently used as a euphemism for anti-Jewish campaigns in Eastern Europe and the Arab world.Soviet propaganda backfired in 1967 and led to a major spurt of Jews applying to leave for Israel. The Zionist movement mounted a major campaign to pressure the USSR to allow Soviet Jews to migrate to Israel.
Zionist activists in the USSR studied Hebrew (illegal in the USSR), held clandestine religious ceremonies (circumcision was illegal) and monitored Human Rights
Moscow Helsinki Group
The Moscow Helsinki Group is an influential human rights monitoring non-governmental organization, originally established in what was then the Soviet Union; it still operates in Russia....
abuses on behalf of western organizations. The most prominent activist was Anatoly Sharansky, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his actions before being exchanged for a Soviet spy.
Over the years a number of Israeli and American Jewish organizations, most notably SSSJ
Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry
The Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, also known by its acronym SSSJ, was founded in 1964 by Jacob Birnbaum to be a spearhead of the US movement for rights of the Soviet Jewry.-“Let My People Go” foundation period in 1960s:...
and NCSJ
NCSJ
National Conference on Soviet Jewry is a leading US organization advocating on behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States, and Eurasia. It was started in 1971 as a volunteer organization and played an important role in the Soviet Jewry movement, including such landmark legislations as...
, mounted a political campaign to free Soviet Jews. Aided with the efforts of Reagan administration
Reagan Administration
The United States presidency of Ronald Reagan, also known as the Reagan administration, was a Republican administration headed by Ronald Reagan from January 20, 1981, to January 20, 1989....
, this campaign eventually succeeded in 1987 when most refusniks we released from prison and allowed to immigrate to Israel.
Further reading
- Brenner, Michael, and Shelley Frisch. Zionism: A Brief History (2003) excerpt and text search
- Cohen, Naomi. The Americanization of Zionism, 1897-1948 (2003). 304 pp. essays on specialized topics
- Laqueuer, Walter. A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel (2003) good history by a leading scholar excerpt and text search
- Medoff, Rafael. "Recent Trends in the Historiography of American Zionism," American Jewish History 86 (March 1998), 117-134.
- Sachar, Howard M. A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time (2007) excerpt and text search
- Urofsky, Melvin I. American Zionism from Herzl to the Holocaust (1995), the standard history
- Wigoder, Geoffrey, ed. New Encyclopedia of Zionism and Israel (2nd ed. 2 vol. 1994); 1521pp
Primary sources
- Hertzberg, Arthur. The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader (1997), 648pp, major primary sources plus very good introduction
Types of Zionism
- Christian ZionismChristian ZionismChristian Zionism is a belief among some Christians that the return of the Jews to the Holy Land, and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, is in accordance with Biblical prophecy. It overlaps with, but is distinct from, the nineteenth century movement for the Restoration of the Jews...
- Cultural ZionismCultural ZionismCultural Zionism is a strain of the concept of Zionism that values Jewish culture and history, including language and historical roots, rather than other Zionist ideas such as political Zionism...
- General ZionistsGeneral ZionistsThe General Zionists were centrists within the Zionist movement and a political party in Israel. Their political arm is an ancestor of the modern-day Likud.-History:...
- Labor ZionismLabor ZionismLabor Zionism can be described as the major stream of the left wing of the Zionist movement. It was, for many years, the most significant tendency among Zionists and Zionist organizational structure...
- Reform ZionismReform ZionismReform Zionism, also known as Progressive Zionism is the ideology of the Zionist arm of the Reform or Progressive branch of Judaism. The Association of Reform Zionists of America is the American Reform movement's Zionist organization. Their mission “endeavors to make Israel fundamental to the...
- Religious ZionismReligious ZionismReligious Zionism is an ideology that combines Zionism and Jewish religious faith...
- Revisionist ZionismRevisionist ZionismRevisionist Zionism is a nationalist faction within the Zionist movement. It is the founding ideology of the non-religious right in Israel, and was the chief ideological competitor to the dominant socialist Labor Zionism...
Zionist institutions and organizations
- HistadrutHistadrutHaHistadrut HaKlalit shel HaOvdim B'Eretz Yisrael , known as the Histadrut, is Israel's organization of trade unions. Established in December 1920 during the British Mandate for Palestine, it became one of the most powerful institutions of the State of Israel.-History:The Histadrut was founded in...
- The Jewish Agency for IsraelJewish Agency for IsraelThe Jewish Agency for Israel , also known as the Sochnut or JAFI, served as the organization in charge of immigration and absorption of Jews from the Diaspora into the state of Israel.-History:...
- Jewish National FundJewish National FundThe Jewish National Fund was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Palestine for Jewish settlement. The JNF is a quasi-governmental, non-profit organisation...
- Vaad LeumiVaad LeumiThe Jewish National Council , also known as the Jewish People's Council was the main national institution of the Jewish community within the British Mandate of Palestine.-History:...
- World Zionist OrganizationWorld Zionist OrganizationThe World Zionist Organization , or WZO, was founded as the Zionist Organization , or ZO, in 1897 at the First Zionist Congress, held from August 29 to August 31 in Basel, Switzerland...
History of Zionism, Israel and Palestine
- History of IsraelHistory of IsraelThe State of Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948 after almost two millennia of Jewish dispersal and persecution around the Mediterranean. From the late 19th century the Zionist movement worked towards the goal of recreating a homeland for the Jewish people...
- History of PalestineHistory of PalestineThe Southern Levant is the southern portion of the geographical region bordering the Mediterranean between Egypt and Mesopotamia . A narrow definition would take in roughly the same area as the modern states of Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Jordan, while a wider definition would...
- History of the Southern Levant
- Israeli–Palestinian conflictIsraeli–Palestinian conflictThe Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...
- List of Zionist figures
- Timeline of ZionismTimeline of ZionismThis is a partial timeline of Zionism in the modern era, since the start of the 16th century.-16th–18th centuries:1561: Joseph Nasi encourages Jewish settlement in Tiberias, having fled the Spanish Inquisition fourteen years previously in 1547...
Other resources
- For other resources and external links, see Zionism and anti-Zionism (resources)