Yishuv or
Ha-Yishuv (the Yishuv, , or the full term הישוב היהודי בארץ ישראל
Hayishuv Hayehudi b'Eretz Yisrael ("The Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel") is the term used in Hebrew referring to the body of
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an 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...
ish residents in the
Holy LandThe Holy Land , generally refers to the geographical region of the Levant called Land of Canaan or Land of Israel in the Bible, and constitutes the Promised land...
before the establishment of the State of
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
. The residents and new settlers were referred to collectively as "
the Yishuv" or "
Ha-Yishuv." The term came into use in the 1880s, when there were about 25,000 Jews living in Eretz Yisrael, and continued to be used until 1948, by which time there were about 700,000 Jews there, and is used in Hebrew even nowadays to denote the Pre-State Jewish residents in the Holy Land.
A distinction is sometimes drawn between the
Old Yishuv and the
New Yishuv.
The
Old YishuvThe Old Yishuv refers to the Jewish community that lived in Eretz Yisrael from the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE to the First Aliyah in 1881, prior to the onset of Zionist immigration....
refers to all the Jews living there before the
aliyahAliyah is the immigration of Jews to Eretz Israel. It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology, and a value in almost all movements of Judaism...
of 1882 by the Zionist movement. The Old Yishuv residents were religious Jews living mainly in
JerusalemJerusalem is the capital of Israel and its largest city in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if disputed East Jerusalem is included...
,
SafedSafed is a city in the Northern District of Israel. At an elevation of 800 meters above sea level, Safed is the highest city in the Galilee. Since the sixteenth century, Safad has been considered one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities, along with Jerusalem, Hebron and Tiberias...
,
TiberiasTiberias is a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, Lower Galilee, Israel. Established in 20 CE, it was named in honour of the emperor Tiberius. Since the sixteenth century, Tiberias has been considered one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities, along with Jerusalem, Hebron and Safed...
and
HebronHebron is the largest city in the West Bank, located in the south, 30 kilometers south of Jerusalem. It is home to some 166,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Israelis living in and around the historic Jewish Quarter. Hebron lies 930 meters above sea level...
. Smaller communities were in
JaffaJaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa is located south of Tel Aviv, Israel on the Mediterranean Sea...
,
HaifaHaifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 264,900. Haifa has a mixed population of Jews and Arabs giving an example for peaceful co-existence. The Arab population used to be predominantly Christian, while some of the Jewish...
,
Peki'inPeki'in or Buqei'a , is a locality, local council in the Northern District of Israel located eight kilometres east of Ma'alot-Tarshiha in the Upper Galilee...
,
AcreAcre also Akko, is a city in the Western Galilee region of northern Israel. It is situated on a low promontory at the northern extremity of Haifa Bay. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , Acre had a population of 46,000 at the end of 2007...
,
NablusNablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 134,000...
, Shfaram and until 1779 also in
GazaGaza is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 410,000, making it the largest city under the control of the Palestinian National Authority....
. A large part of the Old Yishuv concentrated their time in
TorahThe term "Torah" , refers either to the Five Books of Moses or to the entirety of Judaism's founding legal and ethical religious texts...
studies and lived off
Ma'amodot (stipends), received by donations from the Jews in the
DiasporaA diaspora is any movement of a population sharing common ethnic identity. While refugees may or may not ultimately settle in a new geographic location, the term diaspora refers to a permanently displaced and relocated collective.Diasporic cultural development often assumes a different course from...
.
The
New Yishuv refers to those who built homes outside the Old City walls of Jerusalem in the 1860s, and to the establishment of
Petah TikvaPetah Tikva known as Em HaMoshavot , is a city in the Center District of Israel. Petah Tikva's jurisdiction covers 35,868 dunams . The population density is...
and the
First AliyahThe First Aliyah was the first modern widespread wave of Zionist aliyah. Jews who migrated to Palestine in this wave came mostly from Eastern Europe and from Yemen. This wave of aliyah began in 1881–82 and lasted until 1903. An estimated 25,000–35,000 Jews immigrated to Ottoman Syria during the...
of 1882, followed by the founding of settlements until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
The
First AliyahThe First Aliyah was the first modern widespread wave of Zionist aliyah. Jews who migrated to Palestine in this wave came mostly from Eastern Europe and from Yemen. This wave of aliyah began in 1881–82 and lasted until 1903. An estimated 25,000–35,000 Jews immigrated to Ottoman Syria during the...
was the very beginning of the creation of the New Yishuv. More than 25,000 Jews immigrated to Israel. The immigrants came to Israel with the idea of creating a national home for Jews. Most of the immigrants were Russians escaping the pogroms as well as some Yemenites. Many of the immigrants were affiliated with Habbayit Hayehudi/Hovevei Tzion. Hovevei Tzion purchased land from Arabs and created many different settlements such as Yesod Hamaalah, Rosh Pinna, Gedera, Rishon Le'tzion, Nes Tziona & Rechovot. These agricultural settlements were supported by philanthropists from abroad, chiefly Theodore Rothschild. Eliezer ben yehuda arrived in the first Aliyah. He took it upon himself to revive the Hebrew language. He along with Nissim Bechar started a school for teaching Hebrew and later on founded the first Hebrew newspaper.
During the Second Aliyah in 1903-1914 35,000 new immigrants came over primarily from Russia.
During the Ottoman Empire
The ottoman government was not very supportive of the new settlers from the First & second Aliyah, specifically those that retained their former nationality. The ottoman government officially restricted Jewish immigration. Those who adopted ottoman nationality were liable for the Turkish draft. The settlers faced some very hard times. There were many epidemics in Palestine at this time impoverishing and killing many. The Yishuv was reliant on the money from abroad to support the settlements.
By 1914 the old Yishuv was a minority and the new Yishuv began to express itself and its
ZionistZionism is the international political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People in Palestine. The area was the Jewish Biblical homeland, called the Land of Israel...
goals. Labor organizations were created along with health and cultural services all run by the Va’ad Leumi. The first Hebrew High schools were opened in Palestine as well as the Technion, the first institution for higher learning.
HashomerHashomer was a Jewish defense organization in Palestine founded out of Bar-Giora in April 1909. It ceased to operate after the founding of the Haganah in 1920. The purpose of Hashomer was to provide guard services for Jewish settlements in the Yishuv, freeing Jewish communities from dependence...
, a Zionist self defense group, was created to protect the Jewish settlements. The Palestine Office was created by Dr. Arthur Rupin for land acquisition along with agricultural and urban expansion.
The Zionist movement tried to find the new immigrants who arrived from the Second Aliyah work however, most were middle class and were not physically fit or knowledgeable in agricultural work. The Jewish plantation owners had previously hired Arab workers who accepted low wages and were very familiar with agriculture. The leaders of the Zionist movement insisted that plantation owners (those who arrived in the first Aliyah) only hire Jewish workers and grant higher wages. The conquest of labor was a major Zionist goal however this caused some turmoil in the Yishuv for there were those who felt that they were discriminating against the Arabs just as they had been discriminated against in Russia. The Arabs became bitter from the discrimination despite the minor amount of Arabs that were affected by this.
During
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
the condition for the Jews in the Ottoman Empire worsened. All those Jews who were of an enemy nationality were exiled and others were drafted into the Turkish army. Many of those exiled fled to
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
and the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Those who remained in Palestine faced hard economic times. There was disagreement weather to support the British or the Turks. A clandestine group,
NiliNili Nili Nili of Israel will not lie") was a Jewish espionage network which assisted the United Kingdom in its fight against the Ottoman Empire in Palestine...
, was established to pass information to the British in the hope of defeating the Turks and ending their rule over Palestine. The purpose and members of the Nili were discovered. All involved were executed by the Turks except its founder,
Aaron AaronsohnAaron Aaronsohn was a renowned Romanian-born Jewish agronomist, botanist, traveler, entrepreneur, and Zionist politician....
, who escaped to Egypt. Over the time of World War I the Jewish population in Palestine diminished by a third due to deportations, immigration, economic trifle and disease. During World War I there were two British battalions of Jews, called the Zion Mule Corps, who were to fight on the front of Palestine. They helped British in their capture of Palestine leading to the Turkish surrender. The members of the Zion Mule Corps later make up the Yishuv's defense groups that will fight against the British.
During the British Mandate
World War I ended along with the Ottoman Empire. Britain gained control of Palestine through the
Sykes-Picot AgreementThe Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 was a secret agreement between the governments of the UK and France, with the assent of Imperial Russia, defining their respective spheres of influence and control in west Asia after the expected downfall of the Ottoman Empire during World War I...
. There was hope that British control would allow the creation of a Jewish national homeland as promised in the Balfour Declaration. The British Mandate was formalized in 1922 based on the
Balfour DeclarationThe name Balfour Declaration is applied to two key British government policy statements associated with Conservative statesman and former Prime Minister Arthur Balfour....
. The British were supposed to help the Jews build a national home and promote the creation of self governing institutions. The mandate provided an agency in which the Jews could represent Jewish interests and promote Jewish immigration. This Agency was called The Jewish Agency for Palestine which was only created ten years later serving as the de-facto government of the Yishuv.
Along with a Jewish agency there was to be a general self governing institution created in Palestine including Jews and Arabs. The yishuv feared such an institution due to the Arab majority but none was created in the end due to the Arabs refusal to cooperate with the Jews or British.
The optimism that existed in the beginning of the British mandate soon diminished due to continued hardships in the Yishuv. Most of the European funds that supported the Jewish settlements before World War I ended. The Arabs instigated Riots against the Jews due to their opposition to the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate. The British limited immigration through yearly quotas, only those who received "certificates" could make Aliyah.
Arab Riots
There were Arab riots throughout 1920-1921 in opposition to the Balfour Declaration. The Arabs tried to show the British the instability of Palestine and that a Jewish homeland was ungovernable. Riots increased in 1929 after the fourth Aliyah. The Arabs claimed that Jewish immigration and land purchases were displacing them and taking their jobs away. These riots were also instigated by false Rumors that the Jews were planning on building a synagogue near the western wall. These riots led to the evacuation of Hebron's indigenous Jewish population.
White papers
The British responded to the Arab riots with the White Papers. The white papers attempted to stop immigration to Palestine based on the Hope Simpson Report that states Palestine after economic development could only support 20,000 more immigrant families so as not to infringe on the Arab Population's placement and employment. Upon Jewish criticism of this policy it was clarified that immigration would not be stopped.
There were many Jewish immigrants that arrived throughout the 1930s in the fifth Aliyah despite the immigration quotas. Many who came were fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe. Those that came from Nazi Germany were able to come because of the Hesder agreement. This allowed Jews to escape from Germany to Palestine in return for paying a ransom to the Reich. The Yishuv now had a population of about 400,000.
The Palestinian revolt
The increasing number of Jewish immigration and land acquisition along with the British mandate angered the Arabs bringing them to radicalism. In April 1936 the Arabs attacked a Jewish bus leading to a series of incidents that escalated into a major Palestinian rebellion. The British were caught by surprise therefore were unable to prevent the thousands of Arabs and hundreds of Jews that were killed in the revolt. The
HaganahHaganah 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 :...
protecting the Yishuv’s settlements while the
IrgunIrgun was a militant Zionist group that operated in the British mandate of Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah...
and
EtzelEtzel is* The common Israeli name for Irgun Tzvai-Leumi, or Irgun, a terrorist group operating in the British Mandate of Palestine from 1931 to 1948.* A German form of the name of Attila the Hun, for example in the Nibelungenlied....
, more radical groups, attacked on Arabs settlements. A coalition of recently formed Arab political partiesn formed the
Arab Higher CommitteeThe Arab Higher Committee was the central political organ of the Arab community of Mandate Palestine. It was established on 25 April 1936, on the initiative of Hajj Amin al-Husayni, the mufti of Jerusalem, and comprised the leaders of Palestinian Arab clans under the mufti's chairmanship. The...
(AHC). It declared a national strike in support of three basic demands: cessation of Jewish immigration, an end to all further land sales to the Jews, and the establishment of an Arab national government. The Arabs threatened that if the British didn't comply with their demands then they would join the British’s adversaries. This concerned the British for
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
was just beginning and they knew they would need Middle Eastern oil.
The British worked with their Arab allies to bring a halt to the AHC riots. The
peel commissionThe Peel Commission of 1936-1937, formally known as the Palestine Royal Commission, was a British Royal Commission of Inquiry set out to propose changes to the British Mandate of Palestine following the outbreak of the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine...
reported, in July 1937, that the British’s obligations to the Arab and Zionist are irreconcilable and the mandate is unworkable. It suggested the partition of Palestine into a, Arab and Jewish state with the British mandate governing over Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem along with a corridor from Jerusalem to the coast. The Jews accepted the general principal of a partition while the Arabs refused any partition plan. The British government sent a technical team called the
Woodhead CommissionThe Woodhead Commission was established in 1938 in the British Mandate of Palestine after the Peel Commission failed to achieve resolution to the Arab Revolt and the rejection of its recommendations by the three major parties in the conflict: Zionist Jews, Palestinian Arabs, and the British...
to detail the plan. The Woodhead Commission in the end concluded that the partition was impractical.
The Palestinian Revolt broke out again in the autumn of 1937. The British ended the revolt using harsh measures, deporting many Palestinian Arab leaders and shutting down the AHC. In the Yishuv, the Palestinian Revolt reinforced the already firm belief in the need for a strong Jewish defense network. Finally, the Arab agricultural boycott that began in 1936 forced the Jewish economy into even greater self-sufficiency. The Haganah during this period changed from being a small clandestine militia to a large military force. The British security forces at this time cooperated with the Haganah to tame the Arabs.
In 1938 Captain Orde Wingate created a 'Special Night Squad (SNS) that was comprised mostly if Haganah members. SNS used the element of surprise in night raids to protect the Jewish settlements and attack the Arabs.
White papers of 1939
The British suppressed the revolt and publicized the 1939 white papers. The white papers stated that only 15,000 Jews would be allowed to enter Palestine each year for five years. During this time the Yishuv entered a period of relative peace with the Arabs of Palestine.
During World War II
The Yishuv wanted to help their fellow Jews who were being murdered by the Nazis in Eastern Europe. Many Jews from Eastern Europe were prevented from fleeing to Palestine by strict immigration quotas established by the white papers. The Jewish Agency organized illegal immigration from 1939-1942 with the help of the Haganah. All those who arrived illegally to Israel during this time are part of the Aliyah bet. This was a dangerous operation for these illegal immigrants arrived by boat and had to be careful not to be caught by the British or Nazis. Many of these ships sank or were caught such as the
PatriaPatria is a Latin word cognate with the Greek πατρίς , both of which derive from the word for "father", typically translated into English as "fatherland" or "family"...
(Patra),
StrumaStruma was a ship chartered to carry Jewish refugees from Axis-allied Romania to British-controlled Palestine during World War II. On February 23, 1942, with its engine inoperable, the ship was towed from Istanbul through the Bosporus out to the Black Sea by Turkish authorities with its refugee...
and SS Bulgaria. Compared to the amount of attempts few ships actually arrived successfully to Palestine but tens of thousands of Jews were saved by the illegal immigration.
The Yishuv also wanted to help on the front lines to try and save Jews from the Nazi atrocities. In 1942 the Jewish agency turned to the British to offer their assistance by sending Jewish volunteers to Europe as emissaries of the Yishuv to organize local resistance and rescue operation among the Jewish communities. The British accepted the proposal but on a much smaller scale than the Jewish agency had hoped. They only took Jewish parachutists who were recent immigrants from certain targeted countries that they wanted to infiltrate. The British Special Forces and military intelligence both consented to the volunteers' dual role as British agents and Jewish emissaries. 110 Yishuv members were trained however only 32 were deployed. Many of them succeeded in helping the POWs and uprisings in the Jewish communities while others were caught.
The Baltimore declaration
Despite the reports of Nazi atrocities growing and the desperation of Jews needing a safe haven the British kept the doors of Palestine close to Jewish Immigration. The Zionist leaders met in a hotel in Baltimore and concluded that due to the British behavior, the British were an enemy to be fought.
Palestine post World War II
Hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors were being held in Displaced Persons Camp (DP Camps) aching to go to Palestine. The British received much international Pressure, specifically from the American president Harry Truman, to change its policy on immigration. Despite Britain's dependence on American economic aid, the British refused claiming that they were experiencing too much resistance from the Arabs and Jews already in Palestine and feared what would happen if more were allowed to enter. The refusal to remove the white paper policy angered and radicalized the Yishuv. The Yishuv's militia groups set out to sabotage the British infrastructure in Palestine and continue in their illegal immigration efforts. In 1946 the British responded to the yishuv's efforts and began a two week search for Jews suspected of anti British activities and arrested many of the Haganah's leaders. While the British were busy looking after the Haganah the Irgun & Lehi carried out attacks on the British forces. The most famous of their attacks was on the King David Hotel, the site of the British military command and the British Criminal Investigation Division. This location was chosen because a few weeks before a large quantity of documents were confiscated from the Haganah and brought there. Despite being warned by the Yishuv and told to evacuate the building the British officials decided not to listen thereby resulting in British casualties.
By 1947 the British had 100,000 troops in Palestine trying to maintain order and protect themselves. The British mandate was a major expense on the British leading them to present the Palestinian Problem to the United Nations on May 15, 1947). The United Nations proposed a Partition of Palestine into 2 states -Jewish and Arab(resolution 181). The Jews accepted while the Arabs stated that they would do everything in their power to prevent it.
The AHC determined to prevent resolution 181 of coming into effect started to attack and siege the Jews. The British sided with the Arabs in an attempt to prevent the Yishuv from arming themselves. Jerusalem was held under a siege with no access to weapons food or water. The Yishuv seemed helpless until it received a large shipment of arms from Czechoslovakia. The Haganah started fighting offensively from April through May. The Haganah mounted a full scaled operation, Operation Nachson. After much fighting and the crucial capture of
Deir YassinDeir Yassin was a Palestinian Arab village of around 600 people near Jerusalem. It had declared its neutrality during the civil war between Arab and Jewish Palestinians...
the siege of Jerusalem was broken allowing supplies to be brought to the city.
This Operation's success helped Harry S. Truman recognize that the Jews would be able to protect themselves therefore The United states said they would support the establishment of a Jewish state. On May 14 1948 the Jews proclaimed the independente state of Israel and the British withdrew from Palestine.
Despite having a Jewish state and an end to the British mandate, the Israelis were to face many more fights with the Arabs.
See also
- History of Israel
The State of Israel was established on May 14, 1948 after nearly two thousand years of Jewish dispersal, and after 55 years of efforts to create a Jewish homeland . The 61 years since Israeli independence have been marked by conflict with neighbouring Arab states and the Palestinian-Arabs...
- Mizrahi Jews
Mizrahi Jews or Mizrahim, , also referred to as Edot HaMizrach are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus. The term Mizrahi is used in Israel in the language of politics, media and some social scientists for Jews from the Arab world and...
- Zionism
Zionism is the international political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People in Palestine. The area was the Jewish Biblical homeland, called the Land of Israel...
- Jewish exodus from Arab lands
The Jewish exodus from Arab lands refers to the 20th century expulsion or mass departure of Jews, primarily of Sephardi and Mizrahi background, from Arab and Islamic countries...
External links
- http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/preistoc.html
- http://www.zionism-israel.com/zionism_history.htm
- http://countrystudies.us/israel/16.htm
- http://www.jewishagency.org/JewishAgency/English/Jewish+Education/Compelling+Content/Eye+on+Israel/120/Chapter+six+The+Establishment+of+the+Jewish+Agency+and+Expansion+of+the+Yishuv.htm
- http://www.mideastweb.org/briefhistory.htm#From%20Roman%20to%20Ottoman%20Rule