Zionism is a movement to establish a Jewish national state in Palestine, the ancient Jewish homeland. Active Zionism began in the late 1800’s and led to the establishment of Israel in 1948. Zionists revived the Jewish national language and culture. They established the political and social institutions needed to re-create national Jewish life. Zionism now supports various projects in Israel. It acts as a cultural bridge between Israel and Jews in other countries. Zion is the poetic Hebrew name for Palestine.
Movement to Palestine.
Anti-Semitism (prejudice against Jews) in Europe in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s spurred the creation of the Zionist movement. This anti-Semitism included pogroms (riots against the Jews) in Russia. Groups of Jewish youths calling themselves Hoveve-Zion (Lovers of Zion) formed a movement in 1882 to promote immigration to Palestine. They started what was called practical Zionism, which established Jewish settlements in Palestine. Theodor Herzl, an Austrian journalist, developed political Zionism, which worked for political recognition of the Jewish claim to a Palestine homeland.
Herzl was a reporter at the famous trial in 1894 of Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus was a Jewish officer in the French army who was falsely convicted of treason. The Dreyfus affair convinced Herzl that if anti-Semitism could be an active force in a country as enlightened as France, Jews could not fit into non-Jewish society. To him, the only solution was to create an independent Jewish state.
Herzl organized the Zionist movement on a worldwide scale at the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897. In the early 1900’s, however, many Jews opposed the new movement. They included the extremely religious and those who sought full assimilation—that is, absorption into non-Jewish society.
The Balfour Declaration.
In 1917, the United Kingdom issued the Balfour Declaration. The declaration pledged British support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. About the same time, the United Kingdom freed Palestine from Ottoman control. The Balfour Declaration was included in the mandate (order to rule) over Palestine that the League of Nations awarded the United Kingdom in 1920. The mandate gave the Jewish Agency the responsibility for Jewish immigration. The Jewish community in Palestine grew significantly in the 1920’s and 1930’s. It developed various economic, political, and cultural institutions.
Arabs opposed a Jewish state in Palestine, and severe fighting broke out several times in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Based on earlier British promises to them, Arab leaders assumed Palestine would be an Arab state. They demanded an end to Jewish immigration and land purchase.
In 1939, the British began to set limits on Jewish immigration to Palestine. Palestine’s Jews fought against the restrictions. They felt that the restrictions kept many Jews from fleeing increasing persecution in Europe.
After World War II ended in 1945, the Zionists wanted to establish a Jewish state immediately to provide a homeland for survivors of the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the mass murder of European Jews and others by the Nazis. But Arabs continued to oppose the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. In 1947, the United Kingdom submitted the problem to the United Nations (UN). The UN voted to partition Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state. In 1948, the Zionists proclaimed the state of Israel. For information on the history of Israel, see Israel (History) .
