Zion
Zion ( he, צִיּוֹן ''Ṣīyyōn'', LXX , also variously transliterated ''Sion'', ''Tzion'', ''Tsion'', ''Tsiyyon'') is a placename in the Hebrew Bible used as a synonym for Jerusalem as well as for the Land of Israel as a whole (see Nam ...
'') is a
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Th ...
movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Jewish tradition as the Land of Israel, which corresponds in other terms to the
region of Palestine
Palestine ( el, Παλαιστίνη, ; la, Palaestina; ar, فلسطين, , , ; he, פלשתינה, ) is a geographic region in Western Asia. It is usually considered to include Israel and the State of Palestine (i.e. West Bank and Gaza S ...
,
Canaan
Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...
, or the Holy Land, on the basis of a long Jewish connection and attachment to that land.
Modern Zionism emerged in the late 19th century in Central and
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...
as a national revival movement, both in reaction to newer waves of
antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
and as a response to
Haskalah
The ''Haskalah'', often termed Jewish Enlightenment ( he, השכלה; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with a certain influence on those in Western Euro ...
, or Jewish Enlightenment. Soon after this, most leaders of the movement associated the main goal with creating the desired homeland in Palestine, then an area controlled by the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
.
From 1897 to 1948, the primary goal of the Zionist Movement was to establish the basis for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and thereafter to consolidate it. In a unique variation of the principle of self-determination, the Zionist Movement viewed this process as an ' ingathering of exiles' (''kibbutz galuyot'') whereby Jews everywhere would have the right to emigrate to historical Palestine, as a haven from persecution, an area which Moses in the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...
Zionist congress
The Zionist Congress was established in 1897 by Theodor Herzl as the supreme organ of the Zionist Organization (ZO) and its legislative authority. In 1960 the names were changed to World Zionist Congress ( he, הקונגרס הציוני העו ...
was organized.
A variety of Zionism, called
cultural Zionism
Cultural Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת רוּחָנִית, Romanization of Hebrew, translit. ''Tsiyonut ruchanit'', trans. 'Spiritual Zionism') is a strain in the concept of Zionism that valued creating a centre in historic Palestine with it ...
, founded and represented most prominently by Ahad Ha'am, fostered a
secular
Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...
vision of a Jewish "spiritual center" in Israel. Unlike
Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl; hu, Herzl Tivadar; Hebrew name given at his brit milah: Binyamin Ze'ev (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904) was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish lawyer, journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer who was the father of modern po ...
, the founder of political Zionism, Ahad Ha'am strived for Israel to be "a Jewish State, and not merely a State of Jews". Others have theorized it as the realization of a socialist utopia (
Moses Hess
Moses (Moritz) Hess (21 January 1812 – 6 April 1875) was a German-Jewish philosopher, early communist and Zionist thinker. His socialist theories led to disagreements with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. He is considered a pioneer of Labor Zi ...
), as a need for survival in the face of social prejudices by the affirmation of self-determination (
individual rights
Group rights, also known as collective rights, are rights held by a group '' qua'' a group rather than individually by its members; in contrast, individual rights are rights held by individual people; even if they are group-differentiated, which ...
and freedoms (
Max Nordau
Max Simon Nordau (born ''Simon Maximilian Südfeld''; 29 July 1849 – 23 January 1923) was a Zionist leader, physician, author, and social critic.
He was a co-founder of the Zionist Organization together with Theodor Herzl, and president or vic ...
Martin Buber
Martin Buber ( he, מרטין בובר; german: Martin Buber; yi, מארטין בובער; February 8, 1878 –
June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism ...
). A
religious Zionist
Religious Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת דָּתִית, translit. ''Tziyonut Datit'') is an ideology that combines Zionism and Orthodox Judaism. Its adherents are also referred to as ''Dati Leumi'' ( "National Religious"), and in Israel, the ...
supports Jews upholding their Jewish identity (defined as adherence to religious Judaism) and has advocated the return of the Jewish people to Israel. Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism has continued primarily to advocate on behalf of Israel and to address threats to its continued existence and security.
Advocates of Zionism view it as a national
liberation movement
A liberation movement is an organization or political movement leading a rebellion, or a non-violent social movement, against a colonial power or national government, often seeking independence based on a nationalist identity and an anti-imperial ...
for the repatriation of a persecuted people to its ancestral homeland.''Israel Affairs'' - Volume 13, Issue 4, 2007 – Special Issue: ''Postcolonial Theory and the Arab-Israel Conflict – De-Judaizing the Homeland: Academic Politics in Rewriting the History of Palestine'' - S. Ilan Troen"Zionism and British imperialism II: Imperial financing in Palestine", ''Journal of Israeli History: Politics, Society, Culture''. Volume 30, Issue 2, 2011 - pages 115–139 - Michael J. CohenAnti-Zionists view it as a
colonialist
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their relig ...
The term "Zionism" is derived from the word ''Zion'' ( he, ציון, ''Tzi-yon''), a hill in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
, widely symbolizing the Land of Israel. Throughout eastern Europe in the late 19th century, numerous grassroots groups promoted the national resettlement of the Jews in their homeland, as well as the revitalization and cultivation of the
Hebrew language
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
. These groups were collectively called the " Lovers of Zion" and were seen as countering a growing Jewish movement toward assimilation. The first use of the term is attributed to the Austrian Nathan Birnbaum, founder of the Kadimah nationalist Jewish students' movement; he used the term in 1890 in his journal ''Selbstemanzipation!'' (''Self-Emancipation''), itself named almost identically to
Auto-Emancipation
upThe book "Auto-Emancipation" by Pinsker, 1882
''Auto-Emancipation'' (''Selbstemanzipation'') is a pamphlet written in German by Russian-Polish Jewish doctor and activist Leo Pinsker in 1882. It is considered a founding document of modern Jewis ...
''.
Overview
The common denominator among all Zionists has been a claim to Palestine, a land traditionally known in Jewish writings as the Land of Israel ("''Eretz Israel''") as a national homeland of the Jews and as the legitimate focus for Jewish national self-determination. It is based on historical ties and religious traditions linking the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. Zionism does not have a uniform ideology, but has evolved in a dialogue among a plethora of ideologies: General Zionism,
Religious Zionism
Religious Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת דָּתִית, Romanization of Hebrew, translit. ''Tziyonut Datit'') is an ideology that combines Zionism and Orthodox Judaism. Its adherents are also referred to as ''Dati Leumi'' ( "National Religiou ...
Green Zionism
Green Zionism is a branch of Zionism that is primarily concerned with the environment of Israel. It mostly fuses Israeli-specific environmental concerns with support for the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. The term itself is a trademark o ...
, etc.
After almost two millennia of the
Jewish diaspora
The Jewish diaspora ( he, תְּפוּצָה, təfūṣā) or exile (Hebrew: ; Yiddish: ) is the dispersion of Israelites or Jews out of their ancient ancestral homeland (the Land of Israel) and their subsequent settlement in other parts of th ...
residing in various countries without a national state, the Zionist movement was founded in the late 19th century by secular Jews, largely as a response by
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
to rising antisemitism in Europe, exemplified by the
Dreyfus affair
The Dreyfus affair (french: affaire Dreyfus, ) was a political scandal that divided the French Third Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "L'Affaire", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francop ...
in France and the
anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
. The political movement was formally established by the Austro-Hungarian journalist
Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl; hu, Herzl Tivadar; Hebrew name given at his brit milah: Binyamin Ze'ev (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904) was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish lawyer, journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer who was the father of modern po ...
in 1897 following the publication of his book ''
Der Judenstaat
''Der Judenstaat'' (German, literally ''The State of the Jews'', commonly rendered as ''The Jewish State'') is a pamphlet written by Theodor Herzl and published in February 1896 in Leipzig and Vienna by M. Breitenstein's Verlags-Buchhandlung. It ...
'' (''The Jewish State''). At that time, the movement sought to encourage Jewish migration to
Ottoman Palestine
Ottoman Syria ( ar, سوريا العثمانية) refers to divisions of the Ottoman Empire within the region of Syria, usually defined as being east of the Mediterranean Sea, west of the Euphrates River, north of the Arabian Desert and south ...
particularly among those Jewish communities who were poor, unassimilated and whose 'floating' presence caused disquiet, in Herzl's view, among assimilated Jews and stirred anti-Semitism among Christians.
Although initially one of several Jewish political movements offering alternative responses to Jewish assimilation and antisemitism, Zionism expanded rapidly. In its early stages, supporters considered setting up a Jewish state in the historic territory of Palestine. After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
and the destruction of Jewish life in Central and Eastern Europe where these alternative movements were rooted, it became dominant in the thinking about a Jewish national state.
Creating an alliance with
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...
and securing support for some years for Jewish emigration to Palestine, Zionists also recruited European Jews to immigrate there, especially Jews who lived in areas of the Russian Empire where anti-semitism was raging. The alliance with Britain was strained as the latter realized the implications of the Jewish movement for Arabs in Palestine, but the Zionists persisted. The movement was eventually successful in establishing Israel on May 14, 1948 (5 Iyyar 5708 in the
Hebrew calendar
The Hebrew calendar ( he, הַלּוּחַ הָעִבְרִי, translit=HaLuah HaIvri), also called the Jewish calendar, is a lunisolar calendar used today for Jewish religious observance, and as an official calendar of the state of Israel. ...
), as the homeland for the Jewish people. The proportion of the world's Jews living in Israel has steadily grown since the movement emerged. By the early 21st century, more than 40% of the world's Jews lived in Israel, more than in any other country. These two outcomes represent the historical success of Zionism and are unmatched by any other Jewish political movement in the past 2,000 years. In some academic studies, Zionism has been analyzed both within the larger context of
diaspora politics
Diaspora politics is the political behavior of transnational ethnic diasporas, their relationship with their ethnic homelands and their host states, and their prominent role in ethnic conflicts. Shain, Yossi & Tamara Cofman Wittes. Peace as a ...
and as an example of modern
national liberation movements
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, c ...
.
Zionism also sought the assimilation of Jews into the modern world. As a result of the diaspora, many of the Jewish people remained outsiders within their adopted countries and became detached from modern ideas. So-called "assimilationist" Jews desired complete integration into European society. They were willing to downplay their Jewish identity and in some cases to abandon traditional views and opinions in an attempt at modernization and assimilation into the modern world. A less extreme form of assimilation was called cultural synthesis. Those in favor of cultural synthesis desired continuity and only moderate evolution, and were concerned that Jews should not lose their identity as a people. "Cultural synthesists" emphasized both a need to maintain traditional Jewish values and faith and a need to conform to a modernist society, for instance, in complying with work days and rules.
In 1975, the
United Nations General Assembly
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...
passed
Resolution 3379
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379, adopted on 10 November 1975 by a vote of 72 to 35 (with 32 abstentions), "determine that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination". It was revoked in 1991 with UN General Assembly R ...
, which designated Zionism as "a form of racism and racial discrimination". The resolution was repealed in 1991 by replacing Resolution 3379 with Resolution 46/86. Opposition to Zionism (being against a Jewish state), according to historian
Geoffrey Alderman
Geoffrey Alderman (born 10 February 1944) is a British historian that specialises in 19th and 20th centuries Jewish community in England. He is also a political adviser and journalist.
Life
Born in Middlesex, Alderman was educated at Hackney D ...
, can be legitimately described as racist.
Beliefs
In 1896,
Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl; hu, Herzl Tivadar; Hebrew name given at his brit milah: Binyamin Ze'ev (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904) was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish lawyer, journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer who was the father of modern po ...
expressed in ''
Der Judenstaat
''Der Judenstaat'' (German, literally ''The State of the Jews'', commonly rendered as ''The Jewish State'') is a pamphlet written by Theodor Herzl and published in February 1896 in Leipzig and Vienna by M. Breitenstein's Verlags-Buchhandlung. It ...
'' his views on "the restoration of the Jewish state". Herzl considered
Antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
to be an eternal feature of all societies in which Jews lived as minorities, and that only a sovereignty could allow Jews to escape eternal persecution : "Let them give us sovereignty over a piece of the Earth's surface, just sufficient for the needs of our people, then we will do the rest!" he proclaimed exposing his plan.
Aliyah (migration, literally "ascent") to the Land of Israel is a recurring theme in Jewish prayers. Rejection of life in the Diaspora is a central assumption in Zionism. Some supporters of Zionism believed that Jews in the Diaspora were prevented from their full growth in Jewish individual and national life.
Zionists generally preferred to speak
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
, a
Semitic language
The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigrant a ...
which flourished as a spoken language in the ancient
Kingdoms of Israel and Judah
The history of ancient Israel and Judah begins in the Southern Levant during the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. "Israel" as a people or tribal confederation (see Israelites) appears for the first time in the Merneptah Stele, an inscripti ...
during the period from about 1200 to 586 BCE, and was largely preserved throughout history as the main
liturgical language
A sacred language, holy language or liturgical language is any language that is cultivated and used primarily in church service or for other religious reasons by people who speak another, primary language in their daily lives.
Concept
A sacr ...
of
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in t ...
. Zionists worked to modernize Hebrew and adapt it for everyday use. They sometimes refused to speak
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
, a language they thought had developed in the context of European persecution. Once they moved to Israel, many Zionists refused to speak their (diasporic) mother tongues and adopted new, Hebrew names. Hebrew was preferred not only for ideological reasons, but also because it allowed all citizens of the new state to have a common language, thus furthering the political and cultural bonds among Zionists.
Major aspects of the Zionist idea are represented in the Israeli Declaration of Independence:
nation
A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective Identity (social science), identity of a group of people unde ...
"The Jews are a nation and were so before there was a Jewish state of Israel" "Jews are a people, a nation (in the original sense of the word), an ethnos" originating from the
Israelites
The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan.
The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...
Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The people of the Kingdom of Israel and the ethnic and religious group known as the Jewish people that descended from them have been subjected to a number of forced migrations in their history" and
Hebrews
The terms ''Hebrews'' (Hebrew: / , Modern: ' / ', Tiberian: ' / '; ISO 259-3: ' / ') and ''Hebrew people'' are mostly considered synonymous with the Semitic-speaking Israelites, especially in the pre-monarchic period when they were still ...
Israelite
The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan.
The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...
kingdoms that emerged in the
Southern Levant
The Southern Levant is a geographical region encompassing the southern half of the Levant. It corresponds approximately to modern-day Israel, Palestine, and Jordan; some definitions also include southern Lebanon, southern Syria and/or the Sinai P ...
during the
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...
. Jews are named after the
Kingdom of Judah
The Kingdom of Judah ( he, , ''Yəhūdā''; akk, 𒅀𒌑𒁕𒀀𒀀 ''Ya'údâ'' 'ia-ú-da-a-a'' arc, 𐤁𐤉𐤕𐤃𐤅𐤃 ''Bēyt Dāwīḏ'', " House of David") was an Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. C ...
, the southern of the two kingdoms, which was centered in
Judea
Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous Latin, and the modern-day name of the mountainous sou ...
with its capital in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
Neo-Babylonian Empire
The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC and bei ...
First Temple
Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple (, , ), was the Temple in Jerusalem between the 10th century BC and . According to the Hebrew Bible, it was commissioned by Solomon in the United Kingdom of Israel before being inherited by th ...
, which was at the center of ancient Judean worship. The Judeans were subsequently exiled to Babylon, in what is regarded as the first
Jewish diaspora
The Jewish diaspora ( he, תְּפוּצָה, təfūṣā) or exile (Hebrew: ; Yiddish: ) is the dispersion of Israelites or Jews out of their ancient ancestral homeland (the Land of Israel) and their subsequent settlement in other parts of th ...
Persian Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was the largest empire the world had ...
Maccabean Revolt
The Maccabean Revolt ( he, מרד החשמונאים) was a Jewish rebellion led by the Maccabees against the Seleucid Empire and against Hellenistic influence on Jewish life. The main phase of the revolt lasted from 167–160 BCE and ende ...
against the Seleucid Empire, which led to the establishment of the Hasmonean Kingdom in Judea. It later expanded over much of modern Israel, and into some parts of Jordan and Lebanon. The Hasmonean Kingdom became a client state of the
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Ki ...
in 63 BCE, and in 6 CE, was incorporated into the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...
as the province of Judaea.
During the Great Jewish Revolt (66–73 CE), the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and burned the Second Temple. Of the 600,000 (Tacitus) or 1,000,000 (Josephus) Jews of Jerusalem, all of them either died of starvation, were killed or were sold into slavery. The Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–136 CE) led to the destruction of large parts of Judea, and many Jews were killed, exiled, or sold into slavery. The province of Judaea was renamed ''Syria Palaestina.'' These actions are seen by many scholars as an attempt to disconnect the Jewish people from their homeland.''H.H. Ben-Sasson, ''A History of the Jewish People'', Harvard University Press, 1976, , page 334: "In an effort to wipe out all memory of the bond between the Jews and the land, Hadrian changed the name of the province from Iudaea to Syria-Palestina, a name that became common in non-Jewish literature."'' In the following centuries, many Jews emigrated to thriving centers in the diaspora. Others continued living in the region, especially in the Galilee, the
coastal plain
A coastal plain is flat, low-lying land adjacent to a sea coast. A fall line commonly marks the border between a coastal plain and a piedmont area. Some of the largest coastal plains are in Alaska and the southeastern United States. The Gulf Co ...
, and on the edges of Judea, and some converted.David Goodblatt, 'The political and social history of the Jewish community in the Land of Israel,' in William David Davies, Louis Finkelstein, Steven T. Katz (eds.) ''The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 4, The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period'', Cambridge University Press, 2006 pp.404-430, p.406. By the fourth century CE, the Jews, who had previously constituted the majority of Palestine, had become a minority. A small presence of Jews has been attested for almost all of the period. For example, according to tradition, the Jewish community of
Peki'in
Peki'in (alternatively Peqi'in) ( he, פְּקִיעִין) or Buqei'a ( ar, البقيعة), is a Druze–Arab town with local council status in Israel's Northern District. It is located eight kilometres east of Ma'alot-Tarshiha in the Uppe ...
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
, particularly the books of Genesis and Exodus, as well as on the later
Prophets
In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the s ...
. According to the Book of Genesis,
Canaan
Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...
Abraham
Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Je ...
's descendants; the text is explicit that this is a
covenant
Covenant may refer to:
Religion
* Covenant (religion), a formal alliance or agreement made by God with a religious community or with humanity in general
** Covenant (biblical), in the Hebrew Bible
** Covenant in Mormonism, a sacred agreement b ...
between
God
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
and Abraham for his descendants. The belief that God had assigned Canaan to the Israelites as a Promised Land is also conserved also in Christian and Islamic traditions.
Among Jews in the Diaspora, the Land of Israel was revered in a cultural, national, ethnic, historical, and religious sense. They thought of a return to it in a future
messianic age
In Abrahamic religions, the Messianic Age is the future period of time on Earth in which the messiah will reign and bring universal peace and brotherhood, without any evil. Many believe that there will be such an age; some refer to it as the cons ...
. Return to Zion remained a recurring theme among generations, particularly in
Passover
Passover, also called Pesach (; ), is a major Jewish holiday that celebrates the Biblical story of the Israelites escape from slavery in Egypt, which occurs on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, the first month of Aviv, or spring. ...
and
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur (; he, יוֹם כִּפּוּר, , , ) is the holiest day in Judaism and Samaritanism. It occurs annually on the 10th of Tishrei, the first month of the Hebrew calendar. Primarily centered on atonement and repentance, the day' ...
prayers, which traditionally concluded with "
Next year in Jerusalem
''L'Shana Haba'ah B'Yerushalayim'' ( he, לשנה הבאה בירושלים), lit. "Next year in Jerusalem", is a phrase that is often sung at the end of the Passover Seder_and_at_the_end_of_the_'' isan_in_the__Hebrew_..._and_at_the_end_of_the_' ...
", and in the thrice-daily Amidah (Standing prayer). The biblical prophecy of ''Kibbutz Galuyot'', the ingathering of exiles in the Land of Israel as foretold by the
Prophets
In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the s ...
, became a central idea in Zionism.
Pre-Zionist initiatives
In the middle of the 16th century, the Portuguese Sephardi
Joseph Nasi
Joseph Nasi (1524, Portugal – 1579, Konstantiniyye), known in Portuguese as João Miques, was a Portuguese Sephardi diplomat and administrator, member of the House of Mendes/Benveniste, nephew of Dona Gracia Mendes Nasi, and an influential fi ...
, with the support of the Ottoman Empire, tried to gather the Portuguese Jews, first to migrate to
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
2011 p.137:'Hatice Turhan’s insistence on conversion mitigated any educational edge Jewish physicians had over others. In contrast to the mid-sixteenth century, when Jews such as Joseph Nasi rose to the highest medical post in the empire and played an active role at the Ottoman court while remaining practicing Jews, and even convinced Suleiman to intervene with the pope on behalf of Portuguese Jews who were Ottoman subjects imprisoned in Ancona, the leading physicians at court in the mid-to late seventeenth century such as Hayatizade and Nuh Efendi had to be converted Jews.’ eventually obtained the highest medical position in the empire, and actively participated in court life. He convinced Suleiman I to intervene with the Pope on behalf of Ottoman-subject Portuguese Jews imprisoned in Ancona. Between the 4th and 19th centuries, Nasi's was the only practical attempt to establish some sort of Jewish political center in Palestine.
In the 17th century
Sabbatai Zevi
Sabbatai Zevi (; August 1, 1626 – c. September 17, 1676), also spelled Shabbetai Ẓevi, Shabbeṯāy Ṣeḇī, Shabsai Tzvi, Sabbatai Zvi, and ''Sabetay Sevi'' in Turkish, was a Jewish mystic and ordained rabbi from Smyrna (now İzmir, Turk ...
(1626–1676) announced himself as the Messiah and gained many Jews to his side, forming a base in Salonika. He first tried to establish a settlement in Gaza, but moved later to
Smyrna
Smyrna ( ; grc, Σμύρνη, Smýrnē, or , ) was a Greek city located at a strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Due to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence, and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to promi ...
. After deposing the old rabbi Aaron Lapapa in the spring of 1666, the Jewish community of Avignon, France prepared to emigrate to the new kingdom. The readiness of the Jews of the time to believe the messianic claims of Sabbatai Zevi may be largely explained by the desperate state of Central European Jewry in the mid-17th century. The bloody pogroms of Bohdan Khmelnytsky had wiped out one-third of the Jewish population and destroyed many centers of Jewish learning and communal life.
In the early 19th century, a group of Jews known as the ''
perushim
The ''perushim'' ( he, פרושים) were Jewish disciples of the Vilna Gaon, Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, who left Lithuania at the beginning of the 19th century to settle in the Land of Israel, which was then part of Ottoman Syria under Otto ...
'' left Lithuania to settle in
Ottoman Palestine
Ottoman Syria ( ar, سوريا العثمانية) refers to divisions of the Ottoman Empire within the region of Syria, usually defined as being east of the Mediterranean Sea, west of the Euphrates River, north of the Arabian Desert and south ...
.
Establishment of the Zionist movement
In the 19th century, a current in Judaism supporting a return to Zion grew in popularity, particularly in Europe, where antisemitism and hostility toward Jews were growing. The idea of returning to Palestine was rejected by the conferences of rabbis held in that epoch. Individual efforts supported the emigration of groups of Jews to Palestine, pre-Zionist Aliyah, even before
1897
Events
January–March
* January 2 – The International Alpha Omicron Pi sorority is founded, in New York City.
* January 4 – A British force is ambushed by Chief Ologbosere, son-in-law of the ruler. This leads to a puni ...
, the year considered as the start of practical Zionism.
The Reformed Jews rejected this idea of a return to Zion. The conference of rabbis, at
Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
, July 15–28, 1845, deleted from the ritual all prayers for a return to Zion and a restoration of a Jewish state. The Philadelphia Conference, 1869, followed the lead of the German rabbis and decreed that the Messianic hope of Israel is "the union of all the children of God in the confession of the unity of God". The Pittsburgh Conference, 1885, reiterated this Messianic idea of reformed Judaism, expressing in a resolution that "we consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community; and we therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning a Jewish state".Jewish settlements were proposed for establishment in the upper Mississippi region by W.D. Robinson in 1819. Others were developed near
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
in 1850, by the American Consul Warder Cresson, a convert to Judaism. Cresson was tried and condemned for lunacy in a suit filed by his wife and son. They asserted that only a lunatic would convert to Judaism from Christianity. After a second trial, based on the centrality of American 'freedom of faith' issues and antisemitism, Cresson won the bitterly contested suit. He emigrated to Ottoman Palestine and established an agricultural colony in the
Valley of Rephaim The Valley of Rephaim ( he, עמק רפאים, ''Emeq Rephaim'') (; , R.V.) or Valley of the Rephaim,Jerusalem Bible (1966) adds "the": 1 Chronicles 14:9 is a valley descending southwest from Jerusalem to Nahal Sorek below, it is an ancient route f ...
of Jerusalem. He hoped to "prevent any attempts being made to take advantage of the necessities of our poor brethren ... (that would) ... FORCE them into a pretended conversion."
Moral but not practical efforts were made in
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...
to organize a Jewish emigration, by
Abraham Benisch
Abraham Benisch (; 1811 – 31 July 1878, London) was an English Hebraist, editor, and journalist. He wrote numerous works in the domain of Judaism, Biblical studies, biography, and travel, and during a period of nearly forty years contributed we ...
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...
, on Grand Isle, 1825. These early Jewish nation building efforts of Cresson, Benisch, Steinschneider and Noah failed.
Sir
Moses Montefiore
Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, (24 October 1784 – 28 July 1885) was a British financier and banker, activist, philanthropist and Sheriff of London. Born to an Italian Sephardic Jewish family based in London, aft ...
, famous for his intervention in favor of Jews around the world, including the attempt to rescue
Edgardo Mortara
The Mortara case ( it, caso Mortara, links=no) was an Italian ''cause célèbre'' that captured the attention of much of Europe and North America in the 1850s and 1860s. It concerned the Papal States' seizure of a six-year-old boy named Edgardo ...
, established a colony for Jews in Palestine. In 1854, his friend
Judah Touro
Judah Touro (June 16, 1775 – January 18, 1854) was an American businessman and philanthropist.
Early life and career
Touro's father Isaac Touro of Holland was chosen as the hazzan at the Touro Synagogue in 1762, a Portuguese Sephardic cong ...
bequeathed money to fund Jewish residential settlement in Palestine. Montefiore was appointed executor of his will, and used the funds for a variety of projects, including building in 1860 the first Jewish residential settlement and almshouse outside of the old walled city of Jerusalem—today known as ''
Mishkenot Sha'ananim
, settlement_type = Neighborhood of Jerusalem
, image_skyline = שכונת משכנות שאננים וטחנת הרוח. צולם מכיוון העיר העתיקה.jpg
, imagesize = 300px
, image_caption = View of Mishkenot ...
.'' Laurence Oliphant failed in a like attempt to bring to Palestine the Jewish proletariat of Poland, Lithuania, Romania, and the Turkish Empire (1879 and 1882).
The official beginning of the construction of the
New Yishuv
Yishuv ( he, ישוב, literally "settlement"), Ha-Yishuv ( he, הישוב, ''the Yishuv''), or Ha-Yishuv Ha-Ivri ( he, הישוב העברי, ''the Hebrew Yishuv''), is the body of Jewish residents in the Land of Israel (corresponding to the s ...
in Palestine is usually dated to the arrival of the Bilu group in 1882, who commenced the
First Aliyah
The First Aliyah (Hebrew: העלייה הראשונה, ''HaAliyah HaRishona''), also known as the agriculture Aliyah, was a major wave of Jewish immigration (''aliyah'') to Ottoman Syria between 1881 and 1903. Jews who migrated in this wave came ...
. In the following years, Jewish immigration to Palestine started in earnest. Most
immigrants
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, a ...
came from the Russian Empire, escaping the frequent
pogrom
A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...
s and state-led persecution in what are now Ukraine and Poland. They founded a number of agricultural settlements with financial support from Jewish philanthropists in Western Europe. Additional Aliyahs followed the Russian Revolution and its eruption of violent pogroms. At the end of the 19th century, Jews were a small minority in Palestine.
In the 1890s,
Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl; hu, Herzl Tivadar; Hebrew name given at his brit milah: Binyamin Ze'ev (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904) was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish lawyer, journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer who was the father of modern po ...
(the father of political Zionism) infused Zionism with a new ideology and practical urgency, leading to the
First Zionist Congress
The First Zionist Congress ( he, הקונגרס הציוני הראשון) was the inaugural congress of the Zionist Organization (ZO) held in Basel (Basle), from August 29 to August 31, 1897. 208 delegates and 26 press correspondents attende ...
in 1897, which created the World Zionist Organization (WZO). Herzl's aim was to initiate necessary preparatory steps for the development of a Jewish state. Herzl's attempts to reach a political agreement with the Ottoman rulers of Palestine were unsuccessful and he sought the support of other governments. The
World Zionist Organization
The World Zionist Organization ( he, הַהִסְתַּדְּרוּת הַצִּיּוֹנִית הָעוֹלָמִית; ''HaHistadrut HaTzionit Ha'Olamit''), or WZO, is a non-governmental organization that promotes Zionism. It was founded as the ...
supported small-scale settlement in Palestine; it focused on strengthening Jewish feeling and consciousness and on building a worldwide federation.
The
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
, with its long record of anti-Jewish pogroms, was widely regarded as the historic enemy of the Jewish people. The Zionist movement's headquarters were located in Berlin, as many of its leaders were German Jews who spoke German.
Organization
Zionism developed from Proto-Zionist initiatives and movements, such as Hovevei Zion. It coalesced and became organized in the form of the Zionist Congress, which created nation-building institutions and acted in Ottoman and British Palestine as well as internationally.
Zionist Congress
The Zionist Congress was established in 1897 by Theodor Herzl as the supreme organ of the Zionist Organization (ZO) and its legislative authority. In 1960 the names were changed to World Zionist Congress ( he, הקונגרס הציוני העו ...
(est. 1897), the supreme organ of the ZO
**
Palestine Office
__NOTOC__
Palestine may refer to:
* State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia
* Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia
* Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
(est. 1908), the executive arm of the ZO in Palestine
** Jewish National Fund (JNF), est. 1901 to buy and develop land in Palestine
**
Keren Hayesod
Keren Hayesod – United Israel Appeal ( he, קרן היסוד, literally "The Foundation Fund") is an official fundraising organization for Israel with branches in 45 countries. Its work is carried out in accordance with the Keren haYesod Law-5 ...
, est. 1920 to collect funds
**
Jewish Agency
The Jewish Agency for Israel ( he, הסוכנות היהודית לארץ ישראל, translit=HaSochnut HaYehudit L'Eretz Yisra'el) formerly known as The Jewish Agency for Palestine, is the largest Jewish non-profit organization in the world. ...
, est. 1929 as the worldwide operative branch of the ZO
=Funding
=
The Zionist enterprise was mainly funded by major benefactors who made large contributions, sympathisers from Jewish communities across the world (see for instance the Jewish National Fund's collection boxes), and the settlers themselves. The movement established a bank for administering its finances, the Jewish Colonial Trust (est. 1888, incorporated in London in 1899). A local subsidiary was formed in 1902 in Palestine, the
Anglo-Palestine Bank
Bank Leumi ( he, בנק לאומי, lit. ''National Bank''; ar, بنك لئومي) is an Israeli bank. It was founded on February 27, 1902, in Jaffa as the ''Anglo Palestine Company'' as subsidiary of the Jewish Colonial Trust (Jüdische Kolonia ...
.
A list of pre-state large contributors to Pre-Zionist and Zionist enterprises would include, alphabetically,
*
Isaac Leib Goldberg
Isaac Leib Goldberg ( he, יצחק לייב גולדברג, 7 February 1860 – 14 September 1935) was a Zionist leader and philanthropist in both Ottoman Palestine and the Russian Empire, and one of the principal founders of Rishon LeZion, the ...
(1860–1935), Zionist leader and philanthropist from Russia
*
Maurice de Hirsch
Moritz Freiherr von Hirsch auf Gereuth (german: Moritz Freiherr von Hirsch auf Gereuth; french: Maurice, baron de Hirsch de Gereuth; 9 December 1831 – 21 April 1896), commonly known as Maurice de Hirsch, was a German Jewish financier and phila ...
(1831–1896), German Jewish financier and philanthropist, founder of the Jewish Colonization Association
*
Moses Montefiore
Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, (24 October 1784 – 28 July 1885) was a British financier and banker, activist, philanthropist and Sheriff of London. Born to an Italian Sephardic Jewish family based in London, aft ...
(1784–1885), British Jewish banker and philanthropist in Britain and the Levant, initiator and financier of Proto-Zionism
*
Edmond James de Rothschild
Baron Abraham Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild (Hebrew: הברון אברהם אדמונד בנימין ג'יימס רוטשילד - ''HaBaron Avraham Edmond Binyamin Ya'akov Rotshield''; 19 August 1845 – 2 November 1934) was a French memb ...
(1845–1934), French Jewish banker and major donor of the Zionist project
Throughout the first decade of the Zionist movement, there were several instances where some Zionist figures supported a Jewish state in places outside Palestine, such as
Uganda
}), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...
and Argentina.
Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl; hu, Herzl Tivadar; Hebrew name given at his brit milah: Binyamin Ze'ev (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904) was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish lawyer, journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer who was the father of modern po ...
, the founder of political Zionism was initially content with any Jewish self-governed state. Jewish settlement of Argentina was the project of
Maurice de Hirsch
Moritz Freiherr von Hirsch auf Gereuth (german: Moritz Freiherr von Hirsch auf Gereuth; french: Maurice, baron de Hirsch de Gereuth; 9 December 1831 – 21 April 1896), commonly known as Maurice de Hirsch, was a German Jewish financier and phila ...
. It is unclear if Herzl seriously considered this alternative plan, however he later reaffirmed that Palestine would have greater attraction because of the historic ties of Jews with that area.
A major concern in considering other territories was the Russian pogroms, in particular the Kishinev massacre, and the resultant need for quick resettlement.
However, other Zionists emphasized the memory, emotion and tradition linking Jews to the Land of Israel.
Zion
Zion ( he, צִיּוֹן ''Ṣīyyōn'', LXX , also variously transliterated ''Sion'', ''Tzion'', ''Tsion'', ''Tsiyyon'') is a placename in the Hebrew Bible used as a synonym for Jerusalem as well as for the Land of Israel as a whole (see Nam ...
became the name of the movement, after the place where King David established his kingdom, following his conquest of the Jebusite fortress there (II Samuel 5:7, I Kings 8:1). The name Zion was synonymous with Jerusalem. Palestine only became Herzl's main focus after his Zionist manifesto '
Der Judenstaat
''Der Judenstaat'' (German, literally ''The State of the Jews'', commonly rendered as ''The Jewish State'') is a pamphlet written by Theodor Herzl and published in February 1896 in Leipzig and Vienna by M. Breitenstein's Verlags-Buchhandlung. It ...
' was published in 1896, but even then he was hesitant to focus efforts solely on resettlement in Palestine when speed was of the essence.
In 1903, British Colonial Secretary
Joseph Chamberlain
Joseph Chamberlain (8 July 1836 – 2 July 1914) was a British statesman who was first a radical Liberal, then a Liberal Unionist after opposing home rule for Ireland, and eventually served as a leading imperialist in coalition with the C ...
offered Herzl in the
Uganda Protectorate
The Protectorate of Uganda was a protectorate of the British Empire from 1894 to 1962. In 1893 the Imperial British East Africa Company transferred its administration rights of territory consisting mainly of the Kingdom of Buganda to the Bri ...
for Jewish settlement in Great Britain's East African colonies. Herzl accepted to evaluate Joseph Chamberlain's proposal, and it was introduced the same year to the
World Zionist Organization
The World Zionist Organization ( he, הַהִסְתַּדְּרוּת הַצִּיּוֹנִית הָעוֹלָמִית; ''HaHistadrut HaTzionit Ha'Olamit''), or WZO, is a non-governmental organization that promotes Zionism. It was founded as the ...
's Congress at its sixth meeting, where a fierce debate ensued. Some groups felt that accepting the scheme would make it more difficult to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, the African land was described as an " ante-chamber to the Holy Land". It was decided to send a commission to investigate the proposed land by 295 to 177 votes, with 132 abstaining. The following year, Congress sent a delegation to inspect the plateau. A temperate climate due to its high elevation, was thought to be suitable for European settlement. However, the area was populated by a large number of Maasai, who did not seem to favour an influx of Europeans. Furthermore, the delegation found it to be filled with lions and other animals.
After Herzl died in 1904, the Congress decided on the fourth day of its seventh session in July 1905 to decline the British offer and, according to Adam Rovner, "direct all future settlement efforts solely to Palestine".
Israel Zangwill
Israel Zangwill (21 January 18641 August 1926) was a British author at the forefront of cultural Zionism during the 19th century, and was a close associate of Theodor Herzl. He later rejected the search for a Jewish homeland in Palestine and ...
's
Jewish Territorialist Organization
The Jewish Territorial Organisation, 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. Its main goal was to find an alternative territory ...
aimed for a Jewish state anywhere, having been established in 1903 in response to the Uganda Scheme. It was supported by a number of the Congress's delegates. Following the vote, which had been proposed by
Max Nordau
Max Simon Nordau (born ''Simon Maximilian Südfeld''; 29 July 1849 – 23 January 1923) was a Zionist leader, physician, author, and social critic.
He was a co-founder of the Zionist Organization together with Theodor Herzl, and president or vic ...
, Zangwill charged Nordau that he "will be charged before the bar of history," and his supporters blamed the Russian voting bloc of
Menachem Ussishkin
Menachem Ussishkin (russian: Авраам Менахем Мендл Усышкин ''Avraham Menachem Mendel Ussishkin'', he, מנחם אוסישקין) (August 14, 1863 – October 2, 1941) was a Russian-born Zionist leader and head of the Je ...
for the outcome of the vote.
The subsequent departure of the JTO from the Zionist Organization had little impact. The
Zionist Socialist Workers Party
Zionist-Socialist Workers Party (russian: Сионистско-социалистическая рабочая партия), often referred to simply as Zionist-Socialists or S.S. by their Russian initials, was a Jewish territorialist and social ...
was also an organization that favored the idea of a Jewish territorial autonomy outside of Palestine.Ėstraĭkh, G. ''In Harness: Yiddish Writers' Romance with Communism. Judaic traditions in literature, music, and art.'' Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2005. p. 30
As an alternative to Zionism, Soviet authorities established a
Jewish Autonomous Oblast
The Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAO; russian: Евре́йская автоно́мная о́бласть, (ЕАО); yi, ייִדישע אװטאָנאָמע געגנט, ; )In standard Yiddish: , ''Yidishe Oytonome Gegnt'' is a federal subject ...
in 1934, which remains extant as the only autonomous oblast of Russia.
According to Elaine Hagopian, in the early decades it foresaw the homeland of the Jews as extending not only over the region of Palestine, but into Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, with its borders more or less coinciding with the major riverine and water-rich areas of the Levant.
Balfour Declaration and the Mandate for Palestine
Lobbying by Russian Jewish immigrant
Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( he, חיים עזריאל ויצמן ', russian: Хаим Евзорович Вейцман, ''Khaim Evzorovich Veytsman''; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born biochemist, Zionist leader and Israe ...
, together with fear that American Jews would encourage the US to support Germany in the war against Russia, culminated in the British government's Balfour Declaration of 1917.
It endorsed the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, as follows:
In 1922, the
League of Nations
The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
adopted the declaration, and granted to Britain the Palestine Mandate:
Weizmann's role in obtaining the Balfour Declaration led to his election as the Zionist movement's leader. He remained in that role until 1948, and then was elected as the first
President of Israel
The president of the State of Israel ( he, נְשִׂיא מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, Nesi Medinat Yisra'el, or he, נְשִׂיא הַמְדִינָה, Nesi HaMedina, President of the State) is the head of state of Israel. The posi ...
after the nation gained independence.
A number of high-level representatives of the international Jewish women's community participated in the First World Congress of Jewish Women, which was held in
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, Austria, in May 1923. One of the main resolutions was: "It appears ... to be the duty of all Jews to co-operate in the social-economic reconstruction of Palestine and to assist in the settlement of Jews in that country."
In 1927, Ukrainian
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...
Yitzhak Lamdan Yitzhak Lamdan (Hebrew: יצחק למדן; 7 November 1899 – 17 November 1954) was an Israeli Hebrew-language poet, translator, editor and columnist.
Biography
Itzi-Yehuda Lubes or Lobes (later Yitzhak Lamdan) was born in 1899 inMlynov ...
wrote an
epic poem
An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants.
...
titled ''Masada'' to reflect the plight of the Jews, calling for a "last stand".
Rise of Nazism and the Holocaust
In 1933,
Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
came to power in Germany, and in 1935 the
Nuremberg Laws
The Nuremberg Laws (german: link=no, Nürnberger Gesetze, ) were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of ...
made
German Jews
The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...
Czech Jews
The history of the Jews in the Czech lands, which include the modern Czech Republic as well as Bohemia, Czech Silesia and Moravia, goes back many centuries. There is evidence that Jews have lived in Moravia and Bohemia since as early as the 10 ...
) stateless refugees. Similar rules were applied by the many Nazi allies in Europe. The subsequent growth in Jewish migration and the impact of
Nazi propaganda
The propaganda used by the German Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship of Germany from 1933 to 1945 was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation of Nazi polici ...
Peel Commission
The Peel Commission, formally known as the Palestine Royal Commission, was a British Royal Commission of Inquiry, headed by Lord Peel, appointed in 1936 to investigate the causes of unrest in Mandatory Palestine, which was administered by Gre ...
to investigate the situation. The commission called for a two-state solution and compulsory transfer of populations. The Arabs opposed the partition plan and Britain later rejected this solution and instead implemented the
White Paper of 1939
The White Paper of 1939Occasionally also known as the MacDonald White Paper (e.g. Caplan, 2015, p.117) after Malcolm MacDonald, the British Colonial Secretary, who presided over its creation. was a policy paper issued by the British governmen ...
. This planned to end Jewish immigration by 1944 and to allow no more than 75,000 additional Jewish migrants. At the end of the five-year period in 1944, only 51,000 of the 75,000 immigration certificates provided for had been utilized, and the British offered to allow immigration to continue beyond cutoff date of 1944, at a rate of 1500 per month, until the remaining quota was filled.Study (June 30, 1978) The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem Part I: 1917-1947 - Study (30 June 1978) , access-date: November 10, 2018 According to Arieh Kochavi, at the end of the war, the Mandatory Government had 10,938 certificates remaining and gives more details about government policy at the time. The British maintained the policies of the 1939 White Paper until the end of the Mandate.
The growth of the Jewish community in Palestine and the devastation of European Jewish life sidelined the World Zionist Organization. The Jewish Agency for Palestine under the leadership of
David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the nam ...
increasingly dictated policy with support from American Zionists who provided funding and influence in Washington, D.C., including via the highly effective American Palestine Committee.
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, as the horrors of
the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
became known, the Zionist leadership formulated the
One Million Plan
The One Million Plan (;''Tochnit hamillion'') was a strategic plan for the immigration and absorption of one million Jews from Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa into Mandatory Palestine, within a timeframe of 18 months, in order to estab ...
, a reduction from Ben-Gurion's previous target of two million immigrants. Following the end of the war, many stateless refugees, mainly
Holocaust survivors
Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally accep ...
, began migrating to Palestine in small boats in defiance of British rules. The Holocaust united much of the rest of world Jewry behind the Zionist project. The British either imprisoned these Jews in Cyprus or sent them to the British-controlled Allied Occupation Zones in Germany. The British, having faced Arab revolts, were now facing opposition by Zionist groups in Palestine for subsequent restrictions on Jewish immigration. In January 1946 the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry was a joint British and American committee was tasked to examine political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine and the well-being of the peoples now living there; to consult representatives of Arabs and Jews, and to make other recommendations 'as necessary' for an interim handling of these problems as well as for their eventual solution. Following the failure of the 1946–47 London Conference on Palestine, at which the United States refused to support the British leading to both the
Morrison–Grady Plan
The Morrison–Grady Plan, also known as the Morrison Plan or the Provincial Autonomy Plan was a joint Anglo-American plan announced on 31 July 1946 for the creation of a unitary federal trusteeship in Mandatory Palestine.
Following the issuance ...
and the Bevin Plan being rejected by all parties, the British decided to refer the question to the UN on February 14, 1947.
Post-World War II
With the
German invasion of the USSR
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
in 1941, Stalin reversed his long-standing opposition to Zionism, and tried to mobilize worldwide Jewish support for the Soviet war effort. A Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was set up in Moscow. Many thousands of Jewish refugees fled the Nazis and entered the Soviet Union during the war, where they reinvigorated Jewish religious activities and opened new synagogues. In May 1947 Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister
Andrei Gromyko
Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko (russian: Андрей Андреевич Громыко; be, Андрэй Андрэевіч Грамыка; – 2 July 1989) was a Soviet communist politician and diplomat during the Cold War. He served as ...
told the United Nations that the USSR supported the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. The USSR formally voted that way in the UN in November 1947. However once Israel was established, Stalin reversed positions, favoured the Arabs, arrested the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, and launched attacks on Jews in the USSR.
In 1947, the
United Nations Special Committee on Palestine
The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) was created on 15 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 govern ...
recommended that western Palestine should be partitioned into a Jewish state, an Arab state and a UN-controlled territory, ''Corpus separatum'', around Jerusalem. This partition plan was adopted on November 29, 1947, with UN GA Resolution 181, 33 votes in favor, 13 against, and 10 abstentions. The vote led to celebrations in Jewish communities and protests in Arab communities throughout Palestine. Violence throughout the country, previously an
Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
Palestinian Arabs
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
, outside of Israel's territories. More than a quarter had already fled prior to the Israeli Declaration of Independence and the start of the
war
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
. After the
1949 Armistice Agreements
The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt,a series of laws passed by the first Israeli government prevented displaced Palestinians from claiming private property or returning on the state's territories. They and many of their descendants remain refugees supported by
UNRWA
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is a UN agency that supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees. UNRWA's mandate encompasses Palestinians displaced by the 1948 ...
.
Since the creation of the State of Israel, the World Zionist Organization has functioned mainly as an organization dedicated to assisting and encouraging Jews to migrate to Israel. It has provided political support for Israel in other countries but plays little role in internal Israeli politics. The movement's major success since 1948 was in providing logistical support for Jewish migrants and refugees and, most importantly, in assisting
Soviet Jews
The history of the Jews in the Soviet Union is inextricably linked to much earlier expansionist policies of the Russian Empire conquering and ruling the eastern half of the European continent already before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. "For ...
in their struggle with the authorities over the right to leave the
USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
and to practice their religion in freedom, and the exodus of 850,000 Jews from the Arab world, mostly to Israel. In 1944–45, Ben-Gurion described the
One Million Plan
The One Million Plan (;''Tochnit hamillion'') was a strategic plan for the immigration and absorption of one million Jews from Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa into Mandatory Palestine, within a timeframe of 18 months, in order to estab ...
to foreign officials as being the "primary goal and top priority of the Zionist movement." The immigration restrictions of the British White Paper of 1939 meant that such a plan could not be put into large scale effect until the Israeli Declaration of Independence in May 1948. The new country's immigration policy had some opposition within the new Israeli government, such as those who argued that there was "no justification for organizing large-scale emigration among Jews whose lives were not in danger, particularly when the desire and motivation were not their own" as well as those who argued that the absorption process caused "undue hardship". However, the force of Ben-Gurion's influence and insistence ensured that his immigration policy was carried out.
Types
The multi-national, worldwide Zionist movement is structured on representative democratic principles. Congresses are held every four years (they were held every two years before the Second World War) and delegates to the congress are elected by the membership. Members are required to pay dues known as a ''shekel''. At the congress, delegates elect a 30-man executive council, which in turn elects the movement's leader. The movement was democratic from its inception and women had the right to vote.
Until 1917, the
World Zionist Organization
The World Zionist Organization ( he, הַהִסְתַּדְּרוּת הַצִּיּוֹנִית הָעוֹלָמִית; ''HaHistadrut HaTzionit Ha'Olamit''), or WZO, is a non-governmental organization that promotes Zionism. It was founded as the ...
pursued a strategy of building a
Jewish National Home
A homeland for the Jewish people is an idea rooted in Jewish history, religion, and culture. The Jewish aspiration to return to Zion, generally associated with divine redemption, has suffused Jewish religious thought since the destruction o ...
through persistent small-scale immigration and the founding of such bodies as the Jewish National Fund (1901 – a charity that bought land for Jewish settlement) and the
Anglo-Palestine Bank
Bank Leumi ( he, בנק לאומי, lit. ''National Bank''; ar, بنك لئومي) is an Israeli bank. It was founded on February 27, 1902, in Jaffa as the ''Anglo Palestine Company'' as subsidiary of the Jewish Colonial Trust (Jüdische Kolonia ...
(1903 – provided loans for Jewish businesses and farmers). In 1942, at the Biltmore Conference, the movement included for the first time an express objective of the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel.''American Jewish Year Book'' Vol. 45 (1943–1944 Pro-Palestine and Zionist Activities, pp 206-214
The 28th
Zionist Congress
The Zionist Congress was established in 1897 by Theodor Herzl as the supreme organ of the Zionist Organization (ZO) and its legislative authority. In 1960 the names were changed to World Zionist Congress ( he, הקונגרס הציוני העו ...
, meeting in Jerusalem in 1968, adopted the five points of the "Jerusalem Program" as the aims of Zionism today. They are:
* Unity of the Jewish People and the centrality of Israel in Jewish life
* Ingathering of the Jewish People in its historic homeland, Eretz Israel, through Aliyah from all countries
* Strengthening of the State of Israel, based on the prophetic vision of justice and peace
* Preservation of the identity of the Jewish People through fostering of Jewish and Hebrew education, and of Jewish spiritual and cultural values
* Protection of Jewish rights everywhere
Since the creation of modern Israel, the role of the movement has declined. It is now a peripheral factor in Israeli politics, though different perceptions of Zionism continue to play roles in Israeli and Jewish political discussion.
Labor Zionism
Labor Zionism originated in Eastern Europe. Socialist Zionists believed that centuries of oppression in antisemitic societies had reduced Jews to a meek, vulnerable, despairing existence that invited further antisemitism, a view originally stipulated by Theodor Herzl. They argued that a revolution of the Jewish soul and society was necessary and achievable in part by Jews moving to Israel and becoming farmers, workers, and soldiers in a country of their own. Most socialist Zionists rejected the observance of traditional religious Judaism as perpetuating a "Diaspora mentality" among the Jewish people, and established rural communes in Israel called " kibbutzim". The kibbutz began as a variation on a "national farm" scheme, a form of cooperative agriculture where the Jewish National Fund hired Jewish workers under trained supervision. The kibbutzim were a symbol of the Second Aliyah in that they put great emphasis on communalism and egalitarianism, representing Utopian socialism to a certain extent. Furthermore, they stressed self-sufficiency, which became an essential aspect of Labor Zionism. Though socialist Zionism draws its inspiration and is philosophically founded on the fundamental values and spirituality of Judaism, its progressive expression of that Judaism has often fostered an antagonistic relationship with
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as revealed by God to Moses ...
.
Labor Zionism became the dominant force in the political and economic life of the
Yishuv
Yishuv ( he, ישוב, literally "settlement"), Ha-Yishuv ( he, הישוב, ''the Yishuv''), or Ha-Yishuv Ha-Ivri ( he, הישוב העברי, ''the Hebrew Yishuv''), is the body of Jewish residents in the Land of Israel (corresponding to the ...
during the
British Mandate of Palestine British Mandate of Palestine or Palestine Mandate most often refers to:
* Mandate for Palestine: a League of Nations mandate under which the British controlled an area which included Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan.
* Mandatory P ...
and was the dominant ideology of the political establishment in Israel until the 1977 election when the
Israeli Labor Party
The Israeli Labor Party ( he, מִפְלֶגֶת הָעֲבוֹדָה הַיִּשְׂרְאֵלִית, ), commonly known as HaAvoda ( he, הָעֲבוֹדָה, , The Labor), is a social democratic and Zionist political party in Israel. The p ...
was defeated. The Israeli Labor Party continues the tradition, although the most popular party in the kibbutzim is Meretz. Labor Zionism's main institution is the Histadrut (general organisation of labor unions), which began by providing strikebreakers against a Palestinian worker's strike in 1920 and until 1970s was the largest employer in Israel after the Israeli government.
Liberal Zionism
General Zionism (or Liberal Zionism) was initially the dominant trend within the Zionist movement from the First Zionist Congress in 1897 until after the First World War. General Zionists identified with the liberal European middle class to which many Zionist leaders such as Herzl and
Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( he, חיים עזריאל ויצמן ', russian: Хаим Евзорович Вейцман, ''Khaim Evzorovich Veytsman''; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born biochemist, Zionist leader and Israe ...
aspired. Liberal Zionism, although not associated with any single party in modern Israel, remains a strong trend in Israeli politics advocating free market principles, democracy and adherence to human rights. Their political arm was one of the ancestors of the modern-day
Likud
Likud ( he, הַלִּיכּוּד, HaLikud, The Consolidation), officially known as Likud – National Liberal Movement, is a major centre-right to right-wing political party in Israel. It was founded in 1973 by Menachem Begin and Ariel Sha ...
.
Kadima
Kadima ( he, קדימה, lit=''Forward'') was a centrist and liberal political party in Israel. It was established on 24 November 2005 by moderates from Likud largely following the implementation of Ariel Sharon's unilateral disengagement pl ...
, the main centrist party during the 2000s that split from Likud and is now defunct, however, did identify with many of the fundamental policies of Liberal Zionist ideology, advocating among other things the need for Palestinian statehood in order to form a more democratic society in Israel, affirming the free market, and calling for equal rights for Arab citizens of Israel. In 2013,
Ari Shavit
Ari Shavit (; born 16 November 1957) is an Israeli reporter and writer. Shavit was a senior correspondent at the left-of-center Israeli newspaper ''Haaretz'' before he resigned when a pattern of sexual misconduct came to public attention.
A sel ...
suggested that the success of the then-new
Yesh Atid
Yesh Atid ( he, יֵשׁ עָתִיד, , There Is a Future) is a liberal political party in Israel. Founded by Yair Lapid in 2012, it seeks to represent what it considers the centre of Israeli society: the secular middle class. It focuses pr ...
party (representing secular, middle-class interests) embodied the success of "the new General Zionists."
Dror Zeigerman
Dror Zeigerman (, born 15 May 1948) is an Israeli former politician and diplomat who served as a member of the Knesset for Likud between 1981 and 1984, and as ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1998 until 2000.
Biography
Born in Ness Ziona th ...
writes that the traditional positions of the General Zionists—"liberal positions based on social justice, on law and order, on pluralism in matters of State and Religion, and on moderation and flexibility in the domain of foreign policy and security"—are still favored by important circles and currents within certain active political parties.
Philosopher
Carlo Strenger
Carlo Strenger ( he, קרלו שטרנגר; July 16, 1958 – October 25, 2019) was a Swiss and Israeli psychologist, philosopher, existential psychoanalyst and public intellectual who served as professor of psychology and philosophy at Tel Aviv U ...
describes a modern-day version of Liberal Zionism (supporting his vision of "Knowledge-Nation Israel"), rooted in the original ideology of Herzl and Ahad Ha'am, that stands in contrast to both the romantic nationalism of the right and the ''Netzah Yisrael'' of the ultra-Orthodox. It is marked by a concern for democratic values and human rights, freedom to criticize government policies without accusations of disloyalty, and rejection of excessive religious influence in public life. "Liberal Zionism celebrates the most authentic traits of the Jewish tradition: the willingness for incisive debate; the contrarian spirit of ''davka''; the refusal to bow to authoritarianism." Liberal Zionists see that "Jewish history shows that Jews need and are entitled to a nation-state of their own. But they also think that this state must be a
liberal democracy
Liberal democracy is the combination of a liberal political ideology that operates under an indirect democratic form of government. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into ...
, which means that there must be strict equality before the law independent of religion, ethnicity or gender."
Revisionist Zionism
Revisionist Zionists, led by
Ze'ev Jabotinsky
Ze'ev Jabotinsky ( he, זְאֵב זַ׳בּוֹטִינְסְקִי, ''Ze'ev Zhabotinski'';, ''Wolf Zhabotinski'' 17 October 1880 – 3 August 1940), born Vladimir Yevgenyevich Zhabotinsky, was a Russian Jewish Revisionist Zionist leade ...
, developed what became known as Nationalist Zionism, whose guiding principles were outlined in the 1923 essay '' Iron Wall''. In 1935 the Revisionists left the World Zionist Organization because it refused to state that the creation of a Jewish state was an objective of Zionism.
Jabotinsky believed that,
Zionism is a colonising adventure and it therefore stands or falls by the question of armed force. It is important to build, it is important to speak Hebrew, but, unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot—or else I am through with playing at colonization.
and that
Although the Jews originated in the East, they belonged to the West culturally, morally, and spiritually. Zionism was conceived by Jabotinsky not as the return of the Jews to their spiritual homeland but as an offshoot or implant of Western civilization in the East. This worldview translated into a geostrategic conception in which Zionism was to be permanently allied with European colonialism against all the Arabs in the eastern Mediterranean.
The revisionists advocated the formation of a Jewish Army in Palestine to force the Arab population to accept mass Jewish migration.
Supporters of Revisionist Zionism developed the
Likud
Likud ( he, הַלִּיכּוּד, HaLikud, The Consolidation), officially known as Likud – National Liberal Movement, is a major centre-right to right-wing political party in Israel. It was founded in 1973 by Menachem Begin and Ariel Sha ...
Party in Israel, which has dominated most governments since 1977. It advocates Israel's maintaining control of the
West Bank
The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
, including East Jerusalem, and takes a hard-line approach in the Arab–Israeli conflict. In 2005, the Likud split over the issue of creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories. Party members advocating peace talks helped form the Kadima Party.
Religious Zionism
Religious Zionism is an ideology that combines Zionism and observant
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in t ...
. Before the establishment of the State of Israel, Religious Zionists were mainly observant Jews who supported Zionist efforts to build a
Jewish state
In world politics, Jewish state is a characterization of Israel as the nation-state and sovereign homeland of the Jewish people.
Modern Israel came into existence on 14 May 1948 as a polity to serve as the homeland for the Jewish people. ...
in the Land of Israel. One of the core ideas in Religious Zionism is the belief that the ingathering of exiles in the Land of Israel and the establishment of Israel is Atchalta De'Geulah ("the beginning of the redemption"), the initial stage of the ''
geula
Geula ( he, גאולה lit. ''Redemption'') is a neighborhood in the center of Jerusalem, populated mainly by Haredi Jews. Geula is bordered by Zikhron Moshe and Mekor Baruch on the west, the Bukharim neighborhood on the north, Mea Shearim on ...
''.
After the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states (primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) from 5 to 10 Ju ...
and the capture of the
West Bank
The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
, a territory referred to in Jewish terms as Judea and Samaria, right-wing components of the Religious Zionist movement integrated nationalist revindication and evolved into what is sometimes known as
Neo-Zionism
Neo-Zionism ( he, ניאו-ציונות) is a right-wing, nationalistic and religious ideology that appeared in Israel following the Six-Day War in 1967 and the capture of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Neo-Zionists consider these lands part o ...
. Their ideology revolves around three pillars: the Land of Israel, the People of Israel and the
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
of Israel.
Green Zionism
Green Zionism is a branch of Zionism primarily concerned with the environment of Israel. The only specifically environmentalist Zionist party is the Green Zionist Alliance.
Post-Zionism
During the last quarter of the 20th century, classic nationalism in Israel declined. This led to the rise of
post-Zionism
Post-Zionism refers to the opinions of some Israelis, diaspora Jews and others, particularly in academia, that Zionism fulfilled its ideological mission with the formation of the modern State of Israel in 1948, and that Zionist ideology should ...
. Post-Zionism asserts that Israel should abandon the concept of a "state of the Jewish people" and strive to be a state of all its citizens, or a binational state where Arabs and Jews live together while enjoying some type of autonomy.
Non-Jewish support
Political support for the Jewish return to the Land of Israel predates the formal organization of Jewish Zionism as a political movement. In the 19th century, advocates of the restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land were called Restorationists. The return of the Jews to the Holy Land was widely supported by such eminent figures as
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...
,
Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...
,
King Edward VII
Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910.
The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria a ...
, President
John Adams
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of t ...
of the United States,
General Smuts
Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts, (24 May 1870 11 September 1950) was a South African statesman, military leader and philosopher. In addition to holding various military and cabinet posts, he served as prime minister of the Union of South Af ...
Henry Dunant
Henry Dunant (born Jean-Henri Dunant; 8 May 182830 October 1910), also known as Henri Dunant, was a Swiss humanitarian, businessman, and social activist. He was the visionary, promoter, and co-founder of the Red Cross. In 1901, he received th ...
(founder of the
Red Cross
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and ...
and author of the
Geneva Conventions
upright=1.15, Original document in single pages, 1864
The Geneva Conventions are four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term ''Geneva Conve ...
), and scientist and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen from Norway.
The French government, through Minister M. Cambon, formally committed itself to "... the renaissance of the Jewish nationality in that Land from which the people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago."
In China, top figures of the Nationalist government, including Sun Yat-sen, expressed their sympathy with the aspirations of the Jewish people for a National Home.
Christian Zionism
Some Christians actively supported the return of Jews to Palestine even prior to the rise of Zionism, as well as subsequently.
Anita Shapira
Anita Shapira ( he, אניטה שפירא, born 1940) is an Israeli historian. She is the founder of the Yitzhak Rabin Center, professor emerita of Jewish history at Tel Aviv University, and former head of the Weizmann Institute for the Study of ...
, a history professor emerita at Tel Aviv University, suggests that evangelical Christian restorationists of the 1840s 'passed this notion on to Jewish circles'. Evangelical Christian anticipation of and political lobbying within the UK for Restorationism was widespread in the 1820s and common beforehand. It was common among the
Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...
s to anticipate and frequently to pray for a Jewish return to their homeland.
One of the principal
Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
teachers who promoted the biblical doctrine that the Jews would return to their national homeland was
John Nelson Darby
John Nelson Darby (18 November 1800 – 29 April 1882) was an Anglo-Irish Bible teacher, one of the influential figures among the original Plymouth Brethren and the founder of the Exclusive Brethren. He is considered to be the father of moder ...
. His doctrine of
dispensationalism
Dispensationalism is a system that was formalized in its entirety by John Nelson Darby. Dispensationalism maintains that history is divided into multiple ages or "dispensations" in which God acts with humanity in different ways. Dispensationali ...
is credited with promoting Zionism, following his 11 lectures on the hopes of the church, the Jew and the
gentile
Gentile () is a word that usually means "someone who is not a Jew". Other groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably Mormons, sometimes use the term ''gentile'' to describe outsiders. More rarely, the term is generally used as a synonym fo ...
given in Geneva in 1840. However, others like C H Spurgeon, both Horatius'The Jew', July 1870, The Quarterly Journal of Prophecy and
Andrew Bonar
Andrew Alexander Bonar (29 May 1810 in Edinburgh – 30 December 1892 in Glasgow) was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland, a contemporary and acquaintance of Robert Murray M'Cheyne and youngest brother of Horatius Bonar.
Life
He was b ...
, Robert Murray M'Chyene,Sermon preached November 17, 1839, after returning from a "Mission of Inquiry into the State of the Jewish People" and J C Ryle were among a number of prominent proponents of both the importance and significance of a Jewish return, who were not dispensationalist. Pro-Zionist views were embraced by many evangelicals and also affected international foreign policy.
The
Russian Orthodox
Russian Orthodoxy (russian: Русское православие) is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, whose liturgy is or was traditionally conducted in Church Slavonic language. Most ...
ideologue
Hippolytus Lutostansky
Hippolytus Lutostansky (1835–1915), also transliterated as Lutostanski, Liutostanskii, J. J. Ljutostanski, Ippolit Iosifovich Lutostanskiĭ; Polish: Hipolit Lutostański, was a former Catholic priest of Polish extraction in the Russian Empire ...
, also known as the author of multiple antisemitic tracts, insisted in 1911 that Russian Jews should be "helped" to move to Palestine "as their rightful place is in their former kingdom of Palestine".
Notable early supporters of Zionism include British Prime Ministers
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for leading the United Kingdom during ...
and
Arthur Balfour
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, (, ; 25 July 184819 March 1930), also known as Lord Balfour, was a British Conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905. As foreign secretary in the ...
, American President
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
and British
Major-General
Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...
Orde Wingate, whose activities in support of Zionism led the British Army to ban him from ever serving in Palestine. According to Charles Merkley of Carleton University, Christian Zionism strengthened significantly after the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states (primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) from 5 to 10 Ju ...
of 1967, and many dispensationalist and non-dispensationalist evangelical Christians, especially Christians in the United States, now strongly support Zionism.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
was a strong supporter of Israel and Zionism,Sundquist, Eric J. (2005). Strangers in the land: Blacks, Jews, post-Holocaust America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 110. although the Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend is a work falsely attributed to him.
In the last years of his life, the founder of the
Latter Day Saint movement
The Latter Day Saint movement (also called the LDS movement, LDS restorationist movement, or Smith–Rigdon movement) is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian Restorationist movement founded by J ...
,
Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. When he was 24, Smith published the Book of Mormon. By the time of his death, 14 years later, ...
, declared, "the time for Jews to return to the land of Israel is now." In 1842, Smith sent
Orson Hyde
Orson Hyde (January 8, 1805 – November 28, 1878) was a leader in the early Latter Day Saint movement and a member of the first Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He was the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus ...
Nonie Darwish
Nonie Darwish ( ar, نوني درويش; born Nahid Darwish, 1949) is an Egyptian-American writer, founder of ''Arabs for Israel'' movement, and is Director of Former Muslims United. Darwish is an outspoken critic of Islam. The Southern Poverty L ...
, and former Muslim
Magdi Allam
Magdi Cristiano Allam ( ar, مجدي علام Majdī ʿAllām; born 22 April 1952), is an Egyptian-Italian journalist and politician, noted for his criticism of Islam and his articles on the relations between Western culture and the Islamic worl ...
, author of ''Viva Israele'', both born in Egypt.
Brigitte Gabriel
Brigitte Gabriel ( ar, بريجيت غابرييل; born Hanan Qahwaji, 21 October 1964) is a Lebanese-American conservative author, anti-Islam activist, and founder of the anti-Muslim group ACT! for America.
Early life and education
Gabriel ...
, a Lebanese-born Christian US journalist and founder of the American Congress for Truth, urges Americans to "fearlessly speak out in defense of America, Israel and Western civilization".
Muslim Zionism
Muslims who have publicly defended Zionism include
Tawfik Hamid
Tawfik Hamid ( ar, توفيق حامد; born 1961) is an author from Egypt. A self-described former member of the militant al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, he says that he started to preach in mosques to promote his message and, as a result, became a targ ...
, Islamic thinker and reformer and former member of
al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya
( ar, الجماعة الإسلامية, "the Islamic Group"; also transliterated El Gama'a El Islamiyya; also called "Islamic Groups" and transliterated Gamaat Islamiya, al Jamaat al Islamiya, is an Egyptian Sunni Islamist movement, and ...
, an Islamist militant group that is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union, Sheikh Prof. Abdul Hadi Palazzi, Director of the Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community and Tashbih Sayyed, a Pakistani-American scholar, journalist, and author.
On occasion, some non-Arab Muslims such as some
Kurds ug:كۇردلار
Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Ira ...
and Berbers have also voiced support for Zionism.
While most Israeli Druze identify as ethnically
Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
, today, tens of thousands of Israeli Druze belong to "Druze Zionist" movements.
During the Palestine Mandate era, As'ad Shukeiri, a Muslim scholar ('alim) of the Acre area, and the father of PLO founder
Ahmad Shukeiri
Ahmad al-Shukeiri ( ar, أحمد الشقيري, also transliterated al-Shuqayri, Shuqairi, Shuqeiri, Shukeiry; 1 January 1908 – 26 February 1980) was the first Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, serving from 1964–1967. ...
, rejected the values of the Palestinian Arab national movement and was opposed to the anti-Zionist movement. He met routinely with Zionist officials and had a part in every pro-Zionist Arab organization from the beginning of the British Mandate, publicly rejecting Mohammad Amin al-Husayni's use of Islam to attack Zionism.''Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917–1948''. By Hillel Cohen. University of California Press, 2009. p. 84
Some
Indian Muslims
Islam is India's second-largest religion, with 14.2% of the country's population, approximately 172.2 million people identifying as adherents of Islam in 2011 Census. India is also the country with the second or third largest number of Muslim ...
have also expressed opposition to Islamic anti-Zionism. In August 2007, a delegation of the All India Organization of
Imams
Imam (; ar, إمام '; plural: ') is an Islamic leadership position. For Sunni Muslims, Imam is most commonly used as the title of a worship leader of a mosque. In this context, imams may lead Islamic worship services, lead prayers, serve ...
and mosques led by its president Maulana Jamil Ilyas visited Israel. The meeting led to a joint statement expressing "peace and goodwill from Indian Muslims", developing dialogue between Indian Muslims and Israeli Jews, and rejecting the perception that the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is of a religious nature. The visit was organized by the American Jewish Committee. The purpose of the visit was to promote meaningful debate about the status of Israel in the eyes of Muslims worldwide and to strengthen the relationship between India and Israel. It is suggested that the visit could "open Muslim minds across the world to understand the democratic nature of the state of Israel, especially in the Middle East".
Hindu support for Zionism
After Israel's creation in 1948, the
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British E ...
government opposed Zionism. Some writers have claimed that this was done in order to get more Muslim votes in India (where Muslims numbered over 30 million at the time). Zionism, seen as a national liberation movement for the repatriation of the Jewish people to their homeland then under British colonial rule, appealed to many
Hindu Nationalist
Hindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expression of social and political thought, based on the native spiritual and cultural traditions of the Indian subcontinent. "Hindu nationalism" or the correct term ''Hindū rāṣṭ ...
s, who viewed their struggle for independence from British rule and the Partition of India as national liberation for long-oppressed Hindus.
An international opinion survey has shown that India is the most pro-Israel country in the world. In more current times, conservative Indian parties and organizations tend to support Zionism. This has invited attacks on the
Hindutva
Hindutva () is the predominant form of Hindu nationalism in India. The term was formulated as a political ideology by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1923. It is used by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the ...
movement by parts of the Indian left opposed to Zionism, and allegations that Hindus are conspiring with the " Jewish Lobby."
Anti-Zionism
Zionism is opposed by a wide variety of organizations and individuals. Among those opposing Zionism there are Palestinian nationalists, states of the Arab League and many of the
Muslim world
The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. I ...
, the former
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
, some secular Jews, and some
sect
A sect is a subgroup of a religious, political, or philosophical belief system, usually an offshoot of a larger group. Although the term was originally a classification for religious separated groups, it can now refer to any organization that ...
s of Judaism such as
Satmar Hasidim
Satmar (Yiddish: סאַטמאַר, Hebrew: סאטמר) is a Hasidic group founded in 1905 by Grand Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum, in the city of Szatmárnémeti, Hungary (now Satu Mare in Romania). The group is an offshoot of the Sighet Hasidic dynasty ...
and
Neturei Karta
Neturei Karta (Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: , , ) is a religious group of Haredi Jews, formally created in Jerusalem, then in Mandatory Palestine, in 1938, splitting off from Agudas Yisrael. Neturei Karta opposes Zionism and calls for a "pea ...
. Reasons for opposing Zionism are varied, and they include: the perception that land confiscations are unfair; expulsions of Palestinians; violence against Palestinians; and alleged
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonis ...
. Arab states in particular strongly oppose Zionism, which they believe is responsible for the 1948 Palestinian exodus. The preamble of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, which has been ratified by 53 African countries , includes an undertaking to eliminate Zionism together with other practices including colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid, "aggressive foreign military bases" and all forms of discrimination.
In 1945 US President Franklin D Roosevelt met with king Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. Ibn Saud pointed out that it was Germany who had committed crimes against the Jews and so Germany should be punished. Palestinian Arabs had done no harm to European Jews and did not deserve to be punished by losing their land. Roosevelt on return to the US concluded that Israel "could only be established and maintained by force."
Catholic Church and Zionism
Shortly after the
First Zionist Congress
The First Zionist Congress ( he, הקונגרס הציוני הראשון) was the inaugural congress of the Zionist Organization (ZO) held in Basel (Basle), from August 29 to August 31, 1897. 208 delegates and 26 press correspondents attende ...
, the semi-official Vatican periodical (edited by the Society of Jesus, Jesuits) Civiltà Cattolica gave its biblical-theological judgement on political Zionism: "1827 years have passed since the prediction of Jesus of Nazareth was fulfilled ... that [after the destruction of Jerusalem] the Jews would be led away to be slaves among all the nations and that they would remain in the dispersion [diaspora, galut] until the end of the world." The Jews should not be permitted to return to Palestine with sovereignty: "According to the Sacred Scriptures, the Jewish people must always live dispersed and vagabondo [vagrant, wandering] among the other nations, so that they may render witness to Christ not only by the Scriptures ... but by their very existence".
Nonetheless, Theodor Herzl travelled to Rome in late January 1904, after the sixth Zionist Congress (August 1903) and six months before his death, looking for support. On January 22, Herzl first met the Papal Secretary of State, Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val. According to Herzl's private diary notes, the Cardinal's interpretation of the history of Israel was the same as that of the Catholic Church, but he also asked for the conversion of the Jews to Catholicism. Three days later, Herzl met Pope Pius X, who replied to his request of support for a Jewish return to Israel in the same terms, saying that "we are unable to favor this movement. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem, but we could never sanction it ... The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people." In 1922, the same periodical published a piece by its Viennese correspondent, "anti-Semitism is nothing but the absolutely necessary and natural reaction to the Jews' arrogance... Catholic anti-Semitism – while never going beyond the moral law – adopts all necessary means to emancipate the Christian people from the abuse they suffer from their sworn enemy". This initial attitude changed over the next 50 years, until 1997, when at the Holy See, Vatican symposium of that year, Pope John Paul II rejected the Christian roots of antisemitism, stating that "... the wrong and unjust interpretations of the New Testament relating to the Jewish people and their supposed guilt [in Christ's death] circulated for too long, engendering sentiments of hostility toward this people."
Characterization as colonialism, ethnic cleansing, or racist
David Ben-Gurion stated that "There will be no discrimination among citizens of the Jewish state on the basis of race, religion, sex, or class." Likewise, Vladimir Jabotinsky avowed "the minority will not be rendered defenseless... [the] aim of democracy is to guarantee that the minority too has influence on matters of state policy." Supporters of Zionism, such as Chaim Herzog, argue that the movement is non-discriminatory and contains no racist aspects.
However, some critics of Zionism consider it a colonialist or racism, racist
*''Zionism, imperialism, and race'', Abdul Wahhab Kayyali, ʻAbd al-Wahhāb Kayyālī (Eds), Croom Helm, 1979
*Gerson, Allan, "The United Nations and Racism: the Case of Zionism and Racism", in ''Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 1987, Volume 17; Volume 1987, Yoram Dinstein, Mala Tabory (Eds)'', Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1988, p 68
*Hadawi, Sami, ''Bitter harvest: a modern history of Palestine'', Interlink Books, 1991, p 183
*Beker, Avi, ''Chosen: the history of an idea, the anatomy of an obsession'', Macmillan, 2008, p 131, 139, 151
*Dinstein, Yoram, ''Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 1987, Volume 17; Volume 1987'', p 31, 136ge
*Harkabi, Yehoshafat, ''Arab attitudes to Israel'', pp 247–8 movement. According to historian Avi Shlaim, throughout its history up to present day, Zionism "is replete with manifestations of deep hostility and contempt towards the indigenous population." Shlaim balances this by pointing out that there have always been individuals within the Zionist movement that have criticized such attitudes. He cites the example of Ahad Ha'am, who after visiting Palestine in 1891, published a series of articles criticizing the aggressive behaviour and political ethnocentrism of Zionist settlers. Ha'am reportedly wrote that the
Yishuv
Yishuv ( he, ישוב, literally "settlement"), Ha-Yishuv ( he, הישוב, ''the Yishuv''), or Ha-Yishuv Ha-Ivri ( he, הישוב העברי, ''the Hebrew Yishuv''), is the body of Jewish residents in the Land of Israel (corresponding to the ...
"behave towards the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, trespass unjustly upon their boundaries, beat them shamefully without reason and even brag about it, and nobody stands to check this contemptible and dangerous tendency" and that they believed that "the only language that the Arabs understand is that of force." Some criticisms of Zionism claim that Judaism's notion of the "Jews as a chosen people, chosen people" is the source of racism in Zionism, despite, according to Gustavo Perednik, that being a religious concept unrelated to Zionism. This characterization of Zionism as a colonialism has been made by, among others, Gershon Shafir, Michael Prior (theologian), Michael Prior, Ilan Pappe, and Baruch Kimmerling.
*Shafir, Gershon, ''Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship'', Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp 37–38
*Bareli, Avi, "Forgetting Europe: Perspectives on the Debate about Zionism and Colonialism", in ''Israeli Historical Revisionism: From Left to Right'', Psychology Press, 2003, pp 99–116
*Ilan Pappe, Pappé Ilan, ''A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples'', Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp 72–121
*Prior, Michael, ''The Bible and colonialism: a moral critique'', Continuum International Publishing Group, 1997, pp 106–215
*Shafir, Gershon, "Zionism and Colonialism", in ''The Israel / Palestinian Question'', by Ilan Pappe, Psychology Press, 1999, pp 72–85
*Lustick, Ian, ''For the Land and the Lord'' ...
*Zuriek, Elia, ''The Palestinians in Israel: A Study in Internal Colonialism'', Routledge & K. Paul, 1979
*Penslar, Derek J., "Zionism, Colonialism and Postcolonialism", in ''Israeli Historical Revisionism: From Left to Right'', Psychology Press, 2003, pp 85–98
*Ilan Pappé, Pappe, Ilan, ''The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine'', Oneworld, 2007
*
*
*
Noam Chomsky, John P. Quigly, Nur Masalha, and Cheryl Rubenberg have criticized Zionism, saying that it unfairly confiscates land and expels Palestinians. Isaac Deutscher has called Israelis the 'Prussians of the Middle East', who have achieved a 'totsieg', a 'victorious rush into the grave' as a result of dispossessing 1.5 million Palestinians. Israel had become the 'last remaining colonial power' of the twentieth century. Saleh Abdel Jawad, Nur Masalha, Michael Prior (theologian), Michael Prior, Ian Lustick, and John Rose have criticized Zionism for having been responsible for violence against Palestinians, such as the Deir Yassin massacre, Sabra and Shatila massacre, and Cave of the Patriarchs massacre.
Others, such as Shlomo Avineri and Mitchell Bard, view Zionism as a national movement that is contending with the Palestinian one. South African rabbi David Hoffman rejected the claim that Zionism is a 'settler-colonial undertaking' and instead characterized Zionism as a national program of affirmative action, adding that there is unbroken Jewish presence in Israel back to antiquity.
Edward Said and Michael Prior (theologian), Michael Prior claim that the notion of expelling the Palestinians was an early component of Zionism, citing Herzl's diary from 1895 which states "we shall endeavour to expel the poor population across the border unnoticed—the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." This quotation has been critiqued by Efraim Karsh for misrepresenting Herzl's purpose. He describes it as "a feature of Palestinian propaganda", writing that Herzl was referring to the voluntary resettlement of squatters living on land purchased by Jews, and that the full diary entry stated, "It goes without saying that we shall respectfully tolerate persons of other faiths and protect their property, their honor, and their freedom with the harshest means of coercion. This is another area in which we shall set the entire world a wonderful example ... Should there be many such immovable owners in individual areas [who would not sell their property to us], we shall simply leave them there and develop our commerce in the direction of other areas which belong to us." Derek Penslar says that Herzl may have been considering either South America or Palestine when he wrote the diary entry about expropriation. According to Walter Laqueur, although many Zionists proposed transfer, it was never official Zionist policy and in 1918 Ben-Gurion "emphatically rejected" it.
The exodus of the Arab Palestinians during the 1947–1949 Palestine war, 1947-1949 war has been controversially described as having involved ethnic cleansing.Shavit, Ari Survival of the Fittest? An Interview with Benny Morris . Logos. Winter 2004 According to a growing consensus between 'New Historians, new historians' in Israel and Palestinian historians, expulsion and destruction of villages played a part in the origin of the Palestinian refugees. While British scholar Efraim Karsh states that most of the Arabs who fled left of their own accord or were pressured to leave by their fellow Arabs, despite Israeli attempts to convince them to stay, 'New historians' dismiss this claim, and as such, Beny Morris concur that Arab instigation was not the major cause of the refugees' flight, and state that the major cause of Palestinian flight was instead military actions by the Israeli Defence Force and fear of them and that Arab instigation can only explain a ''small part'' of the exodus and not a ''large part'' of it.
Ilan Pappe said that Zionism resulted in ethnic cleansing. This view diverges from other New Historians, such as Benny Morris, who place the Palestinian exodus in the context of war, not ethnic cleansing. When Benny Morris was asked about the 1948 Palestinian expulsion from Lydda and Ramle, Expulsion of Palestinians from Lydda and Ramle, he responded "There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide—the annihilation of your people—I prefer ethnic cleansing."
In 1938, Mahatma Gandhi said in the letter "The Jews", that the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine must be performed by non-violence against the Arabs, comparing it to the Partition of India into Hindu and Muslim countries, he proposed to the Jews to "offer themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them.". He expressed his "sympathy" for the Jewish aspirations, but however said : "The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?", and warned them against violence: "It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs ... Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home ... They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart." Gandhi later told American journalist Louis Fischer in 1946 that "Jews have a good case in Palestine. If the Arabs have a claim to Palestine, the Jews have a prior claim". He expressed himself again in 1946, nuancing his views : "Hitherto I have refrained practically from saying anything in public regarding the Jew-Arab controversy. I have done so for good reasons. That does not mean any want of interest in the question, but it does mean that I do not consider myself sufficiently equipped with knowledge for the purpose." He concluded: If they were to adopt the matchless weapon of non-violence ... their case would be the world's and I have no doubt that among the many things that the Jews have given to the world, this would be the best and the brightest.".
In December 1973, the UN passed a series of resolutions condemning South Africa and included a reference to an "unholy alliance between Portuguese Colonial War, Portuguese colonialism, Apartheid and Zionism." At the time there was little cooperation between Israel – South Africa relations, Israel and South Africa, although the two countries would develop a close relationship during the 1970s. Parallels have also been drawn between aspects of South Africa's apartheid regime and certain Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, which are seen as manifestations of racism in Zionist thinking.
In 1975 the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 3379, which said "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination". According to the resolution, "any doctrine of racial differentiation of superiority is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust, and dangerous." The resolution named the occupied territory of Palestine, Zimbabwe, and South Africa as examples of racist regimes. Resolution 3379 was pioneered by the Soviet Union and passed with numerical support from Arab and African states amidst accusations that Israel was supportive of the apartheid regime in South Africa. The resolution was robustly criticised by the US representative, Daniel Patrick Moynihan as an 'obscenity' and a 'harm ... done to the United Nations'. 'In 1991 the resolution was repealed with UN General Assembly Resolution 46/86,260 General Assembly Resolution 46-86- Revocation of Resolution 3379- December 16, 1991 — and statement by President Herzog Dec 16, 1991, VOLUME 11–12: 1988–1992 after Israel declared that it would only participate in the Madrid Conference of 1991 if the resolution were revoked.
Arab countries sought to associate Zionism with racism in connection with a World Conference against Racism 2001, 2001 UN conference on racism, which took place in Durban, South Africa, which caused the United States and Israel to walk away from the conference as a response. The final text of the conference did not connect Zionism with racism. A human rights forum arranged in connection with the conference, on the other hand, did equate Zionism with racism and censured Israel for what it called "racist crimes, including acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing".
Haredi Judaism and Zionism
Some Haredi Orthodox organizations reject Zionism as they view it as a secular movement and reject nationalism as a doctrine. Hasidic Judaism, Hasidic groups in Jerusalem, most famously the Satmar (Hasidic dynasty), Satmar Hasidim, as well as the larger movement they are part of, the Edah HaChareidis, are opposing its ideology for religious reasons. They number in the tens of thousands in Jerusalem, and hundreds of thousands worldwide. One of the best known Hasidic opponents of political Zionism was Hungary, Hungarian rebbe and Talmudic scholar Joel Teitelbaum.
The
Neturei Karta
Neturei Karta (Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: , , ) is a religious group of Haredi Jews, formally created in Jerusalem, then in Mandatory Palestine, in 1938, splitting off from Agudas Yisrael. Neturei Karta opposes Zionism and calls for a "pea ...
, an Orthodox Haredi sect viewed as a cult on the "farthest fringes of Judaism" by most mainstream Jews, reject Zionism. The Anti-Defamation League estimates that fewer than 100 members of the community (around 5,000 members), actually take part in anti-Israel activism. Some have said that Israel is a "racist regime", compared Zionists to Nazis, claimed that Zionism is contrary to the teachings of the
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
, or accused it of promoting antisemitism. Members of Neturei Karta have a long history of extremist statements and support for notable anti-Semites and Islamic extremists.
Anti-Zionism or antisemitism
Some critics of anti-Zionism have argued that opposition to Zionism can be hard to distinguish from antisemitism, and that criticism of Israel may be used as an excuse to express viewpoints that might otherwise be considered antisemitic. Other scholars argue that certain forms of opposition to Zionism constitute antisemitism. A number of scholars have argued that opposition to Zionism or the State of Israel's policies at the more extreme fringes often overlaps with antisemitism.Anti-semitism in Germany: the post-Nazi epoch since 1945 By Werner Bergmann, Rainer Erb, page 182, "Continuity and Change: Extreme Right Perceptions of Zionism" by Roni Stauber in Anti-semitism worldwide 1999/2000 Tel Aviv University In the Arab world, the words "Jew" and "Zionist" are often used interchangeably. To avoid accusations of antisemitism, the Palestine Liberation Organization has historically avoided using the word "Jewish" in favor of using "Zionist," though PLO officials have sometimes slipped.
Some antisemites have alleged that Zionism was, or is, part of a Jewish plot to take control of the world. 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") achieved global notability. The protocols are fictional minutes of an imaginary meeting by Jewish leaders of this plot. Analysis and proof of their fraudulent origin goes as far back as 1921. A 1920 German version renamed them "The Zionist Protocols". The protocols were The Protocols of the Elders of Zion#toc, extensively used as propaganda by the Nazis and remain widely Protocols of the Elders of Zion#Post World War II, distributed in the Arab world. They are referred to in the 1988 Hamas#Hamas Charter (1988), Hamas charter.
There are examples of anti-Zionists using accusations, slanders, imagery and tactics previously associated with antisemites. On October 21, 1973, the then-Soviet ambassador to the United Nations Yakov Malik declared: "The Zionists have come forth with the theory of the Chosen People, an absurd ideology." Similarly, an exhibit about Zionism and Israel in the former Museum of Religion and Atheism in Saint Petersburg designated the following as Soviet Zionist material: Jewish tallit, prayer shawls, ''tefillin'' and
Passover
Passover, also called Pesach (; ), is a major Jewish holiday that celebrates the Biblical story of the Israelites escape from slavery in Egypt, which occurs on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, the first month of Aviv, or spring. ...
'' Hagaddahs'', even though these are all ''religious'' items used by Jews for thousands of years.Dennis Prager, Prager, D; Joseph Telushkin, Telushkin, J. ''Why the Jews?: The Reason for Antisemitism''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983. page 169-175.
On the other hand, anti-Zionist writers such as Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Michael Marder, and Tariq Ali have argued that the characterization of anti-Zionism as antisemitic is inaccurate, that it sometimes obscures legitimate criticism of Israel's policies and actions, and that it is sometimes used as a political ploy in order to stifle legitimate criticism of Israel.
* Linguist Noam Chomsky argues: "There have long been efforts to identify anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in an effort to exploit anti-racist sentiment for political ends; "one of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all," Israeli diplomat Abba Eban argued, in a typical expression of this intellectually and morally disreputable position (Eban, Congress Bi-Weekly, March 30, 1973). But that no longer suffices. It is now necessary to identify criticism of Israeli policies as anti-Semitism — or in the case of Jews, as "self-hatred," so that all possible cases are covered." — Chomsky, 1989 "Necessary Illusions".
* Philosopher Michael Marder argues: "To deconstruct Zionism is ... to demand justice for its victims - not only for the Palestinians, who are suffering from it, but also for the anti-Zionist Jews, 'erased' from the officially consecrated account of Zionist history. By deconstructing its ideology, we shed light on the context it strives to repress and on the violence it legitimises with a mix of theological or metaphysical reasoning and affective appeals to historical guilt for the undeniably horrific persecution of Jewish people in Europe and elsewhere."
* American political scientist Norman Finkelstein argues that anti-Zionism and often just criticism of Israeli policies have been conflated with antisemitism, sometimes called new antisemitism for political gain: "Whenever Israel faces a public relations débâcle such as the Intifada or international pressure to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, American Jewish organizations orchestrate this extravaganza called the 'new anti-Semitism.' The purpose is several-fold. First, it is to discredit any charges by claiming the person is an anti-Semite. It's to turn Jews into the victims, so that the victims are not the Palestinians any longer. As people like Abraham Foxman of the ADL put it, the Jews are being threatened by a new holocaust. It's a role reversal — the Jews are now the victims, not the Palestinians. So it serves the function of discrediting the people leveling the charge. It's no longer Israel that needs to leave the Occupied Territories; it's the Arabs who need to free themselves of the anti-Semitism. —
Marcus Garvey and Black Zionism
Zionist success in winning British support for the formation of a Jewish National Home in Palestine helped inspire the Jamaican Black nationalism, Black nationalist Marcus Garvey to form a movement dedicated to returning Americans of African origin to Africa. During a speech in Harlem in 1920, Garvey stated: "other races were engaged in seeing their cause through—the Jews through their Zionist movement and the Irish through their Irish movement—and I decided that, cost what it might, I would make this a favorable time to see the Negro's interest through." Garvey established a shipping company, the Black Star Line, to allow Black Americans to emigrate to Africa, but for various reasons he failed in his endeavor.
Garvey helped inspire the Rastafari movement in Jamaica, the Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation, Black Jews and the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem who initially moved to Liberia before settling in Israel.
See also
References
Explanatory notes
Citations
Bibliography
::Primary sources
* Herzl, Theodor. ''A Jewish state: an attempt at a modern solution of the Jewish question'' (1896 full text online * Herzl, Theodor. ''Theodor Herzl: Excerpts from His Diaries'' (2006 excerpt and text search
::Secondary sources
* Armborst-Weihs, Kerstin ''The Formation of the Jewish National Movement Through Transnational Exchange: Zionism in Europe up to the First World War'' European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2011, retrieved: August 17, 2011.
* A. B. Masilamani, ''Zionism'' in ''Melu Kolupu'' (Telugu language, Telugu), Navajeevana Publications, Vijayanagar Colony, Hyderabad, 1984, pp. 121–126.
* Beller, Steven. ''Herzl'' (2004)
* Brenner, Michael, and Shelley Frisch. ''Zionism: A Brief History'' (2003 excerpt and text search * Judith Butler, Butler, Judith: ''Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism''. Columbia University Press, 2013.
* Cohen, Naomi. ''The Americanization of Zionism, 1897–1948'' (2003). 304 pp. essays on specialized topics
* Friedman, Isaiah. "Theodor Herzl: Political Activity and Achievements," ''Israel Studies'' 2004 9(3): 46–79, online in EBSCO
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* David Hazony, Yoram Hazony, and Michael B. Oren, eds., "New Essays on Zionism," Shalem Press, 2007.
* Kloke, Martin ''The Development of Zionism Until the Founding of the State of Israel'' European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2010, retrieved: June 13, 2012.
* Laqueur, Walter. ''A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel'' (2003) survey by a leading schola excerpt and text search *
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* Pawel, Ernst. ''The Labyrinth of Exile: A Life of Theodor Herzl'' (1992 excerpt and text search * Sachar, Howard M. ''A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time'' (2007 excerpt and text search * Shimoni, Gideon. ''The Zionist Ideology'' (1995)
* Gadi Taub, Taub, Gadi. ''The Settlers and the Struggle over the Meaning of Zionism'' (2010, Hebrew, English)
* Taylor, A.R., 1971, "Vision and intent in Zionist Thought'" in ''The transformation of Palestine'', ed. by I. Abu-Lughod, , Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL
* Urofsky, Melvin I. ''American Zionism from Herzl to the Holocaust'' (1995), a standard history
* Wigoder, Geoffrey, ed. ''New Encyclopedia of Zionism and Israel'' (2nd ed. 2 vol. 1994); 1521 pp
Exodus1947.com PBS Documentary Film focusing on the secret American involvement in Aliyah Bet, narrated by Morley Safer
by Jerry Klinger. ''Jewish Magazine'', July 2010
Is Zionism in Crisis? A Follow-Up Debate with Peter Beinart and Alan Dershowitz at The Graduate Center, CUNY
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Zionism,
Jewish movements
National liberation movements
Nationalists of Middle Eastern nations
Land of Israel
Political movements
Jewish Agency for Israel
1890s neologisms
Jewish nationalism