Zionism and the Creation of Israel - Definition and History Zionism The history of Zionism and the creation of Israel home news peacewatch top stories books Documents culture donations Zionism - Definition and History Note - The Zionist movement developed against the background of events in Palestine/Israel and influenced those events. This account of Zionism is meant to be read together with the brief history of Israel and Palestine and History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict since the Oslo Accords. Likewise, the Labor Zionist movement was a major force in the early implementation of Zionism, and therefore the history of Zionism cannot be intelligible without understanding the history of Labor Zionism. Definition of Zionism h The word "Zionism" has several different meanings: 1. An ideology - Zionist ideology holds that the Jews are a people or nation like any other, and should gather together in a single homeland. Zionism was self-consciously the Jewish analogue of Italian and German national liberation movements of the nineteenth century. The term "Zionism" was apparently coined in 1891 by the Austrian publicist Nathan Birnbaum, to describe the new ideology, but it was used retroactively to describe earlier efforts and ideas to return the Jews to their homeland for whatever reasons, and it is applied to Evangelical Christians who want people of the Jewish religion to return to Israel in order to hasten the second coming. "Christian Zionism" is also used to describe any Christian support for Israel. 2. A descriptive term - The term "Zionism" was apparently coined in 1891 by the Austrian publicist Nathan Birnbaum, to describe the new ideology. It is also used to describe anyone who believes Jews should return to their ancient homeland. 3. A political movement - The Zionist movement was founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897, incorporating the ideas of early thinkers as well as the organization built by Hovevei Tziyon ("lovers of Zion"). (more Definitions of Zionism ) "Zionism" derives its name from "Zion," (pronounced "Tzyion" in Hebrew) a hill in Jerusalem. The word means "marker" or commemoration. "Shivath Tzion" is one of the traditional terms for the return of Jewish exiles. "Zionism" is not a monolithic ideological movement. It includes, for example, socialist Zionists such as Ber Borochov, religious Zionists such as rabbi Kook, revisionist nationalists such as Jabotinsky and cultural Zionists exemplified by Asher Ginsberg (Achad Haam). Zionist ideas evolved over time and were influenced by circumstances as well as by social and cultural movements popular in Europe at different times, including socialism, nationalism and colonialism, and assumed different "flavors" depending on the country of origin of the thinkers and prevalent contemporary intellectual currents. Accordingly, no single person, publication, quote or pronouncement should be taken as embodying "official" Zionist ideology. False beliefs about Zionism A number of false beliefs and myths have been circulated about Zionism - both by detractors and by supporters of the movement: Zionism and religion - Zionism is not a religious movement, and Israel is not the state of the Jewish religion. The Jewish religious establishment was originally opposed to Zionism, and then tried to take over or direct the movement. There are religious Zionists, who have their own motivations for adhering to Zionism, and Zionism was certainly meant to include religious Jews, but Herzl, Weizmann and other Zionist leaders were not observant Jews and approached Zionism as a national problem, not as a religious issue. Zionism and Land - Several misconceptions about Zionism and land exist. The first is that Zionism did not particularly aim to settle the "Holy Land" (Palestine) and that Zionists were willing to settle in places such as East Africa and Cyprus. The latter were considered for a time as temporary asylums in order to alleviate the suffering of Russian Jews, but they were never accepted as end goals for settlement by the Zionist movement. In order to further the goal of settlement outside Palestine, Israel Zangwill left the Zionist movement and founded the Territorial Zionist movement, a separate political and ideological stream, that tried to secure a national home for the Jews in other territories. Zangwill also became a champion of immigration to America and of assimilation. Another myth is that Zionism aspires to extend the borders of Israel throughout the Middle East. Zionists certainly wanted the largest possible territory for the Jewish state, but the main goal was always to have a national home for the Jewish people within the ancient territory of Israel and Judea, and the Zionist movement accepted partition of the British mandate in 1922, a tiny truncated state offered in 1937 and the UN partition resolution of 1947. A peculiar claim of anti-Zionists offered as "proof" of "Zionist expansionism" is the claim that Israel is the only country whose constitution does not define its borders. Israel does not have a constitution, and many or most constitutions do not define the borders of the state, as for example the United States constitution. The Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel does not declare its borders, but neither does the United States declaration of Independence. After Israel conquered the West Bank in 1967, religious Zionists and the Greater Israel movement tried to claim that settlement of the newly conquered lands in what the Jordanians called the West Bank since 1945, and what was historically part of Judea and Samaria, was a central goal of Zionism. But the fact is that even when there was an opportunity for free purchase of land and settlement in the 1920s and 1930s, the Zionist movement did not purchase much land in those areas. Of the territories taken by Israel in 1967, only Jerusalem and perhaps Hebron have real national symbolic significance. Zionism and expulsion of the Arabs - Anti-Zionists have insisted that Zionism plotted to expel the Arabs from Palestine. The claim has also been taken up by right-wing Zionist extremists, who can document it with various statements of leaders made at different times in favor of transfer of Arabs. It is true that some Zionist leaders made statements in favor of voluntary transfer of Arabs out of Palestine. There was no Zionist transfer policy however, except in acquiescence to the British Peel plan, which called for voluntary transfer of Arabs, and there was never an official Zionist policy or directive or order calling for mass expulsion of Arabs by force as a general policy. Plan Dalet (Plan D) issued in 1948, before Israeli independence, called for temporary expulsion of inhabitants of areas where it was necessary to secure roads that communicated between Jewish towns. This was necessitated by the road ambushes set up by Arab inhabitants in those villages. A land without a people for a people without a land - The myth that this is a major slogan of Zionism was propagated by Edward Said (Edward Said, The Question of Palestine (New York: Times Books, 1979), p. 9) and Rashid Khalidi (Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 101.), and opponents of Zionism insisted that it meant that Zionism assumed or taught its enthusiasts that no people lived in Palestine. The slogan was coined by a Christian Zionist, a British advocate of the restoration of the Jews, Alexander Keith, who wrote that the Jews are "a people without a country; even as their own land, as subsequently to be shown, is in a great measure a country without a people." (Alexander Keith, The Land of Israel According to the Covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob (Edinburgh: William Whyte and Co., 1843). This was soon shortened to "a land without a people and a people without a land" (The United Secession Magazine (Edinburgh), vol. 1, p. 189). The phrase did not evidently mean to imply that there were no people living in Palestine. The intent of the phrase was apparently that there was no nation or nationalist entity other than the Jews who claimed Palestine as its homeland, as the Arabs of Palestine identified themselves variously as Arabs, Syrians, Nabulsi, Qudsi etc. and did not have a concept of Palestinian Arab nationhood or any Palestinian national organizations at that time. That this was the intent is shown by Lord Shaftesbury's version of the slogan, "There is a country without a nation; and God now in his wisdom and mercy, directs us to a nation without a country." (Shaftsbury, quoted in Albert Hyamson, "British Projects for the Restoration of Jews to Palestine," American Jewish Historical Society Publications, 1918, no. 26, p. 140). Diane Muir reviews the extensive use of the phrase by Christian Zionists including the American Blackstone, and its use in Jewish Zionism. Israel Zangwill is the first prominent Zionist recorded to have used the phrase and probably the only one who used it with serious intent in 1901 (Israel Zangwill, "The Return to Palestine," New Liberal Review, Dec. 1901, p. 615.). There was also apparently an isolated use of the phrase in the American Zionist journal, The Maccabean in 1901 (Raphael Medoff, American Zionist Leaders and the Palestinian Arabs, 1898-1948 (Ph.D. diss., Yeshiva University, 1991), p. 17. ). By 1914, Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann was referring to the phrase retrospectively (Paul Goodman, Chaim Weizmann: A Tribute on His Seventieth Birthday (London: V. Gollancz, 1945), p. 153) and other Zionists have since used the phrase ironically, in view of the bitter struggle with the Arab inhabitants of Palestine. It would probably be an exaggeration to conclude that "a land without a people for a people without a land" was never a slogan of Zionism at all, as most Jewish Zionists were familiar with it, but it was not a particularly important slogan or part of any political action platform, and Zionists certainly did not understand it to mean that there were no people in Palestine. Zionism and Judaism - Opponents of Zionism and anti-Semites have sometimes identified all Jews as "Zionists" and used the terms "Jew" and Zionist interchangeably. For example, the Hamas charter lays the blame for the French Revolution on "Zionists" - though there were no Zionists in the 18th century. They clearly mean "Jews." Conversely, others have claimed that Zionism is not, and was never, representative of views of the majority of Jews. From its inception, Zionism enjoyed wide popular support, particular in Eastern Europe and Russia. Most German Jews were probably not Zionists, but Germany was the center of the Zionist movement for many years. Jewish financiers and philanthropists, however, most of whom were Western Europeans, were largely indifferent to Zionism and reluctant to finance settlement in Palestine. In the United States, Zionism became popular among Jews thanks to the leadership of Justice Louis Brandeis, but most American Jews supported Zionism as a solution for other Jews. They have been active Zionists in the sense of contributing money for settlement in Palestine and Israel and offering political support, but not to the extent of settling in Palestine or Israel themselves. A small minority of American Jews remains actively and vocally anti-Zionist, and many profess indifference. Some new groups, such as Brit Tsedek veshalom and J Street use the term "pro-Israel" and avoid the words "Zionism" and "Zionist." Their motivation for avoiding the word "Zionism" is not clear, since they claim to support Israel as the state of the Jewish people, which is the heart of Zionist ideology. Some studies have shown that "Zionism" and "Jew" have negative connotations even among Jews. Background his* Zionism did not spring full blown from a void with the creation of the Zionist movement in 1897. Jews had maintained a connection with Palestine, both actual and spiritual, even after the Bar Kochba revolt in 135, when large numbers of Jews were exiled from Roman Palestine, the remains of their ancient national home. The Jewish community in Palestine revived and, under Muslim rule, is estimated to have numbered as many as 300,000 about 1000 AD, prior to the Crusades. The Crusaders killed most of the Jewish population of Palestine or forced them into exile, so that only about 1,000 families remained after the reconquest of Palestine by Saladin. The Jewish community in Palestine waxed and waned with the vicissitudes of conquest and economic hardship, and invitations by different Turkish rulers to displaced European Jews to settle in Tiberias and Hebron. At different times there were sizeable Jewish communities in Tiberias, Safed, Hebron and Jerusalem, and numbers of Jews living in Nablus and Gaza. A few original Jews remained in the town of Peki'in, families that had lived there continuously since ancient times. In the Diaspora, religion became the medium for preserving Jewish culture and Jewish ties to their ancient land. Jews prayed several times a day for the rebuilding of the temple, celebrated agricultural feasts and called for rain according to the seasons of ancient Israel, even in the farthest reaches of Russia. The ritual plants of Sukkoth were imported from the Holy Land at great expense. From time to time, small numbers of Jews came to settle in Palestine in answer to rabbinical or messianic calls, or fleeing persecution in Europe. Beginning about 1700, groups of followers led by rabbis reached Palestine from Europe and the Ottoman Empire with various programs. For example, Rabbi Yehuda Hehasid and his followers settled in Jerusalem about 1700, but the rabbi died suddenly, and eventually, an Arab mob, angered over unpaid debts, destroyed the synagogue the group had built and banned all European (Ashkenazy) Jews from Jerusalem. Rabbis Luzatto and Ben-Attar led a relatively large immigration about 1740. Other groups and individuals came from Lithuania and Turkey and different countries in Eastern Europe. At no time between the Roman exile and the rise of Zionism was there a movement to settle the holy land that engaged the main body of European or Eastern Jews. The condition of Jews both in Europe and Eastern countries made such a movement unimaginable. Many, however, were attracted to various false Messiahs such as Shabetai Tzvi, who promised to restore Jews to their land. For most Jews, the connection with the ancient homeland and with Jerusalem remained largely cultural and spiritual, and return to the homeland was a hypothetical event that would occur with the coming of the Messiah at an unknown date in the far future. European Jews lived, for the most part in ghettos. They did not get a general education, and did not generally engage in practical trades that might prepare them for living in Palestine. Most of the communities founded by these early settlers met with economic disaster, or were disbanded following earthquakes, anti-Jewish riots or outbreaks of disease. The Jewish communities of Safed, Tiberias, Jerusalem and Hebron were typically destroyed by natural and man-made disasters and repopulated several times, never supporting more than a few thousand persons each at their height. The Jews of Palestine, numbering about 17,000 by the mid-19th century, lived primarily on charity - Halukka donations, with only a very few engaging in crafts trade or productive work. Proto-Zionism Following the French Revolution and the emancipation of European Jewry however, the vague spiritual bonds of the Jews to the "Holy Land" began to express themselves in more concrete, though not always practical ways. About 1808, groups of Lithuanian Jews, followers of the Vilna Gaon (a famous rabbi and opponent of Hassidism) arrived in Palestine and purchased land to begin an agricultural settlement. In 1836, Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer petitioned Anschel Rothschild to buy Palestine or at least the Temple Mount for the Jews. In 1839-1840, Sir Moses Montefiore visited Palestine and negotiated with the Khedive of Egypt to allow Jewish settlement and land purchase in Palestine. However, the negotiations led to nothing, possibly frustrated by the outbreak of an anti-Semitic blood-libel in Damascus. Thereafter, Montefiore continued with less ambitious philanthropic schemes in Palestine and in Argentina. In the 1840s, Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer British Zionism - The idea of a Jewish restoration also took the fancy of British intellectuals for religious and practical reasons. It had been championed by Protestants since the seventeenth century. The restoration was championed in the 1840s by Lords Shaftesbury and Palmerston, who in addition to religious motivations, thought that a Jewish colony in Palestine would help to stabilize and revive the country, Jewish national stirrings were also voiced by novelists and writers such as Lord Byron, Benjamin Disraeli, George Eliot and Walter Scott. (see also British Zionism and off-site: Christian Zionism) Role of Sephardic Jews - Through an accident of history, European (Ashkenazy) Jews took the lead in organized Zionism for many years. However, Sephardic (Spanish) Jews and Jews in Arab lands maintained a closer practical tie with the holy land and with the Hebrew language than did Ashkenazy Jews and also influenced and participated in the the Zionist movement from its inception. Sarajevo-born Judah ben Solomon Hai Alkalai (1798-1878,) is considered one of the major precursors of modern Zionism. Alkalai believed that return to the land of lsrael was a precondition for the redemption of the Jewish people. Alkalai's ideas greatly influenced his Ashkenazy contemporary, Rabbi Zvi Hirsh Kalischer. Alkalai was also a friend of the grandfather of Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism. Another Sephardi Jew, David Alkalai, a grand-nephew of Judah Alkalai, founded and led the Zionist movement in Serbia and Yugoslavia., and attended the first Zionist Congress in Basel (1897). Rabbi Solomon Hai Alkalai Early Zionists The modern formulation of Zionism was at least partly divorced from religious aspirations. The rise of modern nation states and the 18th and 19th century enlightenment and emancipation movements allowed the Jews to leave the ghettos of Europe for the first time, catalyzing a host of changes in Jewish society and culture, many of which were expressed in the Haskalah movement. While the Haskalah movement in Germany promoted assimilation, Haskalah in Germany and later in Russia also set in motion a number of processes that would ultimately make possible a Jewish national movement, including the study of Hebrew as a secular language, the creation of a Hebrew press and literature, the creation of a Jewish cultural life outside the framework of rabbinical and religious Judaism, and the movement to bring Jews into "productive" occupations and agriculture. Some Jews converted to Christianity and assimilated to surrounding society. Others, exposed to a general education, dropped their religious beliefs, but considered themselves Jews, and understood that others still considered them to be Jews. This suggested a conundrum. If one could be a non-believer and still be a Jew, then "Jew" must be more than just the name of a religion. German racists solved this conundrum by inventing a racial theory, which lacked any real scientific basis. Socialists cited the aberrant class structure of Jewish society and labeled Jews a "caste." Zionists solved the conundrum by declaring that Jews are a people, a fact implicit and explicit in the Jewish biblical and cultural concept of "t;am Yisrael." The Jews were a people without a country however, and would remain politically powerless as long… truncated (66,963 more characters in archive)