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Zionism
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Zionism is the international Jewish 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 (Hebrew: Eretz Yisra'el). Since the creation of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily as support for the modern state of Israel.
Zionism is largely based on the concept of historical ties and religious traditions linking the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, where the concept of Jewish nationhood first evolved somewhere between 1200 BCE and the late Second Temple era (i.e.
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Encyclopedia
Zionism is the international Jewish 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 (Hebrew: Eretz Yisra'el). Since the creation of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily as support for the modern state of Israel.
Zionism is largely based on the concept of historical ties and religious traditions linking the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, where the concept of Jewish nationhood first evolved somewhere between 1200 BCE and the late Second Temple era (i.e. up to 70 CE). The modern movement was mainly founded by secular Jews, beginning largely as a response by European Jewry to antisemitism across Europe.
It is a branch of the broader phenomenon of modern nationalism. Initially one of several Jewish political movements offering alternative responses to assimilation and the position of Jews in Europe, Zionism grew rapidly and after the Holocaust became the dominant power among Jewish political movements.
The political movement was formally established by the Austro-Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl in the late 19th century following the publication of "Der Judenstaat". The movement seeks to encourage Jewish migration to the "Land of Israel" and was eventually successful in establishing Israel in 1948, as the homeland for the Jewish people. Its proponents regard its aim as self-determination for the Jewish people.
The percentage of world Jewry living in Israel has steadily grown since the movement came into existence. Today roughly 40% of the world's Jews live in Israel. A similar number live in the United States (see American Jews), however this number is expected to continue declining relative to Israel.
Terminology
The word "Zionism" itself is derived from the word Zion . This name originally referred to Mount Zion, a mountain near Jerusalem, and to the Fortress of Zion on it. Later, under King David, the term "Zion" became a synecdoche referring to the entire city of Jerusalem and the Land of Israel. In many Biblical verses, the Israelites were called the people, sons or daughters of Zion.
"Zionism" was coined as a term for Jewish nationalism by Austrian Jewish publisher Nathan Birnbaum, founder of the first nationalist Jewish students' movement Kadimah, in his journal Selbstemanzipation (Self Emancipation) in 1890. (Birnbaum eventually turned against political Zionism and became the first secretary-general of the Haredi movement Agudat Israel.)
Zionism can be distinguished from Territorialism, a Jewish nationalist movement willing to contemplate a Jewish homeland anywhere. During the early history of Zionism, a number of proposals were made for settling Jews outside Europe, but ultimately all of these were rejected or failed. The debate over these proposals helped to define the nature and focus of the Zionist movement.
There was also a movement which advocated autonomism, Jewish autonomy within Eastern Europe.
Organization
Members and delegates at the 1939 Zionist congress, by country (Zionism was banned in Russia). 70,000 Polish Jews supported the Revisionist Zionist movement, which was not represented. | Country | Members | Delegates |
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| Poland | 299,165 | 109 | | USA | 263,741 | 114 | | Palestine | 167,562 | 134 | | Romania | 60,013 | 28 | | United Kingdom | 23,513 | 15 | | South Africa | 22,343 | 14 | | Canada | 15,220 | 8 |
The Zionist movement is structured as a representative democracy. Congresses are held every four years (they were held every two years before the Second World War) and delegates to the congress are elected by the membership. Members are required to pay dues known as a shekel. At the congress, delegates elected a 30-man executive council, which in turn elected the movement's leader. The movement was democratic from its inception and women had the right to vote (before they won the right in Great Britain).
Until 1917, the WZO pursued a strategy of building a homeland through persistent small-scale immigration and the founding of such bodies as the Jewish National Fund (1901 - a charity which bought land for Jewish settlement) and the Anglo-Palestine Bank (1903 - provided loans for Jewish businesses and farmers).
The 28th Zionist Congress, meeting in Jerusalem 1968, adopted the five points of the "Jerusalem Program" as the aims of Zionism today. They are:
- The unity of the Jewish People and the centrality of Israel in Jewish life;
- The ingathering of the Jewish People in its historic homeland, Eretz Israel, through Aliyah from all countries;
- The strengthening of the State of Israel which is based on the prophetic vision of justice and peace:
- The preservation of the identity of the Jewish People through the fostering of Jewish and Hebrew education and of Jewish spiritual and cultural values;
- The protection of Jewish rights everywhere.
Since the creation of Israel, the role of the movement itself has become far less important, but the ideology remains a critical part of Israeli and Jewish political thinking.
Labor Zionism
Labor Zionism originated in Eastern Europe. Socialist Zionists believed that centuries of being oppressed in anti-Semitic societies had reduced Jews to a meek, vulnerable, despairing existence which invited further anti-Semitism. They argued that a revolution of the Jewish soul and society was necessary and achievable in part by Jews moving to Israel and becoming farmers, workers, and soldiers in a country of their own. Most socialist Zionists rejected the observance of traditional religious Judaism as perpetuating a "Diaspora mentality" among the Jewish people, and established rural communes in Israel called "kibbutzim". Though Socialist Zionism draws its inspiration and is philosophically founded on the fundamental values and spiritualy of Judaism, its progressive expression of that Judaism has often fostered an antagonistic relationship with Orthodox Judaism.
Labor Zionism became the dominant force in the political and economic life of the Yishuv during the British Mandate of Palestine and was the dominant ideology of the political establishment in Israel until the 1977 election when the Labor Party was defeated. The Labor Party continues the tradition (although it has weakened) and has in recent years taken to advocating creation of a Palestinian State in the West-Bank and Gaza.
Liberal Zionism
General Zionism (or Liberal Zionism) was initially the dominant trend within the Zionist movement from the First Zionist Congress in 1897 until after the First World War. General Zionists identified with the liberal European middle class (or bourgeois) to which many Zionist leaders such as Herzl and Chaim Weizmann aspired.
Liberal Zionism, although not associated with any single party in modern Israel, remains a strong trend in Israeli politics advocating free market principles, democracy and adherence to human rights.
Nationalist Zionism
Nationalist Zionism originated from the Revisionist Zionists led by Jabotinsky. The Revisionists left the World Zionist Organization in 1935 because it refused to state that the creation of a Jewish state was an objective of Zionism. The revisionists advocated the formation of a Jewish Army in Palestine to force the Arab population to accept mass Jewish migration and promote British interests in the region. Revisionist Zionism evolved into the Likud Party in Israel, which has dominated most governments since 1977. It advocates Israel maintaining control of the West-Bank and East Jerusalem and takes a hard-line approach in the Israeli-Arab conflict. In 2005 the Likud split over the issue of creation of a Palestinian state on the occupied territories and party members advocating peace talks helped form the Kadima party.
Religious Zionism
In the 1920s and 1930s Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine) and his son Rabbi Zevi Judah Kook saw great religious and traditional value in many of Zionism's ideals, while rejecting its anti-religious undertones. They sought to forge a branch of Orthodox Judaism which would properly embrace Zionism's positive ideals and serve as a bridge between Orthodox and secular Jews.
While other Zionist groups have tended to moderate their nationalism over time, the gains from the Six Day War have led religious Zionism to play a significant role in Israeli political life. Now associated with the National Religious Party and Gush Emunim, religious Zionists have been at the forefront of Jewish settlement in the West Bank and efforts to assert Jewish control over the Old City of Jerusalem.
Religious Zionism is largely Modern Orthodox but increasingly includes (more traditional) Ultra-Orthodox Jews. Although the Sephardi party Shas is not directly associated with the Zionist movement, the party generally pursues an Ultra-Orthodox Zionist agenda.
Particularities of Zionist beliefs
Zionism is dedicated to fighting anti-semitism in all its forms. Some Zionists believe that anti-semitism will never disappear (and that Jews must conduct themselves with this in mind) while others perceive Zionism as a vehicle with which to end anti-semitism.
Zionists preferred to speak Hebrew, a semitic language that developed under conditions of freedom in ancient Judah, modernizing and adapting it for everyday use. Zionists sometimes refused to speak Yiddish, a language they considered affected by Christian persecution. Once they moved to Israel, many Zionists refused to speak their (diasporic) mother tongues and gave themselves new, Hebrew names.
According to Eliezer Schweid the rejection of life in the Diaspora is a central assumption in Zionism. Underlying this attitude was the feeling that the Diaspora restricted the full growth of Jewish individual and national life.
History
Since the first century CE most Jews have lived in exile, although there has been a constant presence of Jews in the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel). According to Judaism, Eretz Israel, or Zion, is a land promised to the Jews by God according to the Bible. After the 2nd century Bar Kokhba revolt, the Romans expelled the Jews from Palestine, thus forming the Jewish diaspora.
In the 19th century, a current in Judaism supporting a return to Palestine grew in popularity. Jews began to emigrate to Palestine, pre-Zionist Aliyah, even before 1897, the year considered as the start of practical Zionism..
Population of Palestine by religions | year | Muslims | Jews | Christians | Others |
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| 1922 | 486,177 | 83,790 | 71,464 | 7,617 | | 1931 | 493,147 | 174,606 | 88,907 | 10,101 | | 1941 | 906,551 | 474,102 | 125,413 | 12,881 | | 1946 | 1,076,783 | 608,225 | 145,063 | 15,488 |
Jewish immigration to Palestine started in earnest in 1882. Most immigrants came from Russia, escaping the frequent pogroms and state-led persecution. They founded a number of agricultural settlements with financial support from Jewish philanthropists in Western Europe. Further Aliyahs followed the Russian Revolution and Nazi persecution.
In the 1890s, Theodor Herzl infused Zionism with a new ideology and practical urgency, leading to the first congress at Basel in 1897, which created the World Zionist Organization (WZO). Herzl's aim was to initiate necessary preparatory steps for the attainment a Jewish state. Herzl’s attempts to reach a political agreement with the Ottoman rulers of Palestine were unsuccessful and other governmental support was sought. The WZO supported small-scale settlement in Palestine and focused on strengthening Jewish feeling and consciousness and on building a worldwide federation.
The Russian Empire, with its long record of state organized genocide and ethnic cleansing ("pogroms") was widely regarded as the historic enemy of the Jewish people. As much of its leadership were German speakers, the Zionist movement's headquarters were located in Berlin. At the start of the First World War, most Jews (and Zionists) supported Germany in its war with Russia.
Lobbying by a Russian Jewish immigrant, Chaim Weizmann and fear that American Jews would encourage the USA to support Germany culminated in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 by the British government. This endorsed the creation of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine. In addition, a Zionist military corps led by Jabotinsky were recruited to fight on behalf of Britain in Palestine. In 1922, the League of nations adopted the declaration in the Mandate it gave to Britain: The Mandatory (…) will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.
Weizmann's role in obtaining the Balfour Declaration led to his election as the movement's leader. He remained in that role until 1948.
The British Mandate caused greater Jewish migration to Palestine and massive Jewish land purchases from feudal landlords, which created landlessness and fueled unrest (often led by the same landlords who sold the land). There were riots in 1920, 1921 and 1929, sometimes accompanied by massacres of Jews. The victims were usually local non-Zionist orthodox Jewish communities. Britain supported Jewish immigration in principle, but in reaction to Arab violence imposed restrictions on Jewish immigration.
In 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany, and in 1935 the Nuremberg Laws made German Jews (and later Austrian and Czech Jews) stateless refugees. Similar rules were applied by Nazi allies in Europe. The subsequent growth in Jewish migration and impact of Nazi propaganda aimed at the Arab world led to the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. Britain established the Peel Commission to investigate the situation. The commission did not consider the situation of Jews in Europe but called for a two-state solution and compulsory transfer of populations. But Britain rejected this solution and instead implemented White Paper of 1939. This planned to end Jewish immigration by 1944 and to allow no more than 75,000 further Jewish migrants. The British maintained this policy until the end of the Mandate.
Growth of the Jewish community in Palestine and devastation of European Jewish life sidelined the World Zionist Organization. The Jewish Agency for Palestine under the leadership of David Ben-Gurion increasingly dictated policy with support from American Zionists who provided funding and influence in Washington, DC.
After WWII and the Holocaust, Jews, especially by Holocaust survivors, universally supported the Jewish community in Palestine. Zionist groups attacked the British in Palestine because of their restrictions on Jewish immigration, and eventually Britain was forced to refer the issue to the newly created United Nations.
In 1947, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) recommended that western Palestine should be partitioned into a Jewish state, an Arab state and a UN-controlled territory (Corpus separatum) around Jerusalem. This partition plan was adopted on November 29, 1947 with UN GA Resolution 181, 33 votes in favor, 13 against, and 10 abstentions. The vote led to celebrations in the streets of Jewish cities.
The Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states rejected the UN decision, demanding a single state and removal of Jewish migrants. On 14 May 1948, at the end of the British mandate, the Jewish Agency, led by Ben-Gurion, declared the creation of the State of Israel, and the same day the armies of seven Arab countries invaded Israel. The conflict led to an exodus of about 711,000 Arab Palestinians and the exodus of 850,000 Jews from the Arab world, mostly to Israel.
Since the creation of the State of Israel, the WZO has functioned mainly as an organization dedicated to assisting and encouraging Jews to migrate to Israel. It has provided political support for Israel in other countries but plays little role in internal Israeli politics.
The movement's major success since 1948 was in providing logistical support for migrating Jews and, most importantly, in assisting Soviet Jews in their struggle with the authorities over the right to leave the USSR and to practice their religion in freedom.
Opposition, critics and evolution
In the 1920s, the growing secularization of the Zionist movement led to opposition from some Orthodox Jewish groups. The movement was also opposed by Islamic and Arab nationalist organizations, by some assimilated Jews and by British Imperialists who feared it would undermine Britain's relations with its many Muslim subjects in the Indian sub-continent. At times Marxist organizations have also opposed Zionism for a variety of reasons.
Since the creation of the state of Israel, anti-Zionism has increasingly become associated with anti-Semitism and this has led to claims that there is a New Anti-Semitism associated with anti-Zionism.
In Israel the Canaanite movement led by poet Yonatan Ratosh in the 1930s and 1940s argued that "Israeli" should be a new pan-ethnic nationality.
During the last quarter of 20th century, classic nationalism in Israel declined. This led to the rise of two antagonistic movements: neo-Zionism and post-Zionism. Both movements mark the Israeli version of a worldwide phenomenon: (1) the emergence of globalization, a market society and liberal culture, and (2) a local backlash. Neo-Zionism and post-Zionism share traits with "classical" Zionism but differ by accentuating antagonist and diametrically opposed poles already present in Zionism. "Neo Zionism accentuates the messianic and particularistic dimensions of Zionist nationalism, while post-Zionism accentuates its normalising and universalistic dimensions".
Marcus Garvey and Black Zionism
Zionist success in winning British support for formation of a Jewish National Home in Palestine helped to inspire the Jamaican nationalist Marcus Garvey to form a movement dedicated to returning Americans of African origin to Africa. During a speech in Harlem in 1920, Garvey stated: "other races were engaged in seeing their cause through—the Jews through their Zionist movement and the Irish through their Irish movement—and I decided that, cost what it might, I would make this a favorable time to see the Negro's interest through."
Garvey established a shipping company, the Black Star Line, to allow Black Americans to emigrate to Africa, but for various reasons failed in his endeavour. His ideas helped inspire the Rastafarian movement in Jamaica, the Black Jews and The African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem who initially moved to Liberia before settling in Israel.
Non-Jewish support for Zionism
Political support for the Jewish return to the Land of Israel predates the formal organization of Jewish Zionism as a political movement. In the 19th century, advocates of the Restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land were called Restorationists. The return of the Jews to the Holy Land was widely supported by such eminent figures as Queen Victoria, King Edward VII, President John Adams of the United States, General Smuts of South Africa, President Masaryk of Czechoslovakia, philosopher and historian Benedetto Croce from Italy, Henry Dunant (founder of the Red Cross and author of the Geneva Conventions), and scientist and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen from Norway.
The French government through Minister M. Cambon formally committed itself to “the renaissance of the Jewish nationality in that Land from which the people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago".
In China, top figures of the Nationalist government, including Sun Yat-Sen, expressed their sympathy with the aspirations of the Jewish people for a National Home.
Christians supporting Zionism
Christians have a long history of supporting Zionism. Famous supporters of Israel include British Prime Ministers David Lloyd George and Arthur Balfour, American President Woodrow Wilson and Orde Wingate whose activities in support of Zionism led the British Army to ban him from ever serving in Palestine. According to Charles Merkley of Carleton University, Christian Zionism strengthened significantly after the Six-Day War of 1967, and many dispensationalist Christians, especially in the United States, now strongly support Zionism.
The founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, in his last years alive, declared "the time for Jews to return to the land of Israel is now." In 1842, Smith sent Orson Hyde, an Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, to Jerusalem to dedicate the land for the return of the Jews.
Christian Arabs publicly supporting Israel include US author Nonie Darwish, creator of the Web site, and former Muslim Magdi Allam, author of Viva Israele, both born in Egypt. Brigitte Gabriel, a Lebanese-born Christian US journalist and founder of the American Congress For Truth, urges Americans to "fearlessly speak out in defense of America, Israel and Western civilization".
Muslims supporting Zionism
In 1873, Shah of Persia Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar met with British Jewish leaders, including Sir Moses Montefiore, during his journey to Europe. At that time, the Persian king suggested that the Jews buy land and establish a state for the Jewish people.
Hussein ibn 'Ali, The Sherif of Mecca, a forebear of Jordan's current royal family and leader of the Arab resistance against the Ottoman Turk imperialists (alongside the Jewish anti-Ottoman resistance), stated circa World War One that, "The resources of the country are still virgin soil and will be developed by the Jewish immigrants" as they bring technology from Europe, and called the Jews abna'ihelasliyin ("original sons" of the land). In the never-enacted 1919 Paris Peace Conference, his son, Emir Faisal, signed a statement that "the surest means of working out the consummation of their [Zionist] national aspirations is through the closest possible collaboration in the development of the Arab states and Palestine". Faisal also is quoted by Arabs in 1919 as saying: "The Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement [emphasis added] ....We will wish the Jews a hearty welcome home....We are working together for a reformed and revised Near East and our two movements complete one another. The Jewish movement is nationalist and not imperialist. ...Indeed, I think that neither can be a real success without the other" (e.g. The UK's Palestine Royal Commission Report noted in Faisal's lifetime the prevalence of malaria (e.g. pg. 233, pg. 259) and that Jewish immigrants were draining swamps, which kills the mosquitoes that spread malaria.) The editor of the newspaper al-Ahram (which still exists today) put it only slightly differently from Faisal: "The Zionists are necessary for the country: The money which they will bring, their knowledge and intelligence, and the industriousness which characterizes them will contribute without doubt to the regeneration of the country". When Arab-Israeli relations soured some decades later (largely inflamed by the Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin el-Husseyni, a religious leader convicted at Nuremberg, who often opposed the more tolerant Arabs led by the Hussein family and others), the retiring patriarch of Jordan's Hussein family, Abdullah, stated in his Memoirs (autobiography) that "...the Arabs are as prodigal in selling their land [to the Jews, at the high prices wealthy Euro Jews were willing to pay] as they are in useless wailing and weeping [against the Jewish immigrants, accusing them by that time-period of 'stealing' rather than buying the land]".
Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, the leader of Italian Muslim Assembly and a co-founder of the Islam-Israel Fellowship, and Canadian Imam Khaleel Mohammed find support for Zionism in the Qur'an. Other Muslims who have supported Zionism include Pakistani journalist Tashbih Sayyed and Bangladeshi journalist Salah Choudhury. Choudhury has been imprisoned since 2003 and is facing a death sentence.
On occasion, some non-Arab Muslims such as some Kurds and Berbers have also voiced support for Zionism.
See also
Types of Zionism
Zionist institutions and organizations
History of Zionism and Israel
Other
Footnotes
External links
- WZO website
- Zionism, News, Links
- PBS Documentary Film focusing on the secret American involvement in Aliyah Bet, narrated by Morley Safer
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