Ever since the Jews were exiled from the Land of Israel

Land of Israel

The Land of Israel is the Biblical name for the territory roughly corresponding to the area encompassed by the Southern Levant, also known as Canaan and Palestine, Promised Land and Holy Land. The belief that the area is a God-given homeland of the Jewish people is based on the narrative of the...

, during all generations, many Jews aspired to return to their ancestral homeland. They immigrated as singles, in small groups, with or without immigration permits, and requested to live and be buried in the Land of Israel.

The first in the this category was "the Return to Zion

The Return to Zion

The Return to Zion is a term that refers to the event written in the biblical books of Ezra-Nehemiah in which the Jews returned to the Land of Israel from the Babylonian exile following the decree by the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great, the conqueror of the Babylonian empire in 538 BC, also known...

", in which the Jews returned to the land of Israel from the Babylonian exile following a decree by the Persian King Cyrus, the conqueror of the Babylonian empire in 538 BC.

The term "the Return to Zion" was later on borrowed from this event, and adopted as the definition to all the modern immigrations of Jews to the land of Israel.

The period between the biblical Return to Zion

The Return to Zion

The Return to Zion is a term that refers to the event written in the biblical books of Ezra-Nehemiah in which the Jews returned to the Land of Israel from the Babylonian exile following the decree by the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great, the conqueror of the Babylonian empire in 538 BC, also known...

 and the modern Return to Zion, consisted of many attempts of small groups to immigrate to the land of Israel.

This period, could be roughly divided into two:

• The immigrations during 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 during the period of Renaissance
  Renaissance
  The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
  
   - a number of immigrations which happened during different occasions in different periods and also differed in the motives that eventually caused them to immigrate.
• The immigrations during the modern era (18th century and at the start of the 19th century), three immigration waves caused by religious Zionist motives, which happened during a period of over thirty years. In these immigration waves over 750 immigrants came to Israel, which consisted of about 10 percent of the Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel with a total population of about 6000 people. These were very small immigration waves in comparison with the first Zionist ones which meant over 10,000 immigrants each.

The number of Jews returning to the Land of Israel from the Jewish diaspora rose significantly between the thirteenth and nineteenth centuries, mainly due to a general decline in the status of Jews across Europe and an increase in religious persecution

Religious persecution

Religious persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group of individuals as a response to their religious beliefs or affiliations or lack thereof....

. The expulsion of Jews 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...

 (1290), France (1391), Austria

History of the Jews in Austria

The history of the Jews in Austria likely originates in an exodus of Jews from the Roman occupation of Israel. During the course of many centuries, the political status of the community rose and fell many times: during certain periods, the Jewish community prospered and enjoyed political equality,...

 (1421) and Spain

History of the Jews in Spain

Spanish Jews once constituted one of the largest and most prosperous Jewish communities under Muslim and Christian rule in Spain, before the majority, together with resident Muslims, were forced to convert to Catholicism, be expelled or be killed when Spain became united under the Catholic Monarchs...

 (the Alhambra decree

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...

 of 1492) were seen by many as a sign of approaching redemption and contributed greatly to the messianic spirit of the time.

Aliyah was also spurred during this period by the resurgence of messianic fervor among the Jews of France

History of the Jews in France

The history of the Jews of France dates back over 2,000 years. In the early Middle Ages, France was a center of Jewish learning, but persecution increased as the Middle Ages wore on...

, Italy

History of the Jews in Italy

The history of the Jews in Italy goes back over two thousand years. Jews have been present in Italy from the Roman period until the present.-Antiquity:-Pre-Christian Rome:...

, the Germanic states

History of the Jews in Germany

The presence of Jews in Germany has been established since the early 4th century. The community prospered under Charlemagne, but suffered during the Crusades...

, Russia

History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union

The vast territories of the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest populations of Jews in the diaspora. Within these territories the Jewish community flourished and developed many of modern Judaism's most distinctive theological and cultural traditions, while also facing periods of...

 and North Africa

North Africa

North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...

. The belief in the imminent coming of the Jewish Messiah

Jewish Messiah

Messiah, ; mashiah, moshiah, mashiach, or moshiach, is a term used in the Hebrew Bible to describe priests and kings, who were traditionally anointed with holy anointing oil as described in Exodus 30:22-25...

, the ingathering of the exiles and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel encouraged many with few other options to make the perilous journey to the Holy Land.

Pre-Zionist resettlement in Palestine met with various degrees of success. For example, little is known of the fate of the 1210 "aliyah of the three hundred rabbis" and their descendants. It is thought that few survived the bloody upheavals caused by the Crusader invasion in 1229 and their subsequent expulsion by the Muslims in 1291. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 in 1453 and the expulsion of Jews from Spain (1492) and Portugal (1498), many Jews made their way to the Holy Land. Then the immigration in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries of thousands of followers of various Kabbalist

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...

 and Hassidic rabbis, as well as the disciples 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...

 (see 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...

) and the disciples of the Chasam Sofer

Moses Sofer

Moses Schreiber, known to his own community and Jewish posterity as Moshe Sofer, also known by his main work Chasam Sofer, , , was one of the leading Orthodox rabbis of European Jewry in the first half of the nineteenth century...

, added considerably to the Jewish populations in Jerusalem, Tiberias, 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 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...

.

There were also those who like the British mystic Laurence Oliphant tried to lease Northern Palestine to settle the Jews there (1879), hastening the end of the world.