Zionism

For other meanings, please see Zionism (disambiguation)

Zionist initiatives

The WZO's initial strategy was to obtain permission of the Ottoman Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid II to allow systematic Jewish settlement in Palestine. The good offices of the German Emperor, Wilhelm II, were sought, but nothing came of this. Instead the WZO pursued a strategy of building a homeland through persistent small-scale immigration, and the founding of such bodies as the Jewish National Fund in 1901 and the Anglo-Palestine Bank in 1903.

Related Topics:
Ottoman Sultan - Abd-ul-Hamid II - Wilhelm II - Jewish National Fund - 1901 - 1903

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Before 1917 some Zionist leaders took seriously proposals for Jewish homelands in places other than Palestine. Herzl's Der Judenstaat argued for a Jewish state in either Palestine, "our ever-memorable historic home", or Argentina, "one of the most fertile countries in the world". In 1903 British cabinet ministers suggested the British Uganda Program, land for a Jewish state in "Uganda" (actually in modern Kenya). Herzl initially rejected the idea, preferring Palestine, but after the April 1903 Kishinev pogrom Herzl introduced a controversial proposal to the 6th Zionist Congress to investigate the offer as a temporary measure for Russian Jews in danger. Notwithstanding its emergency and temporary nature, the proposal still 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 majority voted to establish a committee for the investigation of the possibility, and it was not dismissed until the 7th Zionist Congress in 1905.

Related Topics:
1917 - Argentina - 1903 - British Uganda Program - Uganda - Kenya - Kishinev pogrom - 1905

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In response to this, the Jewish Territorialist Organization led by Israel Zangwill split off from the main Zionist movement. The territorialists attempted to establish a Jewish homeland wherever possible, but went into decline after 1917 and were dissolved in 1925. From that time Palestine was the sole focus of Zionist aspirations. Few Jews took seriously the establishment by the Soviet Union of a Jewish Autonomous Republic in the Russian Far East.

Related Topics:
Jewish Territorialist Organization - Israel Zangwill - 1917 - 1925 - Soviet Union - Jewish Autonomous Republic - Russian Far East

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One of the major motivations for Zionism was the belief that the Jews needed to return to their historic homeland, not just as a refuge from anti-Semitism, but also to govern themselves as an independent nation. Some Zionists, mainly socialist Zionists, believed that the Jews' centuries of being oppressed in anti-Semitic societies had reduced Jews to a meek, vulnerable, despairing existence which invited further anti-Semitism. They argued that Jews should redeem themselves from their history by becoming farmers, workers, and soldiers in a country of their own. These socialist Zionists generally rejected religion as perpetuating a "Diaspora mentality" among the Jewish people.

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One such Zionist ideologue, Ber Borochov, continuing from the work of Moses Hess, proposed the creation of a socialist society that would correct the "inverted pyramid," of Jewish society. Borochov believed that Jews were forced out of normal occupations by gentile hostility and competition, explaining why there was a relative predominance of Jewish professionals, rather than workers. Jewish society would not be healthy until the inverted pyramid was righted, and the majority of Jews became workers and peasants again. This could only be accomplished by Jews in their own country. Another, A. D. Gordon, was influenced by the volkisch ideas of European romantic nationalism, and proposed establishing a society of Jewish peasants. Gordon made a religion of work. These two thinkers, and others like them, motivated the establishment of the first Jewish collective settlement, or kibbutz, Deganiah, on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee, in 1909 (the same year that the city of Tel Aviv was established). Deganiah, and many other kibbutzim that were soon to follow, attempted to realise these thinkers' vision by creating a communal villages, where newly arrived European Jews would be taught agriculture and other manual skills.

Related Topics:
Ber Borochov - Moses Hess - A. D. Gordon - Kibbutz - Deganiah - Sea of Galilee - 1909 - Tel Aviv

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Another aspect of this strategy was the revival and fostering of an "indigenous" Jewish culture and the Hebrew language. One early Zionist thinker, Asher Ginsberg, better known by his penname Ahad Ha'am ("One of the People") rejected what he regarded as the over-emphasis of political Zionism on statehood, at the expense of the revival of Hebrew culture. Ahad Ha'am recognised that the effort to achieve independence in Palestine would bring Jews into conflict with the native Palestinian Arab population, as well as with the Ottomans and European colonial powers then eying the country. Instead, he proposed that the emphasis of the Zionist movement shift to efforts to revive the Hebrew language and create a new culture, free from Diaspora influences, that would unite Jews and serve as a common denominator between diverse Jewish communities once independence was achieved.

Related Topics:
Hebrew language - Ahad Ha'am

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The most prominent follower of this idea was Eliezer Ben Yehudah, a linguist intent on reviving Hebrew as a spoken language among Jews (see History of the Hebrew language). Most European Jews in the 19th century spoke Yiddish, a language based on mediaeval German, but as of the 1880s, Ben Yehudah and his supporters began promoting the use and teaching of a modernised form of biblical Hebrew, which had not been a living language for nearly 2,000 years. Despite Herzl's efforts to have German proclaimed the official language of the Zionist movement, the use of Hebrew was adopted as official policy by Zionist organisations in Palestine, and served as an important unifying force among the Jewish settlers, many of whom also took new Hebrew names.

Related Topics:
Eliezer Ben Yehudah - History of the Hebrew language - Yiddish

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The development of the first Hebrew-speaking city (Tel Aviv), the kibbutz movement, and other Jewish economic institutions, plus the use of Hebrew, began by the 1920s to lay the foundations of a new nationality, which would come into formal existence in 1948. Meanwhile, other cultural Zionists attempted to create new Jewish artforms, including graphic arts. (Boris Schatz, a Bulgarian artist, founded the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem in 1906.) Others, such as dancer and artist Baruch Agadati, fostered popular festivals such as the Adloyada carnival on Purim.

Related Topics:
Tel Aviv - Kibbutz - 1948 - Boris Schatz - Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design - 1906 - Baruch Agadati - Purim

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The Zionist leaders always saw Britain as a key potential ally in the struggle for a Jewish homeland. Not only was Britain the world's greatest imperial power; it was also a country where Jews lived in peace and security, among them influential political and cultural leaders, such as Benjamin Disraeli and Walter, Lord Rothschild. There was also a peculiar streak of philo-Semitism among the classically educated British elite to which the Zionist leaders hoped to appeal, just as the Greek independence movement had appealed to British phil-Hellenism during the Greek War of Independence. Chaim Weizmann, who became the leader of the Zionist movement after Herzl's death in 1904, was a professor at a British university, and used his extensive contacts to lobby the British government for a statement in support of Zionist aspirations.

Related Topics:
Britain - Benjamin Disraeli - Walter, Lord Rothschild - Phil-Hellenism - Greek War of Independence - Chaim Weizmann - 1904

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This hope was realised in 1917, when the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, made his famous Declaration in favour of "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people". Balfour was motivated partly by philo-Semitic sentiment, partly by a desire to weaken the Ottoman Empire (an ally of Germany during the First World War), and partly by a desire to strengthen support for the Allied cause in the United States, home to the world's most influental Jewish community. In the Declaration, however, Balfour was careful to use the word "home" rather than "state," and also to specify that its establishment must not "prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine."

Related Topics:
1917 - Arthur Balfour - Declaration - First World War - United States

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