Zionism, Jewish
nationalist movement that has had as its goal the creation and support of a
Jewish national state in Palestine, the ancient homeland of the
Jews (Hebrew: Eretz Yisraʾel, “the Land of Israel”). Though Zionism originated
in eastern and central Europe in the latter part of the 19th century, it is in
many ways a continuation of the ancient nationalist attachment of the Jews and
of the Jewish religion to the historical region of Palestine,
where one of the hills of ancient Jerusalem was called Zion.
In the
16th and 17th centuries a number of “messiahs” came forward trying to persuade
Jews to “return” to Palestine. The Haskala (“Enlightenment”) movement of the late
18th century, however, urged Jews to assimilate into Western secular culture.
In the early 19th century interest in a return of the Jews to Palestine was
kept alive mostly by Christian millenarians. Despite the Haskala, eastern European Jews did not
assimilate and in reaction to tsarist pogroms formed the Ḥovevei Ẕiyyon
(“Lovers of Zion”) to promote the settlement of Jewish farmers and artisans in
Palestine.
A political turn was given to Zionism by Theodor Herzl, an Austrian journalist
who regarded assimilation as most desirable but, in view of anti-Semitism, impossible to realize.
Thus, he argued, if Jews were forced by external pressure to form a nation,
they could lead a normal existence only through concentration in one territory.
In 1897 Herzl convened the first Zionist Congress at Basel, Switz., which drew up the Basel
program of the movement, stating that “Zionism strives to create for the Jewish
people a home in Palestine secured by public law.”
The
centre of the movement was established in Vienna, where Herzl published the
official weekly Die Welt (“The
World”). Zionist congresses met yearly until 1901 and then every two years.
When the Ottoman government refused Herzl’s request for Palestinian autonomy,
he found support in Great Britain. In 1903 the British government
offered 6,000 square miles (15,500 square km) of uninhabited Uganda for
settlement, but the Zionists held out for Palestine.
At the
death of Herzl in 1904, the leadership moved from Vienna to Cologne, then to Berlin. Prior to World War I Zionism represented only a minority of
Jews, mostly from Russia but led by Austrians and Germans. It developed
propaganda through orators and pamphlets, created its own newspapers, and gave an impetus to what was called a
“Jewish renaissance” in letters and arts. The development of the Modern Hebrew language largely took place during this period.
The failure of the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the wave of pogroms
and repressions that followed caused growing numbers of Russian Jewish youth to
emigrate to Palestine as pioneer settlers. By 1914 there were about 90,000 Jews
in Palestine; 13,000 settlers lived in 43 Jewish agricultural settlements, many
of them supported by the French Jewish philanthropist Baron Edmond de
Rothschild.
Upon the outbreak of World War I political Zionism reasserted itself, and its leadership
passed to Russian Jews living in England. Two such Zionists, Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow, were instrumental in
obtaining the Balfour Declaration from Great Britain (Nov. 2, 1917),
which promised British support for the creation of a Jewish national home in
Palestine. The declaration was included in Britain’s League of Nations mandate over Palestine (1922).
In the
following years the Zionists built up the Jewish urban and rural settlements in
Palestine, perfecting autonomous organizations and solidifying Jewish cultural
life and Hebrew education. In March 1925 the Jewish population in Palestine was
officially estimated at 108,000, and it had risen to about 238,000 (20 percent
of the population) by 1933. Jewish immigration remained relatively slow,
however, until the rise of Hitlerism in Europe. Nevertheless, the Arab population
feared Palestine eventually would become a Jewish state and bitterly resisted
Zionism and the British policy supporting it. Several Arab revolts, especially
in 1929 and 1936–39, caused the British to devise schemes to reconcile the Arab
and Zionist demands.
Hitlerism and the large-scale extermination of
European Jews led many Jews to seek refuge in Palestine and many others,
especially in the United States, to embrace Zionism. As tensions grew among
Arabs and Zionists, Britain submitted the Palestine problem first to Anglo-U.S. discussion
for solution and later to the United Nations, which on Nov. 29, 1947, proposed
partition of the country into separate Arab and Jewish states and the
internationalization of Jerusalem. The creation of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, brought about the Arab–Israeli war of 1948–49, in the course of which Israel obtained more land than had been
provided by the UN resolution, and drove out 800,000 Arabs who became displaced
persons known as Palestinians. Thus 50 years after the first Zionist congress
and 30 years after the Balfour Declaration, Zionism achieved
its aim of establishing a Jewish
state in Palestine, but at the same time it became an armed camp surrounded by
hostile Arab nations and Palestinian “liberation” organizations engaged in
terrorism in and outside of Israel.
During
the next two decades Zionist organizations in many countries continued to raise
financial support for Israel and to encourage Jews to immigrate there. Most
Jews, however, reject the view propagated by many very Orthodox Jews in Israel
that the Jews outside Israel were living in “exile” and could live a full life
only in Israel.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/657475/Zionism
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