The History of Zionism By Moshe Maor One of the most important
aspects of modern Jewish life in Europe since the mid-nineteenth
century was the development of a variety of Jewish national
movements such as Zionists, Bundists and Autonomists that
offered competing ideologies and solutions to the issues of
Jewish nationhood and individual nationality as well as to
problems posed by modernity. Among these problems was the
breakdown of the parochial molds of Jewish life and the
fragmentation of the traditional Jewish community. This article
focuses on Zionism, the most radical of all modern Jewish
national movements. Zionism’s revolutionary character stemmed
from its emphasis on the need to construct a Jewish national
life in response to modernity and to do so only in Eretz Israel
— the Land of Israel. Additionally, Zionists were the first to
believe that policies on the major issues confronting Jewry
should be subject to free and open debate. Furthermore, due to
the catastrophic condition of East European Jewry,