Where did Zionism originate?
Zionism
Zionism ( "Tsiyyonut" after "Zion") is the national movement of the Jewish people that supports the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in the territory defined as the historic Land of Israel (roughly corresponding to Canaan, the Holy Land, or the region of Palestine). Modern Zionism emerged in the late 19th century in Central and Eastern Europe as a national revival movement, both in reaction to newer waves of antisemitism and as an imitative response to other nationalist movements. Soon after this, most leaders of the movement associated the main goal with creating the desired state in Palestine, then an area controlled by the Ottoman Empire.
Hovevei Zion
The organizations are now considered the forerunners and foundation-builders of modern Zionism. Many of the first groups were established in Eastern European countries in the early 1880s with the aim to promote Jewish immigration to Palestine, and advance Jewish settlement there, particularly agricultural. Most of them stayed away from politics.
Jacob Birnbaum
Yaakov Birnbaum was born in Hamburg, Germany. His grandfather was Nathan Birnbaum, writer and Jewish nationalist who coined the word "Zionism." His father was Solomon Birnbaum, a Yiddish scholar.In 1938 and 1939 Yaakov went to school with refugee children who were brought out from Central Europe at the last moment in a Kindertransport organized by Rabbi Dr. Solomon Schonfeld. He later studied modern European history at the University of London.
Origins of Judaism
Judaism has its origins in the Iron Age Kingdom of Judah and in Second Temple Judaism. It has three essential and related elements: study of the written Torah (the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy); the recognition of Israel (defined as the descendants of Abraham through his grandson Jacob) as a people elected by God as recipients of the law at Mount Sinai, his chosen people; and the requirement that Israel live in accordance with God's laws as given in the Torah.
Labor Zionism
Labor Zionism or Socialist Zionism (, translit. "tziyonut sotzyalistit") is the left wing of the Zionist movement. For many years, it was the most significant tendency among Zionists and Zionist organizations. It saw itself as the Zionist sector of the historic Jewish labor movements of Eastern and Central Europe, eventually developing local units in most countries with sizable Jewish populations. Unlike the "political Zionist" tendency founded by Theodor Herzl and advocated by Chaim Weizmann, Labor Zionists did not believe that a Jewish state would be created simply by appealing to the international community or to a powerful nation such as Britain, Germany or the Ottoman Empire. Rather, Labor Zionists believed that a Jewish state could only be created through the efforts of the Jewish working class settling in Palestine and constructing a state through the creation of a progressive Jewish society with rural kibbutzim and moshavim and an urban Jewish proletariat.
Views on the Arab–Israeli conflict
Some Arabs believe that Zionism is a racist ideology, that implies the superiority of Jews. They view Jewish immigration, from the late 19th century, as a colonization of Palestinians' land.
Most Israelis see Zionism as the desire of Jewish people to live as free people in the land of Israel, where the concept of Jewish nationhood first materialized somewhere between the 13th and 6th century BCE. They argue that Zionism does not imply the superiority of Jews over any other nationality or ethnicity, but is simply a re-establishment and realization of Jewish dreams of nationhood, autonomy, and self-determination. Religious Zionists also believe that Land of Israel was promised to Jews by God, whereas religious Muslims consider the Land of Israel to be an Islamic waqf, as it was historically conquered in the name of Islam, and should forever remain the provenance of the Islamic faith.
Land of Israel
Having already used another religious term of great importance, Zion (Jerusalem), to coin the name of their movement, being associated with the return to Zion. The term was considered appropriate for the secular Jewish political movement of Zionism to adopt at the turn of the 20th century; it was used to refer to their proposed national homeland in the area then controlled by the Ottoman Empire. As originally stated, "The aim of Zionism is to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by law." Different geographic and political definitions for the "Land of Israel" later developed among competing Zionist ideologies during their nationalist struggle. These differences relate to the importance of the idea and its land, as well as the internationally recognized borders of the State of Israel and the Jewish State's secure and democratic existence. Many current governments, politicians and commentators question these differences.
History of Zionism
In 1903, the British Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, suggested the British Uganda Programme, land for a Jewish state in "Uganda" (in today's Uasin Gishu District, Eldoret, Kenya). Herzl initially rejected the idea, preferring Palestine, but after the April 1903 Kishinev pogrom, Herzl introduced a controversial proposal to the Sixth Zionist Congress to investigate the offer as a temporary measure for Russian Jews in danger. Despite its emergency and temporary nature, the proposal proved very divisive, and widespread opposition to the plan was fueled by a walkout led by the Russian Jewish delegation to the Congress. Nevertheless, a committee was established to investigate the possibility, which was eventually dismissed in the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905. After that, Palestine became the sole focus of Zionist aspirations.
Jewish political movements
In reaction to the first, Judah Leib Pinsker published the pamphlet Auto-Emancipation on January 1, 1882. The pamphlet became influential for the "Political Zionism" movement. The movement was to achieve momentum under the leadership of an Austrian-Jewish journalist, Theodor Herzl, who published his pamphlet "Der Judenstaat" ("The Jewish State") in 1896. Prior to the Dreyfus Affair, Herzl had been an assimilationist, but after seeing how France treated its loyal Jewish subjects, he proposed building a separate Jewish state. In 1897 Herzl organized the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, which founded the World Zionist Organisation (WZO) and elected Herzl as its first President. After the state's establishment Zionism, in its various forms, would become the largest Jewish political movement, although more Jews would participate in the national politics of the countries in which they resided.
Zion
The term "Zionism", coined by Austrian Nathan Birnbaum, was derived from the German rendering of Tzion in his journal "Selbstemanzipation" (Self Emancipation) in 1890. Zionism as a political movement started in 1897 and supported a "national home", and later a state, for the Jewish people in Palestine. The Zionist movement declared the re-establishment of its State of Israel in 1948, following the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. Since then and with varying ideologies, Zionists have focused on developing and protecting this state.
History of Zionism
In 1883, Nathan Birnbaum, 19 years old, founded "Kadimah", the first Jewish student association in Vienna and printed Pinsker's pamphlet Auto-Emancipation.
The Dreyfus Affair, which erupted in France in 1894, profoundly shocked emancipated Jews. The depth of antisemitism in the first country to grant Jews equal rights led many to question their future prospects among Christians. Among those who witnessed the Affair was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist, Theodor Herzl. Herzl was born in Budapest and lived in Vienna (Jews were only allowed to live in Vienna from 1848), who published his pamphlet "Der Judenstaat" ("The Jewish State") in 1896 and "Altneuland" ("The Old New Land") in 1902. He described the Affair as a personal turning point. Seeing Dreyfus's Jewishness used so successfully as a scapegoat by the monarchist propagandists disillusioned Herzl. Dreyfus's guilt was deemed indisputable simply because Jewish stereotypes of nefariousness prevented a fair trial from occurring. Herzl outright denied that any such Jewish stereotypes were rooted in reality in any way. However, he believed that anti-semitism was so deeply ingrained in European society that only the creation of a Jewish state would enable the Jews to join the family of nations and escape antisemitism.
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 of Aytzim, the first environmental organization to participate in the World Zionist Congress, the World Zionist Organization, and its constituent agencies.
Zionism
After the Six-Day War and the capture of the West Bank, 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 Neo-Zionism. Their ideology revolves around three pillars: the Land of Israel, the People of Israel and the Torah of Israel.
History of Zionism
In late 1921, the 12th Zionist congress was held in Carlsbad, Czechoslovakia; it was the first congress to be held since 1913, because of World War I. Four hundred-fifty delegates attended, representing 780,000 fee paying Zionist members worldwide. Weizmann was elected its president in recognition of his role in obtaining the Balfour Declaration. The conference passed a proposal for an "Arab-Jewish Entente", which called on Zionist leadership to "forge a true understanding with the Arab nation". Weizmann led the movement until 1931. From 1931 to 1935 the WZO was presided by Nahum Sokolow (who had also spent the First World War in Britain). Weizmann resumed presidency of the WZO in 1935 and led it until 1946.
Homeland for the Jewish people
A homeland for the Jewish people is an idea rooted in Jewish culture and religion. In the early 19th century, the Napoleonic Wars led to the idea of Jewish emancipation. This unleashed a number of religious and secular cultural streams and political philosophies among the Jews in Europe, covering everything from Marxism to Chassidism. Among these movements was Zionism as promoted by Theodore Herzl. In the late 19th century, Herzl set out his vision of a Jewish state and homeland for the Jewish people in his book "Der Judenstaat". Herzl was later hailed by the Zionist political parties as the founding father of the State of Israel.
History of Zionism
In 1160 David Alroy led a Jewish uprising in Kurdistan that aimed to reconquer the promised land. In 1648 Sabbatai Zevi from modern Turkey claimed he would lead the Jews back to Palestine. In 1868 Judah ben Shalom led a large movement of Yemenite Jews to Palestine. A dispatch from the British Consulate in Jerusalem in 1839 reported that "the Jews of Algiers and its dependencies, are numerous in Palestine..." There was also significant migration from Central Asia (Bukharan Jews).
Types of Zionism
Political Zionism was led by Theodor Herzl and Max Nordau in Russia. This Zionist Organization approach espoused at the First Zionist Congress aimed at establishing for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine, which among other items, included initial steps to obtain governmental grants from the established powers that controlled the area.
Zionism
A religious variety of Zionism supports Jews upholding their Jewish identity defined as adherence to religious Judaism, opposes the assimilation of Jews into other societies, and has advocated the return of Jews to Israel as a means for Jews to be a majority nation in their own state. A variety of Zionism, called cultural Zionism, founded and represented most prominently by Ahad Ha'am, fostered a secular vision of a Jewish "spiritual center" in Israel. Unlike Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, Ahad Ha'am strived for Israel to be "a Jewish state and not merely a state of Jews".
Zionism
Until 1948, the primary goals of Zionism were the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, ingathering of the exiles, and liberation of Jews from the antisemitic discrimination and persecution that they experienced during their diaspora. Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism continues primarily to advocate on behalf of Israel and to address threats to its continued existence and security.
Der Judenstaat
Herzl popularized the term "Zionism", which was coined by Nathan Birnbaum. The nationalist movement culminated in the birth of the State of Israel in 1948, but Zionism continues to be connected with political support of the State of Israel.
Proto-Zionism
According to Ben-Zion Dinur, the "aliyah" of Judah HeHasid and his group opened a new era which began to develop processes such as encouraging productivity, the revival of the Hebrew language and national aspirations. Nahum Sokolow described proto-Zionists as anyone who wished to renew the Jewish community in the Land of Israel, or who wrote about the Jewish problem, starting from the 17th century. This broad definition included such figures as Moses Montefiore, Adolphe Crémieux, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and Sabbatai Zevi. Nathan Michael Gerber also traced the forerunners of Zionism back to the 17th century.
History of Zionism
Before 1917, Palestine's Arab population mostly saw themselves as Ottoman subjects. They feared the objectives of the Zionist movement, but they assumed the movement would fail. After the Young Turk revolution in 1908, Arab Nationalism grew rapidly in the area and most Arab Nationalists regarded Zionism as a threat, although a minority perceived Zionism as providing a path to modernity.
Gathering of Israel
The First Zionist Congress of the World Zionist Organization (WZO), assembled in Basel in August 1897 and adopted the Zionist platform, which came to be known as the Basel Program, which stipulated the following goal: "Zionism seeks to establish a homeland for the Jewish people in Eretz Israel secured by public law".
History of the Jews in Europe
Herzl infused political Zionism with a new and practical urgency. He brought the World Zionist Organization into being and, together with Nathan Birnbaum, planned its First Congress at Basel in 1897.
For the first four years, the World Zionist Organization (WZO) met every year, then, up to the Second World War, they gathered every second year. Since the war, the Congress has met every four years.
Zionism
Zionism is opposed by a wide variety of organizations and individuals. Among those opposing Zionism are some secular Jews, some branches of Judaism (Satmar Hasidim and Neturei Karta), the former Soviet Union, many in the Muslim world, and Palestinians. 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. 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.
Neo-Zionism
Uri Ram contends that Neo-Zionism is not a new phenomenon, instead arguing that it emerged from the Six-Day War in 1967 and the conquest of Jerusalem. Ram contends that Jerusalem is the symbolic capital of Neo-Zionism, while Post-Zionism is orientated around Tel Aviv. It rose with the anxiety following the near loss of the 1973 war.
Hovevei Zion
Since the first centuries of the Common Era most Jews had lived outside the Land of Israel ("Eretz Israel", known also as Palestine), although there had been a constant presence of Jews there as well. According to the Bible and Judaism, Eretz Israel was promised to the Jews by God. The Diaspora began in 586 BCE during the Babylonian occupation of Israel.
Theodore Bikel
Theodore Bikel was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria, the son of Miriam (née Riegler) and Josef Bikel, from Bukovina. As an active Zionist, his father named him after Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism. Following the German union with Austria in 1938, Bikel's family fled to Mandatory Palestine, where his father's contacts helped the family obtain British passports. Bikel studied at the Mikve Yisrael agricultural school and joined Kibbutz Kfar HaMaccabi.
History of Zionism
Before the Holocaust, the movement's central aims were the creation of a Jewish national home and cultural centre in Palestine by facilitating Jewish migration. After the Holocaust, the movement focused on creation of a Jewish state (usually defined as a secular state with a Jewish majority), attaining its goal in 1948 with the creation of Israel.
First Zionist Congress
The first Zionist Congress was convened by Theodor Herzl as a symbolic parliament for the small minority of Jewry in agreement with the implementation of Zionist goals. While Jewish majority opposition to Zionism would continue until after revelation of the Holocaust in World War II, some proponents point to several directions and streams of this early Jewish opposition. "Alongside the dynamic development of the Zionist movement, which generated waves of enthusiasm throughout the Jewish public, sharp criticism began to appear about Zionism, claiming that Zionism could not hope to resolve the Jewish problem and would only serve to harm the status of Jewish laborers and sabotage its own recognition as an independent class." As a result of the vocal opposition by both the Orthodox and Reform community leadership, the Congress, which was originally planned in Munich, Germany, was transferred to Basel by Herzl. The Congress took place in the concert hall of the Stadtcasino Basel on August 29, 1897.
History of Zionism
Proto-Zionists include the (Lithuanian) Vilna Gaon, (Russian) Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, (Bosnian) Rabbi Judah Alkalai (German) Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, and (British) Sir Moses Montefiore. Other advocates of Jewish independence include (American) Mordecai Manuel Noah, (Russian) Leon Pinsker and (German) Moses Hess.
Zionism
Creating an alliance with Great Britain 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), 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 and as an example of modern national liberation movements.
First Zionist Congress
First Zionist Congress () was the inaugural congress of the Zionist Organization (ZO) (to become the World Zionist Organization (WZO) in 1960) held in Basel (Basle), Switzerland, from August 29 to August 31, 1897. 208 delegates and 26 press correspondents attended the event. It was convened and chaired by Theodor Herzl, the founder of the modern Zionism movement. The Congress formulated a Zionist platform, known as the Basel program, and founded the Zionist Organization. It also adopted the Hatikvah as its anthem (already the anthem of Hovevei Zion and later to become the national anthem of the State of Israel).
Zionism
On May 14, 1948, at the end of the British mandate, the Jewish Agency, led by David Ben-Gurion, declared the creation of the State of Israel, and the same day the armies of seven Arab countries invaded Israel. The conflict led to an exodus of about 711,000 Palestinian Arabs, known in Arabic as "al-Nakba" ("the Catastrophe"). Later, a series of laws passed by the first Israeli government prevented Palestinians from returning to their homes, or claiming their property. They and many of their descendants remain refugees. The flight and expulsion of the Palestinians has since been widely, and controversially, described as having involved ethnic cleansing. According to a growing consensus between Israeli and Palestinian historians, expulsion and destruction of villages played a part in the origin of the Palestinian refugees. Efraim Karsh, however, 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.
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 migrating Jews and, most importantly, in assisting Soviet Jews in their struggle with the authorities over the right to leave the USSR 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 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.
East Germany–Israel relations
According to the German translation of the complete works of Stalin, "Stalin Werke", published in East Berlin in 1950, Zionism was a 'reactionary nationalistic movement that had its followers among the Jewish bourgeoisie, the intellectual elite and the backward strata of the Jewish mass of workers. The Zionists strove for the isolation of the Jewish mass of workers from the collective struggle of the proletariat.
History of Zionism
Herzl infused political Zionism with a new and practical urgency. He brought the World Zionist Organization into being and, together with Nathan Birnbaum, planned its First Congress at Basel in 1897.
Religious Zionism
Religious Zionists believe that "Eretz Yisrael" (the Land of Israel) was promised to the ancient Israelites by God, and the right of the Jews to the land is permanent and inalienable. To generations of diaspora Jews, Jerusalem has been a symbol of the Holy Land and of their return to it, as promised by God in numerous Biblical prophecies. Despite this, many Jews did not embrace Zionism before the 1930s, and certain religious groups opposed it then, as some groups still do now, on the grounds that an attempt to re-establish Jewish rule in Israel by human agency was blasphemous. Hastening salvation and the coming of the Messiah was considered religiously forbidden, and Zionism was seen as a sign of disbelief in God's power, and therefore, a rebellion against God. Rabbi Kook developed a theological answer to that claim, which gave Zionism a religious legitimation: "Zionism was not merely a political movement by secular Jews. It was actually a tool of God to promote His divine scheme, and to initiate the return of the Jews to their homeland – the land He promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God wants the children of Israel to return to their home in order to establish a Jewish sovereign state in which Jews could live according to the laws of Torah and Halakha, and commit the Mitzvot of Eretz Israel (these are religious commandments which can be performed only in the Land of Israel). Moreover, to cultivate the Land of Israel was a Mitzvah by itself, and it should be carried out. Therefore, settling Israel is an obligation of the religious Jews, and helping Zionism is actually following God's will."
Zionism
Moral but not practical efforts were made in Prague to organize a Jewish emigration, by Abraham Benisch and Moritz Steinschneider in 1835. In the United States, Mordecai Noah attempted to establish a Jewish refuge opposite Buffalo, New York on Grand Isle, 1825. These early Jewish nation building efforts of Cresson, Benisch, Steinschneider and Noah failed.
Sir Moses Montefiore, famous for his intervention in favor of Jews around the world, including the attempt to rescue Edgardo Mortara, established a colony for Jews in Palestine. In 1854, his friend Judah Touro 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." 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).
A land without a people for a people without a land
In 1914 Chaim Weizmann, later president of the World Zionist Congress and the first president of the state of Israel said: "In its initial stage Zionism was conceived by its pioneers as a movement wholly depending on mechanical factors: there is a country which happens to be called Palestine, a country without a people, and, on the other hand, there exists the Jewish people, and it has no country. What else is necessary, then, than to fit the gem into the ring, to unite this people with this country? The owners of the country [the Ottoman Turks?] must, therefore, be persuaded and convinced that this marriage is advantageous, not only for the [Jewish] people and for the country, but also for themselves".
Esther Cailingold
Esther's Zionism derived principally from her strict Orthodox Jewish background. Her father, one of the founders of Poland's Young Mizrachi movement, ("Mizrachi" here refers to the worldwide religious Zionist movement, the name has also been used by a now-defunct Israeli political party) maintained a fervent Zionism in the family home, such that "Esther was a Zionist...before she knew of any formal movement or heard her first Zionist speech". Her youthful convictions were strengthened by awareness of international events such as the rise of Hitler, the growth of European (and British) anti-semitism and later, during and immediately after the war, the emerging details of the Holocaust. Until then her Zionism had expressed itself mainly in religious and youth-related activities, such as her involvement with "Bachad", (Bachad's origins are as a pre war German Jewish youth movement which came to England with refugees) which ran training farms in Britain and Europe to prepare young people for future life on a kibbutz. Thereafter her belief strengthened that her future lay with the Jewish community in Palestine, and in the autumn of 1946 she successfully applied for a post as an English teacher at the Evelina de Rothschild school in Jerusalem.
Chaim Weizmann
Weizmann was absent from the first Zionist conference, held in 1897 in Basel, Switzerland, because of travel problems, but he attended each one thereafter. Beginning in 1901, he lobbied for the founding of a Jewish institution of higher learning in Palestine. Together with Martin Buber and , he presented a document to the Fifth Zionist Congress highlighting this need especially in the fields of science and engineering. This idea would later be crystallized in the foundation of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in 1912.
History of Zionism
Jews in Catholic states were banned from owning land and from pursuing a variety of professions. From the 13th century Jews were required to wear identifying clothes such as special hats or stars on their clothing. This form of persecution originated in tenth century Baghdad and was copied by Christian rulers. Constant expulsions and insecurity led Jews to adopt artisan professions that were easily transferable between locations (such as furniture making or tailoring).
Culture of Israel
With the waves of Jewish aliyah in the 19th and 20th centuries, the existing culture was supplemented by the culture and traditions of the immigrant population. Zionism links the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, the homeland of the Jews between around 1200 BCE and 70 CE (end of the Second Temple era). However, modern Zionism evolved both politically and religiously. Though Zionist groups were first competing with other Jewish political movements, Zionism became an equivalent to political Judaism during and after the Holocaust.
Religious Zionism
The Mizrachi organization was established in 1902 in Vilna at a world conference of Religious Zionists. It operates a youth movement, Bnei Akiva, which was founded in 1929. Mizrachi believes that the Torah should be at the centre of Zionism, a sentiment expressed in the Mizrachi Zionist slogan "Am Yisrael B'Eretz Yisrael al pi Torat Yisrael" ("The people of Israel in the land of Israel according to the Torah of Israel"). It also sees Jewish nationalism as a tool for achieving religious objectives. Mizrachi was the first official Religious Zionist party. It also built a network of religious schools that exist to this day.
The Friends of Zion Museum
The Friends of Zion Museum is located in the heart of Jerusalem, within walking distance of the Old City. The museum tell the story of non-Jewish aid to the Jewish people, support of Zionism and assistance in the establishment of the State of Israel. Each of the four floors exhibits different periods in Jewish history, including the 19th century, the British Mandate for Palestine, the Holocaust and the establishment of Israel.
Zionism
In the middle of the 16th century, Joseph Nasi, with the support of the Ottoman Empire, tried to gather the Portuguese Jews, first to migrate to Cyprus, then owned by the Republic of Venice, and later to resettle in Tiberias. Nasi – who never converted to Islam – 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.
History of Zionism
On 14 May 1948 the leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine declared independence in accordance with the UN resolution, and Israel was established as the Jewish state. This marked a major turning point, since the Zionist movement had accomplished its principal goal. As a result, many Zionist institutions became government institutions, and the three Zionist militias were combined to form the Israel Defense Forces.
History of the Jews in Georgia
Zionism was a uniting cause for the two groups. Ashkenazim joined Zionist organizations and began to spread their ideas to the Georgian Jewish communities. In 1897, the first Zionist organization was established in Tbilisi. On 20 August 1901, the First Congress of Caucasus Zionists was held in Tbilisi. Rabbi David Baazov led Georgian Zionism during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1903, Baazov attended the Sixth Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland. In 1918, the All-Jewish Congress in Tbilisi took place and included representatives from every Georgian and Russian Jewish community in the country.
Mountain Jews in Israel
Even before the advent of Zionism, the Juhurim had a desire to return to Zion, which many did in the 1840s and 1850s. 
Mountain Jews were among the first to make Aliyah, with some immigrating independent of the Zionist movement, while others came inspired by it. They were represented at the Zionist congresses and the first Mountain Jewish settlers in Ottoman Syria established the modern Israeli town of Be'er Ya'akov in 1907. In the early 1920s, Baku became one of the centres of the Jewish national movement, and Zionist newspapers were published in Juhuri.
Zionist churches
Zionist Churches are a group of Christian denominations that derive from the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church, which was founded by John Alexander Dowie in Zion, Illinois, at the end of the 19th century. Missionaries from the church came to South Africa in 1904 and among their first recruits were Pieter Louis le Roux and Daniel Nkonyane of Wakkerstroom who continued to evangelize after the Zionist missionaries left in 1908.
History of the Jews in China
Dr. Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Republic of China, held admiration for the Jewish people and Zionism, and he also saw parallels between the persecution of Jews and the domination of China by the Western powers. He stated, "Though their country was destroyed, the Jewish nation has existed to this day... [Zionism] is one of the greatest movements of the present time. All lovers of
democracy cannot help but support wholeheartedly and welcome with enthusiasm the movement to restore your wonderful and historic nation, which has contributed so much to the civilization of the world and which rightfully deserve [sic] an honorable place in the family of nations."
Zionism
In 1903, British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain offered Herzl 5,000 square miles in the Uganda Protectorate for Jewish settlement. Called the Uganda Scheme, it was introduced the same year to the World Zionist Organization'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.
Zionist Organization of America
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) (), founded in 1897, was the first official Zionist organization in the United States, and, especially early in the 20th century, the primary representative of American Jews to the World Zionist Organization, espousing primarily Political Zionism.
Intercommunal conflict in Mandatory Palestine
Yosef Gorny investigated the ideological characteristics of Zionism in the Jewish-Arab confrontation in his book "Zionism and the Arabs, 1882–1948". He says two ideological questions were important. The first was whether the Palestinian Arabs were part of a greater Arab nation or constituted a separate Palestinian national entity. The second was to what extent Zionism could base its demands on historical rights. Zionism's aim "to construct in Palestine a distinct Jewish national society" meant that it also honoured certain principles that affected its attitude towards the Arabs. Gorny distinguishes the "desire for "territorial concentration" of the Jewish people in Palestine", the "desire to create a "Jewish majority" in Palestine", the "belief that exclusive employment of Jewish labour was the precondition for an independent Jewish society", and the "renaissance of Hebrew culture [as] a pre-condition for the rebirth of the nation".
Views on the Arab–Israeli conflict
Zionists hold that Zionism is not colonialism, since the area was the Jewish homeland, before Romans expelled the Jews from Palestine, in the 2nd century CE. They argue that Jews have the right to return to their historical national homeland, and that living in the Diaspora restricted the full growth of Jewish individual and national life.
Timeline of Zionism
This is a partial timeline of Zionism in the modern era, since the start of the 16th century.
The Invention of the Jewish People
Sand believes that the idea of Jews being obliged to return from exile to the Promised Land was alien to Judaism before the birth of Zionism, and that the holy places were seen as places to long for, not to be lived in. On the contrary, for 2,000 years Jews stayed away from Jerusalem because their religion forbade them from returning until the Messiah came. According to Sand, the ancestry of Central and Eastern European Jews stems heavily from mediæval Turkic Khazars who were converted to Judaism, a theory which was popularized in a book written by Arthur Koestler in 1976.
American Zionist Council
The American Zionist Council (AZC) was a group formed in 1949, which represented nine nationwide Zionist organizations in matters related specifically to Zionism, following the independence of Israel. It was founded as a tax-exempt umbrella organization of American Jewish groups, which focused on Israel and included the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), Hadassah and other Zionist organizations active in the United States. It acted as an umbrella group for public relations, outreach, and lobbying on Capitol Hill. Between 1951 and 1953, its Washington representative was Isaiah L. Kenen. Kenen organized the unincorporated American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs (AZCPA) in 1953. AZCPA was primarily a "public relations" organization, emitting numerous (but declining numbers of) news releases.
Zionism
Zionism was established with the political goal of creating a Jewish state in order to create a nation where Jews could be the majority, rather than the minority which they were in a variety of nations in the diaspora. Theodor Herzl, the ideological father of Zionism, considered Antisemitism to be an eternal feature of all societies in which Jews lived as minorities, and that only a separation 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.
Zionist youth movement
Most Zionist youth movements were established in Eastern Europe in the early twentieth century, desiring the national revival of the Jewish people in their own homeland, and soon formed an active and integral part of the Zionist movement. All emphasised aliyah (emigration to the Land of Israel) and community, with many also focussing on a return to nature.
History of Israel
In 1896 Theodor Herzl published "Der Judenstaat" ("The Jewish State"), in which he asserted that the solution to growing antisemitism in Europe (the so-called "Jewish Question") was to establish a Jewish state. In 1897, the Zionist Organisation was founded and the First Zionist Congress proclaimed its aim "to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law." However, Zionism was regarded with suspicion by the Ottoman rulers and was unable to make major progress.
Zvi Zimmerman
Zimmerman was born in 1913 in Skala-Podilska in Austria-Hungary (today in Ukraine), the son of Benjamin (Alter) Zimmerman and Zlata Pessia (Babe) Bitterman. He attended a secular high school and studied law at the Jagiellonian University. At the age of thirteen he became a devoted Zionist. He was a member of the Youth Movement of the General Zionists, Chairman of Kedima (the Zionist Student Union in Kraków) and Deputy Chairman of Kedima's national organization, and Deputy Chairman of the Zionist University Graduates.
Zionism
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's Jewish Territorialist Organization aimed for a Jewish state anywhere, having been established in 1903 in response to the Uganda Scheme, was supported by a number of the Congress's delegates. Following the vote, which had been proposed by Max Nordau, Zangwill charged Nordau that he “will be charged before the bar of history,” and his supporters blamed the Russian voting bloc of Menachem Ussishkin for the outcome of the vote.
The Battle for God
In Judaism, the growth of Zionism was given its biggest boost by the Holocaust which led to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Although many traditional Jews migrated there, the most conservative rejected the secular interpretation of Zionism and it wasn't until the emergence of Gush Emunim after the Yom Kippur War in 1974 that fundamentalism emerged in Israel as a political force.
Nietzschean Zionism
Nietzschean Zionism was the influence that the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had on Zionism and several of its influential thinkers. Zionism was the movement for the attainment of freedom through the establishment of a Jewish state. Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy was popular among Jewish intellectuals, making its incorporation into Zionism effortless. Friedrich Nietzsche's influence was exigent on moving away from the Jewish past into an empowering future for the Hebraic New Man – which necessitated the Jews to surpass the antiquarian Jewish identity that had a rabbinical consciousness at its center. The Philosopher's influence on the Zionists can then be thought of as an existential revolution – that is, it focused on the renewal of the Jewish identity, adoption of aesthetic values, and enhancing the will to life. Hence, the Zionists did not want to reconcile Friedrich Nietzsche with Zionism, but instead, his texts played a vital role in understanding and embracing the Jewish experience. The Zionist revolution emphasized that “the new Jews” — similar to Nietzsche's “new European man” — should choose to go to Zion or to stay in Europe. More importantly, Theodor Herzl, “the author and the vision of the Jewish State” viewed Zionism as the arrival of an authentic image of the Jew in a state without the idea of God or any dogmatization. This exhibits a very similar format to that of Nietzsche's libertarianism or anti-dogmatism.
Zionism
Until 1917, the World Zionist Organization pursued a strategy of building a Jewish National Home 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 (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 Zion Commonwealth
The jewel in the crown of the group's activities was the acquisition of a barren piece of land north of Tel Aviv on which the city of Herzliya was founded in 1925. The city was named after Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, and is today one of the largest cities in Israel.
Aliyah from Ethiopia
Aliyah from Ethiopia is the immigration of the Beta Israel people to Israel. Early forms of Zionism have existed in Ethiopia since the mid 19th-century, as shown in the 1848 letters from the Beta Israel to Jews in Europe praying for the unification of Jews. A year after the first letter was sent, Daniel Ben Hananiah and his son were sent by the Kahen to Jerusalem and made contact with the Jewish leaders there.
Types of Zionism
Led by Yitzchak Yaacov Reines, founder of Mizrachi (religious Zionism) and by Abraham Isaac Kook. Religious Zionism maintained that Jewish nationality and the establishment of the State of Israel is a religious duty derived from the Torah. As opposed to some parts of the Jewish non-secular community that claimed that the redemption of the Land of Israel will occur only after the coming of the messiah, who will fulfill this aspiration, they maintained that human acts of redeeming the Land will bring about the messiah, as their slogan states: "The land of Israel for the people of Israel according to the Torah of Israel" (). Today they are commonly referred as the "Religious Nationalists" or the "settlers", and are also categorized as supporters of Greater Israel.
History of the Jews in Cologne
In the face of historical experiences in Europe, the Jews started initiatives to create their own state. The head office of the Zionist Organization for Germany was based in Richmodstraße near Neumarkt square, Cologne, and was founded by lawyer Max Bodenheimer together with merchant David Wolffsohn. Bodeheimer was president until 1910 and worked for Zionism with Theodor Herzl. The "Kölner Thesen" developed under Bodenheimer for Zionism were — with few adjustments — adopted as the "Basel Program" by the first Zionist Congress. The goal of the organization was to obtain the foundation of a distinct state of Israel in Palestine for all the Jews of the world.
History of Zionism
In 2001, the first ever environmental Zionist organization, the Green Zionist Alliance, was founded by a group of American and Israeli environmentalists led by Dr. Alon Tal, Rabbi Michael Cohen and Dr. Eilon Schwartz. The Green Zionist Alliance focuses on the environment of Israel and its region.
History of Zionism
Founded in 1878, Rosh Pinna and Petah Tikva were the first modern Jewish settlements.
Zionites (Germany)
The Zionites were a sect which flourished in the eighteenth century at Ronsdorf in the Duchy of Berg. The sect sprang from a Philadelphian society founded at Elberfeld in 1726 by Elias Eller and the pastor Daniel Schleiermacher. Eller was the foreman of a factory owned by a rich widow. He read eagerly the writings of ancient and modern visionaries, and then formed an apocalyptic, millenarian system of his own. He made such an impression on the widow, twenty years his senior, that she married him. Thus he obtained the means and influence to draw adherents around himself. The pastor Schleiermacher, grandfather of the celebrated theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, was also influenced by Eller. The prophetess of the society was the daughter of a baker, Anna van Bushel, who had dreams and visions and saw apparitions. After the death of his wife, Eller married her. She called herself mother of Zion, her husband father of Zion, and prophesied that she would bear the saviour of the world. The new order of things was to begin in 1730. Her first child was a daughter, but Eller was able to console the society with Scriptural texts. A son born in 1733 died two years later. Eller made himself the central point of theology. Christian morality was replaced by the craving for coarse and sensual pleasures. In 1737 the sect left Elberfeld and founded Ronsdorf which soon prospered, and, through Eller's influence, was raised by the State in 1745 to the rank of a city. Eller took the most important offices for himself, lived with his wife in great pomp, and governed tyrannically. When Eller's wife died suddenly in 1744 doubts arose in the mind of Schleiermacher, who was pastor at Ronsdorf. He confessed his mistake, and sought to open the eyes of the deceiving leader, but Eller managed to maintain himself until death. The sect was carried on by the pastors who took Schleiermacher's place, by Eller's stepson Bolckhaus, and continued to exist until 1768. The new pastor chosen in this year and his successors brought back the inhabitants of Ronsdorf to Protestantism. The after effects of the movement could be traced into the nineteenth century.
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 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. Kadima, the main centrist party during the 2000s that 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 suggested that the success of the then-new Yesh Atid party (representing secular, middle-class interests) embodied the success of "the new General Zionists."
Homeland for the Jewish people
The Jewish aspiration to return to Zion is part of Jewish religious thought that dates back to the destruction of the First Temple. However, the modern movement for the creation of a secular homeland was perceived as a solution to the widespread persecution of Jews within Europe. This became the centerpiece of secular political Zionism. Anti-Semitism was not limited to Europe. The Zionist movement was preceded by several Jewish groups that had already popularized the move to Israel. For example, Israel ben Pereẓ of Polotsk and hundreds of other Jewish groups settled in Israel from Europe, developing communities in Jerusalem, Hebron and around much of the country. This was in addition to the already existing communities of Sephardi and Ashkenazim in Tiberias, Tsfat and across the rest of the Jewish "Holy Land". Zionists, however, worked within the existing international legal framework, obtaining international legal rights in 1922. They also armed and defended themselves.
Neo-Zionism
Neo-Zionism 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 of Israel and advocate their settlement by Israeli Jews. Some advocate the transfer of Arabs not only from these areas but also from within the Green Line.
Zionism
Throughout the first decade of the Zionist movement, there were several instances where Zionist figures supported a Jewish state in places outside Palestine, such as Uganda and Argentina. Even Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism was initially content with any Jewish self-governed state. However, other Zionists emphasized the memory, emotion and myth linking Jews to the Land of Israel. Despite using Zion as the name of the movement (a name after the Jebusite fortress in Jerusalem, which became synonymous with Jerusalem), Palestine only became Herzl's main focus after his Zionist manifesto 'Judenstaat' was published in 1896, but even then he was hesitant.
Poale Zion
Poale Zion (also spelled Poalei Tziyon or Poaley Syjon, meaning "Workers of Zion") was a movement of Marxist–Zionist Jewish workers founded in various cities of Poland, Europe and the Russian Empire in about the turn of the 20th century after the Bund rejected Zionism in 1901.
Leon Pinsker
His analysis of the roots of this ancient hatred led him to call for the establishment of a Jewish National Homeland, either in Palestine or elsewhere. Eventually Pinsker came to agree with Moses Lilienblum that hatred of Jews was rooted in the fact that they were foreigners everywhere except their original homeland, the Land of Israel. He became one of the founders and a chairman of the Hovevei Zion movement, with the backing of Baron Edmond James de Rothschild.
Tsvi Misinai
As with other "Arabs" whose local indigenous non-Arab origins became relegated issues over time, the Hebrew origin of Palestinians also became a relegated issue over time, but for the Palestinians. However, the additional emergence of Zionism in the early 19th century presented for the Palestinians a competing national interest not similarly encountered by other "Arabs". Arab nationalism would thus serve as a counter-force "vis-à-vis" Zionism. Thus, the topic of origin became admonished. Then, the establishment of modern Israel by world Jewry (having transpired to the detriment of the Palestinians) transformed the topic of Hebrew origin into a blemish of liability, ultimately becoming the object of outright hostility.
Haredim and Zionism
In 1912, Haredi leaders in Europe founded the Agudath Israel organisation which hoped to find a "solution to all the problems facing the Jewish people in the Spirit of the Torah." From the outset, the Agudah vehemently opposed the Zionist movement for replacing the historic religious bond to the land of Israel with secular nationalism. Israel Meir Kagan stated that the fate of the Jewish nation was to remain in exile until the arrival of the Messiah. But with the spread of anti-Semitism in Europe, some Orthodox leaders became more favourable towards the aims of Zionism. Rabbi Isaac Breuer implored Agudah members in 1934 "not to leave Jewish history to the Zionists", hoping that religious Jews would assist in establishing a Jewish homeland. Others remained staunchly opposed, chief among them the rabbi of Munkács, Chaim Elazar Spira (d. 1937), who was the fiercest opponent of Zionism among Hasidic rabbis. Spira saw Zionism as a denial of the Divine Redemption and faith in the Messiah. He even objected to Agudath Israel because of its support for immigration to Palestine. In 1936, he initiated a publication against the Zionist enterprise which was endorsed by 150 rabbis. During the wartime period, Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman (1875–1941) of Baranowicze wrote a pamphlet in which he blamed the Zionists for the persecution of Jews in Europe. He rejected the notion that a secular Jewish state could be considered the "advent of Redemption." The goal of Zionism was to uproot religion and Jewish tradition. At the 1937 Agudath Israel Great Assembly in Marienbad, most discussions were devoted to the question of the Jewish State and the Nazi rise to power in Germany, and increasing anti-Semitism in Poland and Lithuania. Palestine beaconed as a refuge for the religious European masses whose situation was gradually worsening. While the majority of attendees rejected on principle and practical grounds the establishment of a secular Jewish State, a minority, influenced by the dire situation, were in favour.
Yossi Goldstein
Goldstein explains the rise of Zionism and its success as a part of the development of European nationalism and the founding of modern national movements during the period following the French Revolution, alongside the economic development of the Jews and the growth of modern anti-Semitism. These developments led to the establishment of “Hovevei Zion,” the first Jewish national movement, and to that of the Zionist movement founded by Theodor Herzl. The emergence of the Zionist movement, side by side with emigration, secularization, and anti-Semitism, accelerated the implementation in practice of the Zionist idea and the creation of the State of Israel.
History of Zionism
In the 1920s and 1930s, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine) and his son Zevi Judah, began to develop the concept of Religious Zionism. Kook was concerned that growing secularism of Zionist supporters and increasing antagonism towards the movement from the largely non-Zionist Orthodox community might lead to a schism between them and sought to create a brand of Zionism that would serve as a bridge between Jewish Orthodoxy and secular Jewish Zionists.
Zionism
Revisionist Zionists, led by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, 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.
Nationalism
Jewish nationalism arose in the latter half of the 19th century and it was largely correlated with the Zionist movement. This term originated from the word "Zion", which was one of the Torah's names for the city of Jerusalem. The end goal of the nationalists and Zionists was to establish a sovereign Jewish state in the land of Palestine. A tumultuous history of living in oppressive, foreign, and uncertain circumstances led the supporters of the movement to draft a declaration of independence, claiming Israel as a birthplace. The first and second destructions of the temple and ancient Torah prophecies largely shaped the incentives of the Jewish nationalists. Many prominent theories in Jewish theology and eschatology were formed by supporters and opponents of the movement in this era.
History of Zionism
Support for Zionism was not a purely European and Ashkenazi phenomenon. In the Arab world, the first Zionist branches opened in Morocco only a few years after the Basel conference, and the movement became popular among Jews living within the Arab and Muslim world where Jews generally faced religious discrimination, prejudice and occasional violence. A number of the founders of the city of Tel Aviv were early Moroccan Jewish immigrants and Ottoman Salonika had a vigorous Zionist movement by 1908.
Revisionist Zionism
The ideology was developed originally by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who advocated a "revision" of the "practical Zionism" of David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weizmann, which was focused on independent individuals' settling of "Eretz Yisrael". In 1935, after the Zionist Executive rejected Jabotinsky's political program and refused to state that "the aim of Zionism was the establishment of a Jewish state", Jabotinsky resigned from the World Zionist Organization. He founded the New Zionist Organization (NZO) to conduct independent political activity for free immigration and the establishment of a Jewish State. Revisionist Zionism was based on a vision of "political Zionism", which Jabotinsky regarded as following the legacy of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism.
Arab–Israeli conflict
The roots of the modern Arab–Israeli conflict lie in the rise of Zionism and the reactionary Arab nationalism that arose in response to Zionism towards the end of the 19th century. Territory regarded by the Jewish people as their historical homeland is also regarded by the Pan-Arab movement as historically and presently belonging to the Palestinian Arabs. Before World War I, the Middle East, including Palestine (later Mandatory Palestine), had been under the control of the Ottoman Empire for nearly 400 years. During the closing years of their empire, the Ottomans began to espouse their Turkish ethnic identity, asserting the primacy of Turks within the empire, leading to discrimination against the Arabs. The promise of liberation from the Ottomans led many Jews and Arabs to support the allied powers during World War I, leading to the emergence of widespread Arab nationalism. Both Arab nationalism and Zionism had their formulative beginning in Europe. The Zionist Congress was established in Basel in 1897, while the "Arab Club" was established in Paris in 1906.
History of Zionism
Under Herzl's leadership, Zionism relied on Orthodox Jews for religious support, with the main party being the orthodox Mizrachi. However, as the cultural and socialist Zionists increasingly broke with tradition and used language contrary to the outlook of most religious Jewish communities, many orthodox religious organizations began opposing Zionism. Their opposition was based on its secularism and on the grounds that only the Messiah could re-establish Jewish rule in Israel. Therefore, most Orthodox Jews maintained the traditional Jewish belief that while the Land of Israel was given to the ancient Israelites by God, and the right of the Jews to that land was permanent and inalienable, the Messiah must appear before the land could return to Jewish control.
Nationalism
Parallel to these efforts was the Zionist movement which emerged among European Jews in the 19th century. Beginning in 1882 Jews, predominantly from Europe, began emigrating to Ottoman Palestine with the goal of establishing a new Jewish homeland. The effort culminated in the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. As this move conflicted with the belief among Arab nationalists that Palestine was part of the Arab nation, the neighboring Arab nations launched an invasion to claim the region. The invasion was only partly successful and led to decades of clashes between the Arab and Jewish nationalist ideologies.
History of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
Before World War I, the Middle East region, including the Ottoman Syria (the southern part of which are regarded as Palestine), was under the control of the Ottoman Empire for nearly 400 years. Towards the end of the 19th century, Palestine, which was divided between the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, Syria Vilayet and Beirut Vilayet, was inhabited predominantly by Arab Muslims, both farmers and Bedouin (principally in the Negev and Jordan Valley), with smaller numbers of Christians (mostly Arabs), Druze, Circassians and Jews (predominantly Sephardic). At that time most of the Jews worldwide lived outside Palestine, predominantly in eastern and central Europe, with significant communities in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Americas.
The roots of the conflict can be traced to the late 19th century, with the rise of national movements, including Zionism and Arab nationalism. Though the Jewish aspiration to return to Zion had been part of Jewish religious thought for more than a millennium, the Jewish population of Europe and to some degree Middle East began to more actively discuss immigration back to the Land of Israel, and the re-establishment of the Jewish Nation, only during 1859 to the 1880s, largely as a solution to the widespread persecution of Jews, and antisemitism in Russia and Europe. As a result, the Zionist movement, the modern movement for the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people, was established as a political movement in 1897.
World Zionist Organization
The ZO served as an umbrella organization for the Zionist movement, whose objective was the creation of a Jewish homeland in Canaan - at that time under the Ottoman Empire and following the First World War the British Mandate of Palestine. When the State of Israel was declared 51 years later on May 14, 1948, many of its new administrative institutions were already in place, having evolved during the regular Zionist Congresses of the previous decades. Some of these institutions remain to this day.
Reform Zionism
Reform Zionism, also known as Progressive Zionism, is the ideology of the Zionist arm of the Reform or Progressive branch of Judaism. The Association of Reform Zionists of America is the American Reform movement's Zionist organization. Their mission “endeavors to make Israel fundamental to the sacred lives and Jewish identity of Reform Jews. As a Zionist organization, the association champions activities that further enhance Israel as a pluralistic, just and democratic Jewish state.” In Israel, Reform Zionism is associated with the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism.
Zionism
Jewish settlements were established in the upper Mississippi region by W.D. Robinson in 1819. Others were developed near Jerusalem 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 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."
Gustav Gottheil
Unlike most Reform Jews of the time, Rabbi Gottheil was a supporter of Zionism and attended the First Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland. He was the most prominent American Jew to respond to Theodor Herzl's call and served as vice-president of the newly created Federation of American Zionists, a forerunner of the Zionist Organization of America. Rabbi Gottheil's belief was an act of faith, but it brought condemnation and vilification upon him from both the American Reform community and the American Orthodox community. American Reform Judaism viewed the struggling birth of Zionism as a betrayal of loyalty to America; Zionism, they said, was unstable, and it tasted bitterly of the dangerous, ancient Anti-Semitic accusations of dual loyalty. It threatened the position of the Jews in the new Zion of America. American Orthodox Judaism equally reviled the infant Zionist movement. Zionism, they felt, was a betrayal of faith in God's ultimate promise of redemption. To the Orthodox, it denied the coming of the Messiah.
Zionist churches
The Old Cornerstone Apostolic Church in Zion of South Africa. Under Archbishop Mawethu Anthwell
Zionist beliefs grew out of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth religious missions to southern Africa. In particular the churches owe their origins to the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church of John Alexander Dowie, based in Zion, Illinois in the United States.
Anti-Zionism
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. The term is broadly defined in the modern era to denote opposition to the political movement of Jews to self-determination within the territory of the historic Land of Israel (also referred to as Palestine, Canaan, or the Holy Land). Anti-Zionism is also defined as opposition to the State of Israel or, prior to 1948, its establishment.
History of Zionism
Zionism as an organized movement is generally considered to have been founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897. However, the history of Zionism began earlier and is related to Judaism and Jewish history. The Hovevei Zion, or the "Lovers of Zion", were responsible for the creation of 20 new Jewish settlements in Palestine between 1870 and 1897.
Hayim Greenberg
Zionism is more than the expression of a positive attitude to Israel; it is also more than Aliyah. Zionist ideology represents an all-encompassing approach to the problems of the Jewish People. Zionism derives from Judaism and can not be separated from it. It finds its fullest expression in the individual for whom it represents the culmination of a sound Jewish education.
Hashomer Hatzair
Hashomer Hatzair came into being as a result of the merger of two groups, "Hashomer" ("The Guard") a Zionist scouting group, and "Ze'irei Zion" ("The Youth of Zion") which was an ideological circle that studied Zionism, socialism and Jewish history. Hashomer Hatzair is the oldest Zionist youth movement still in existence. Initially Marxist-Zionist, the movement was influenced by the ideas of Ber Borochov and Gustav Wyneken as well as Baden-Powell and the German Wandervogel movement. Hashomer Hatzair believed that the liberation of Jewish youth could be accomplished by aliyah (immigration; literally "ascent") to Palestine and living in kibbutzim. After the First World War the movement spread to Jewish communities throughout the world as a scouting movement.
Jewish history
The Zionist movement was founded officially after the Kattowitz convention (1884) and the World Zionist Congress (1897), and it was Theodor Herzl who began the struggle to establish a state for the Jews.