Gathering of Israel
Encyclopedia
The Gathering of Israel is the promise given by Moses
Moses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...

, in the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...

, to the People of Israel before his death, prior to their entrance to Eretz Israel (The Land of Israel
Land of Israel
The Land of Israel is the Biblical name for the territory roughly corresponding to the area encompassed by the Southern Levant, also known as Canaan and Palestine, Promised Land and Holy Land. The belief that the area is a God-given homeland of the Jewish people is based on the narrative of the...

). He envisions that the People of Israel will sin in their homeland and will be exiled from it, but also foresees their return to their homeland, and tells them, as the leader of the people of Israel during the Exodus from Egypt, that they will even have it better than their forefathers over there. During the days of the Babylonian exile, the prophets Isaiah
Isaiah
Isaiah ; Greek: ', Ēsaïās ; "Yahu is salvation") was a prophet in the 8th-century BC Kingdom of Judah.Jews and Christians consider the Book of Isaiah a part of their Biblical canon; he is the first listed of the neviim akharonim, the later prophets. Many of the New Testament teachings of Jesus...

 and Ezekiel
Ezekiel
Ezekiel , "God will strengthen" , is the central protagonist of the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible. In Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Ezekiel is acknowledged as a Hebrew prophet...

 encouraged the People of Israel by a promise of a future Ingathering of the Exiles of Israel in the Land of Israel (a Kibbutz Galuyot) that will occur. The lasting desire for ingathering of the exiles of Israel in the Land of Israel was harbored incessantly by Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

 ever since the destruction of the Second Temple
Second Temple
The Jewish Second Temple was an important shrine which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem between 516 BCE and 70 CE. It replaced the First Temple which was destroyed in 586 BCE, when the Jewish nation was exiled to Babylon...

. Maimonides
Maimonides
Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn in Arabic, or Rambam , was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages...

 foresees its materialization concurrently with the coming of the Messiah.

The Ingathering of the Exiles of Israel in the Land of Israel, a Kibbutz Galuyot, became the core idea of the Zionist Movement  and the core idea of Israel's Scroll of Independence  (Megilat Ha'atzmaut ), embodied by the idea of Aliyah
Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...

, the definition of all the immigrations of Jews to the Land and the State of Israel (Individual or a group) , and is attributed especially to a "mass" wave of Aliyah for being synonymous with the Exodus
The Exodus
The Exodus is the story of the departure of the Israelites from ancient Egypt described in the Hebrew Bible.Narrowly defined, the term refers only to the departure from Egypt described in the Book of Exodus; more widely, it takes in the subsequent law-givings and wanderings in the wilderness...

 from Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

.

Moses' promise

In the latter parts of the Book of Deuteronomy, when Moses is about to depart from the People of Israel he prophesies about the destiny of the People of Israel. Their destiny will not be promising, curses would come upon People of Israel and they will go into exile
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...

, but later on they will return to their homeland and their situation will be as good as it has been in the past, and so said Moses:
In the process of the Gathering of the Exiles of Israel Moses emphasizes the followings points:
  1. Following conditions attached to: "and you will return to the Lord, your God."
  2. The exiles "at the end of the heavens" will also return.
  3. The situation will be improved after the Ingathering of the Exiles of Israel in the Land of Israel: "and He will do good to you, and He will make you more numerous than your forefathers."

Prophets' promise

The Prophets prophesizing after the destruction of the First Temple, Solomon's Temple, had encouraged the Babylonian exiles by reiterating the words of Moses.

In chapter 11 the Prophet Isaiah
Isaiah
Isaiah ; Greek: ', Ēsaïās ; "Yahu is salvation") was a prophet in the 8th-century BC Kingdom of Judah.Jews and Christians consider the Book of Isaiah a part of their Biblical canon; he is the first listed of the neviim akharonim, the later prophets. Many of the New Testament teachings of Jesus...

 says:
In chapter 29 the Prophet Jeremiah
Jeremiah
Jeremiah Hebrew:יִרְמְיָה , Modern Hebrew:Yirməyāhū, IPA: jirməˈjaːhu, Tiberian:Yirmĭyahu, Greek:Ἰερεμίας), meaning "Yahweh exalts", or called the "Weeping prophet" was one of the main prophets of the Hebrew Bible...

 says:
In chapter 20 the Prophet Ezekiel
Ezekiel
Ezekiel , "God will strengthen" , is the central protagonist of the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible. In Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Ezekiel is acknowledged as a Hebrew prophet...

, having already living in exile, says:

Blessing of Kibbutz Galuyot

The Jewish rabbinical sages, Chazal
Chazal
Chazal or Ḥazal is an acronym for the Hebrew "Ḥakhameinu Zikhronam Liv'rakha",...

, authored a special blessing, the "Kibbutz Galuyot Blessing", within the Shmona Esre prayer, one of prayers in the Amidah
Amidah
The Amidah , also called the Shmoneh Esreh , is the central prayer of the Jewish liturgy. This prayer, among others, is found in the siddur, the traditional Jewish prayer book...

 prayer, the central prayer of the Jewish liturgy, the Sidur. It is one of the thirteen blessing of appeal in the Shmona Esre prayer, and the earliest wherein an appeal is made that concerns subjects relating to Jewish Nationality and restoring the existence of the Hebrew nation as an Independent Nation, along with Birkat HaDin ("Blessing of Justice"), Bo'ne Yerushalayim ("Builder of Jerusalem"), and Birkat David ("Blessing of David").

Maimonides and other Jewish scholars

In Law of Kings, Maimonides writes:

According to Maimonides, of all the assignments attributed to the messiah, the Torah
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...

 attested to one: "then, the Lord, your God, will bring back your exiles", the ingathering of the exiles of Israel, a Kibbutz Galuyot. The messiah is the ingatherer of the exiles of Israel.

Other Jewish Scholars may view this differently from Maimonides. They argue that the Torah attested to a period, not a person, the period in which the People of Israel return to their homeland, the Land of Israel. The act of ingathering of the exiles of Israel in the Land of Israel, a Kibbutz Galuyot, will bring about the coming of the messiah, as the hand of God is in the events of the creation of the State of Israel, obviously a different reality then Maimonides depicts, though they see the writings of Maimonides as a way of learning the importance of the role of the messiah, since the Maimonides was a scholar not a prophet, and did not live up to see the event of the establishment of the State of Israel. http://www.yba.org.il/show.asp?id=19580&big_cat=1430

Rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

 Zvi Yehuda HaCohen Kook
Zvi Yehuda Kook
Zvi Yehuda Kook was a rabbi, leader of Religious Zionism and Rosh Yeshiva of the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva...

, one of the leaders of the Religious Zionist Movement, used to quote from the Responsa
Responsa
Responsa comprise a body of written decisions and rulings given by legal scholars in response to questions addressed to them.-In the Roman Empire:Roman law recognised responsa prudentium, i.e...

 book, Yeshuot Malko, of Rabbi Israel Yehosha of kutna, in conjunction with Aliyah (10:66): "There is no doubt that this is a greater Mitzvah
Mitzvah
The primary meaning of the Hebrew word refers to precepts and commandments as commanded by God...

 (a commandment of the Torah), because the gathering is an Atchalta De'Geulah
Atchalta De'Geulah
Atchalta De'Geulah is a term for a concept of an idea, derived from the Gemara. It refers to the notion of a period of time in which a new stage of revival in the process of the redemption and the coming of the Jewish Messiah...

('the beginning of the redemption'), as attested, "I will yet gather others to him, together with his gathered ones" (Isaiah, 56:8), and see Yebamoth, page 64, "the Divine Presence does not rest on less than two myriads of Israelites" , especially now days in which we have seen the great desire inasmuch as in men of lesser importance, mediocre ones, and upright in heart, it is more than likely that we would gleam with the spirit of salvation, fortunate are the "ones who" take part in "bringing merit unto the masses" http://www.yba.org.il/show.asp?id=19580&big_cat=1430 http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/15987/jewish/Chapter-56.htm

Haredi Judaism
Haredi Judaism
Haredi or Charedi/Chareidi Judaism is the most conservative form of Orthodox Judaism, often referred to as ultra-Orthodox. A follower of Haredi Judaism is called a Haredi ....

 and Chabad
Chabad
Chabad or Chabad-Lubavitch is a major branch of Hasidic Judaism.Chabad may also refer to:*Chabad-Strashelye, a defunct branch of the Chabad school of Hasidic Judaism*Chabad-Kapust or Kapust, a defunct branch of the Chabad school of Hasidic Judaism...

 movement takes the writings of the Maimonides literally: The messiah is assigned to mission of completing the ingathering the exiles of Israel. Until then, the Jewish community living in Israel is defined as a Diaspora of Israel, though they give their consent to the Jewish rule of Israel, and see the advantages of it.

Terms of Jewish nationality

1. Cyrus's Declaration (538 BC), Ezra 1:3 http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/16498/jewish/Chapter-1.htmhttp://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt35a01.htm
According to the biblical source, Cyrus the Great
Cyrus the Great
Cyrus II of Persia , commonly known as Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus the Elder, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Under his rule, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Southwest Asia and much...

 called upon the Jews to implement the Ingathering of the exiles of Israel, a Kibbutz Galuyot, through his conquests, and not only to live there but also to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem (Beit HaMikdash) that was destroyed.


2. Napoleon, in his Proclamation to the Jews of Asia and Africa
Napoleon and the Jews
The ascendancy of Napoleon Bonaparte proved to be an important event in European Jewish emancipation from old laws restricting them to ghettos, as well as the many laws that limited Jews' rights to property, worship, and careers.- Napoleon's Law and the Jews :...

 (1799), implicitly suggested rebuilding the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, which had been destroyed for the second time:
The French scholar Henry Laurens
Henry Laurens (scholar)
Henry Laurens is a French historian, one of France's foremost experts on the Middle East, and author of several reference works about the Arab-Muslim world...

  holds that the proclamation never took place and that the document supposedly proving its existence is a forgery.

3. Balfour Declaration of 1917:
A formal statement of policy by the British government stating http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9011963/Balfour-Declaration:


Zionist vision

The First Zionist Congress
First Zionist Congress
The First Zionist Congress was the inaugural congress of the Zionist Organization held in Basel , Switzerland, from August 29 to August 31, 1897. It was convened and chaired by Theodor Herzl, the founder of the modern Zionism movement...

 of the World Zionist Organization (WZO)
World Zionist Organization
The World Zionist Organization , or WZO, was founded as the Zionist Organization , or ZO, in 1897 at the First Zionist Congress, held from August 29 to August 31 in Basel, Switzerland...

, assembled in Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

 in August 1897 and adopted the Zionist platform, which came to be known as the Basel Program, stipulating the following goal:" Zionism seeks to establish a homeland for the Jewish people in Eretz Israel secured by public law http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Zionism/First_Cong_&_Basel_Program.html", namely, for the sake of The Ingathering of the Exiles of Israel to the Land of Israel, a Kibbutz Galuyot.

The intensive involvement of the Zionist Movement ever since in transporting Jewish legal and non legal immigrants (this second type is also known as Aliyah Bet) to Land of Israel, attests to the importance they attributed to that goal.

Aliyah Bet (mainly known in Hebrew as HaHa'apala, ההעפלה), is the illegal entrance to the Land of Israel under the British Mandate's laws, Including during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 and The Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...

, which was organized by the Yishuv
Yishuv
The Yishuv or Ha-Yishuv is the term referring to the body of Jewish residents in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel...

, (lit."The Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel", before the establishment of the State of Israel), from 1934 to 1948, when the State of Israel was established. Aliyah Bet was carried out by the Mossad Le'aliyah Bet
Mossad Le'aliyah Bet
The Mossad LeAliyah Bet was a branch of the Haganah in the British Mandate of Palestine that operated to facilitate Jewish immigration to Palestine in violation of unilateral British restrictions. It operated from 1938 until the founding of the State of Israel in 1948...

, a branch of the Jewish Defense Association (Haganah
Haganah
Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...

), the para-military organization that was to become the Israel Defense Forces
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...

 (IDF), the Israeli Army, after the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel. During its 14 year of activity, 115,000 Jews made Aliya to the Land of Israel.

The term Aliyah Bet is composed of the Hebrew word Aliya, meaning an Immigration of Jews (Individual or a group) to the Land of Israel, and the Hebrew Letter Bet, the second letter in the Hebrew Alphabet
Hebrew alphabet
The Hebrew alphabet , known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script, block script, or more historically, the Assyrian script, is used in the writing of the Hebrew language, as well as other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic. There have been two...

, was used in a similar way of the English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 term "Plan B", namely, it was attributed to the illegal transportation of immigrants, which had been carried out simultaneously with the Legal Jewish Immigration to the Land of Israel (through "Immigration certificate") permitted by the British Mandatory government, which attempted to limit the numbers of such immigration, in a way which contradicted the national goals of the Jewish Community living there. The operations of Aliya Bet started moderately already in the midst of the nineteen thirties. However, the Majority of the Jewish Immigrants, the Olim, arrived after World War II and the Holocaust.

Aliyah Bet or HaHa'apala, was carried out in various methods:
  1. Through the sea (the main method)
  2. Through land routes (mainly through Iraq
    Iraq
    Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

     and Syria
    Syria
    Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

    )
  3. Through the air (This method was started towards 1948 when two planes were landed in the Lower Galilee
    Galilee
    Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...

     village of Yavne'el
    Yavne'el
    Yavne'el is a moshava and a local council in the North District of Israel. It is named after a village in the tribe Naphtali , which was probably located on the tel north of the moshava. Located south-west of Tiberias, it was declared a local council in 1951...

    , as part of the "Operation Michaelberg", defying the British Mandate Government objection. It carried Jewish immigrants from Iraq. Another plane flew in from south Italy
    Italy
    Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

     http://www.iaf.org.il/Templates/FlightLog/FlightLog.aspx?lang=EN&lobbyID=40&folderID=48&subfolderID=319&docfolderID=341&docID=3326&docType=EVENT).

The State of Israel

The idea of the Ingathering of the Exiles of Israel in the Land of Israel (a Kibbutz Galuyot) was the basis for the establishment of the State of Israel. After the Holocaust, the United Nations General Assembly
United Nations General Assembly
For two articles dealing with membership in the General Assembly, see:* General Assembly members* General Assembly observersThe United Nations General Assembly is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation...

, in its decision making process on United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, perceived this idea to be the reason for adopting the decision on a Jewish State http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace%20Process/Guide%20to%20the%20Peace%20Process/UN%20General%20Assembly%20Resolution%20181. Expressions of yearning for the Gathering of the Exiles of Israel in the Land of Israel can be found in the Prayer for the State of Israel, which was authored by Israel's Chief Rabbis
Chief Rabbinate of Israel
The Chief Rabbinate of Israel is recognized by law as the supreme halakhic and spiritual authority for the Jewish people in Israel. The Chief Rabbinate Council assists the two chief rabbis, who alternate in its presidency. It has legal and administrative authority to organize religious...

 during the first years of Israel's existence. Israel's bodies of authorities have expressed their opinion on this matter by passing the Law of Return
Law of Return
The Law of Return is Israeli legislation, passed on 5 July 1950, that gives Jews the right of return and settlement in Israel and gain citizenship...

, which granted every Jew the right to make Aliyah to the Land of Israel.

Prayer for the State of Israel

The Prayer for the State of Israel, is a prayer that is being recited on Jewish Shabat and Jewish holiday
Jewish holiday
Jewish holidays are days observed by Jews as holy or secular commemorations of important events in Jewish history. In Hebrew, Jewish holidays and festivals, depending on their nature, may be called yom tov or chag or ta'anit...

s in synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...

s, by Jews living in Israel and around the world. The prayer appeals to God to bless the state of Israel, to assist its leaders, and an appeal using the words of Moses:

Law of Return

The Law of Return (Hebrew: חוק השבות, Hok ha-shvut), a law passed in 1950 in memory of the Holocaust, allows every Jew the right to make Aliyah to the State of Israel and to receive a certificate of Aliyah, which grants the certificate holder an Israeli Citizenship immediately. This stems from Israel's identity as the Jewish State, which is connected to the idea of the Gathering of Israel.

External links

  • The decision on Jewish State, a National home for the Gathered Jews Knesset
    Knesset
    The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Role in Israeli Government :The legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister , approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government...

    website
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