Maurycy Gottlieb: Jews praying
in the synagogue on Yom Kippur (1878)

After the Jews were expelled from their country

– which happened as a consequence of their breach of the covenant with the Everlasting – they never forgot about the prophetic promises which said that the Lord would relent and forgive his people and would gather them to their land. They kept their hope about returning to Zion, Jerusalem in the habits of Judaism for thousands of years. To this day, synagogues all across the globe are built facing Jerusalem, and the texts of the prayers remember the sacrifices of the Temple. In Jewish homes, every nuances of their lives remembers Jerusalem, with the desire to return to Zion and to rebuild the Temple. A Jew cannot fully keep the 613 laws that are assigned by the Lord outside the land of Israel, without Jerusalem and the Temple. Judaism cannot be separated from the land of Israel, giving up the faith in returning to Zion would mean not just the end of Jewish national identity but would empty out the religion as well. At the same time, for almost two thousand years, the Jews were only preparing to return by waiting for the Messiah (Anointed) to arrive.

Even in the years of exile,

the Jews were living in Israel constantly, but larger communities only started to arrive from the 18th century. In 1770, 1500 Polish, Hungarian, and Moravian headed to Zion, and in 1777, 300 Hasidic families inspired by Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidism. In 1812, 400 followers of the Vilna Gaon arrived from Lithuania. In the middle of the 19th century, ten thousand Jews lived on the land of Israel already: 8000 in Jerusalem – among them the largest Hasidic dynasties who created Jewish infrastructure and synagogues – others settled in Safed, Pekiin, Tiberias, Akko and Jaffa.

The movement of modern Zionism

– according to which the Jewish people have the right to have a country on the land of their forefathers – was started in response to secularization and liberalism, in effect of the European nationalist movement, and in parallel with them, in the second half of the 19th century. The idea of a Jewish nation appeared first in Rome and Jerusalem (1862) by Moses Hess (1812–1875), the father of German social democracy. According to Hess, the question of the Jews can only be solved by establishing a socialist Jewish state on the land of Israel.

Moses Hess

Only a few knew,

but Hess had a forerunner, József Natonek (1813–1892), who published the Messiah pseudonymously in 1861 (which was confiscated later) in which he suggested the self-liberation of the Jews. Later, Natonek attempted to foster the Jewish national issue in political areas as well. He traveled to Paris and even to Constantinople in this matter, then in 1872 he established a paper in German called Das einige Israel (United Israel) which was the first Zionist paper in the world. He also promoted acquiring the necessary material goods for the migration of the Jews. After he was not listened to, he retired. However, he recruited for the French Alliance Israelite Universelle (Universal Israelite Alliance) – which was established to help persecuted Jews and to raise the Jewish culture’s quality – 1029 Hungarian members in three years and succeed in turning the attention of the organization towards the creation of colonies on the land of Israel. However, a Jewish state was yet to be established, the appearance of the political Zionism was preceded by constant infiltration of the Jews to Israel and the renewal of the Hebrew language and culture.

Moses Montefiore on an engraving and banknote, and the windmill he built

1855

– Moses Montefiore (1784–1885) a British-Jewish philanthropist, banker and patron – who turned seriously towards the Holy Scriptures after his visit in Jerusalem in 1827 – bought land in Israel. Two years later, to help the poor, he built a mill in Jerusalem to grind flour. In 1860, he established the first Jewish quarter outside the old walls of Jerusalem, Mishkenot Sha’anim (Peaceful Habitation), later for the Sephardi Jews Ohel Moshe (Tent of Moses) along Jaffa street, in 1882 for Ashkenazi Jews Mazkeret Moshe (Memory of Moses), and between 1892 and 1894 he built the quarter, Yemin Moshe (The Right hand of Moses) around the windmill. North-West African Jews built Mahane Israel (Camp of Israel) in 1868 in Jerusalem, then a year later the Nahalat Shiv’a (Heritage of the Seven). The Ultraorthodox quarter, the Mea Shearim (Hundred Gates / A Hundredfold) was built by the designs of a German Christian missionary in 1874. In 1880, the population of Jerusalem was 25,000 and half of it were Jewish.

1870

– a French educator, Charles Netter (1826–1882) – who was one of the founders of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, a French institution which protected the rights of Jews – with the permission of the Turkish government, established Mikve Israel (Hope of Israel) and there an agricultural school with the purpose of preparing migrating Jews to make the deserts flourish with the knowledge they learnt there, and to be able to establish different types of settlements.

1878

– Three Hungarian Rabbis, Akiva Joseph Schleisinger (1837–1922), David Meir Gutman (1827–1894) and Joshua Stampfer (1852–1908) established themselves on a plain land bought from a Greek landowner, Petah Tikva (Door/Opening of Hope), the first settlement where only Jews lived. Schleisinger, born in Bratislava, moved to Jerusalem in 1870, and in 1873 he published a brochure with the title The Company of the Renovators of the Old Glory in which he wrote about the return to the Promised Land, the organization of a Jewish army, agricultural settlements, and the renewal of the Hebrew language.

1881

– Pogroms broke out in Russia; thus an organization was created to help Jews migrate to Israel, the BILU (Beit Yaakov Lekhu Venelkha – Oh, House of Jacob, let us go up), and the Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion, its other name: Hibbat Zion). The latter movement was established by Leo Pinsker in 1884, an Odessan Jewish doctor, who published a pamphlet in German with the title Auto-emancipation as a response to the Russian slaughters. According to Pinsker, the emancipation given by nations attempted to liberate the individuals but could not liberate the Jewish people. Thus, the Jewish question could be solved only on a national ground and by self-emancipation – i.e., to stop waiting for the Messiah passively and start to build the nation actively.

Leo Pinsker on the cover of The Maccabaean

1882–1903

– During the first Aliyah (ascent, going up, i.e., migration to the land of Israel) around 25,000 Jews arrived in the area – mostly Russian Jews fleeing from the pogroms – and established settlements and started to cultivate the lands. The members of the BILU-movement established Rishon LeZion (The First to Zion) and Zichron Yaakov (Jacob’s Memorial) in 1882. The greatest Maecenas of the immigrants was the baron, Edmond de Rothschild (1845-1934) who allowed his support in the purchase of many lands, and the drainage of swamps which stopped malaria. The baron started large developments in agriculture and industry between 1882 and 1890 (e.g., he established wineries in Rishon LeZion and Zichron Yaakov etc.)

1887

– The first town was created outside the old town of Jaffa, Neve Tzedek (Abode of Justice) by Eastern and Yemeni Jews. The foundation of the first Rehovot (Wide expanses) was in 1890 where Yemeni Jews also settled, then a year later Hadera (in Arabic: green) which got its name from its vivid green swamp vegetation and established by the Jews coming from Vilna, Riga and Kaunas – although half of its population died from malaria in the following twenty years – it became a fruitful, successful town.

Wine from today’s Risón LeCijón

The founders of the Zikhrón Jáakov winery

Baron Edmond de Rothschild

Eliézer Ben Jehuda

The Rebirth of the Hebrew Language

The leading figure of the rebirth of the Hebrew language, Eliezer Ben Yehuda (1858–1922), arrived in the land of Israel at that time, who succeeded in making a living language spoken by millions of people today from a dead language by showing an example with his personal life. At the end of 19th century, Hebrew had been out of everyday use for almost two thousand years as Jews mostly used the languages of the countries they lived in or so called “Jewish languages” (Yiddish, Ladino), Hebrew as a “holy language” (Lashon HaKodesh) was only used in liturgies or religious literature and communication.

Ben Yehuda communicated only in Hebrew with his wife and people around him, his child became the first modern native Hebrew speaker. For everyday communication, based on the Scriptures and the Hebrew of the Mishnah, he created new words. He began Hebrew education in which he educated Hebrew teachers, established a newspaper and companionships speaking in Hebrew, he also made a Hebrew dictionary and established the Hebrew Language Committee (1890). His tremendous efforts were attacked by both religious anti-Zionists and the Turkish government. Nevertheless, his struggle succeeded: while in 1881 only him and his wife spoke Hebrew, in 1901 ten families did and by 1920 around 20,000 people did. In 1922, besides English and Arabic, Hebrew became the official language of the area and in 1948, the independence of the State of Israel is proclaimed in Hebrew. The number of Hebrew speakers around the world reached 9 million.

Modern Hebrew is full of words well-known from the Scriptures. Thus, the Ultraorthodox Jews speak in Yiddish instead. Gershom Scholem, Jewish philosopher, believes that the everyday usage of ancient words has apocalyptic consequences as, “Hebrew words, […] in which we ceaselessly evoke God in a thousand ways, thus calling Him back into the reality of our life, He cannot keep silent. This inevitable revolution of language, in which the Voice will again become audible…”

In 1892, the National Library is founded in Jerusalem and with the rebirth of the Hebrew language, the Hebrew literature started to renew as well.

The Main Periods of Hebrew
15th century BCE – 1st century BCE	Biblical Hebrew
1st century – 6th century	Mishnaic and Rabbinic Hebrew
6th century – end of 19th century	Medieval Hebrew
from the end of the 19th century –	Modern Hebrew (Ivrit)

Áchád Háám

Cultural Zionism

Cultural Zionism unfolded alongside the language renewal activity of Eliezer Ben Yehuda and the literary activity of Ahad Ha’am (One of the People) – his original name Asher Ginsberg (1856–1927) – Hebrew writer and philosopher. According to their program, a Jewish state needs a Hebrew language, a Hebrew culture and an adequate education. Alongside the rebirth of the Hebrew language, in 1896, Ahad Ha’am established the first monthly newspaper in Hebrew and two publishers were created. The first elementary school was established in Jaffa in 1898, and the first kindergarten in Rishon LeZion. The litterateurs and thinkers gathered around Ahad Ha’am. To this movement of Zionism, people like Chaim Nachman Bialik (1873–1936), the greatest modern Hebrew poet; Boris Schatz (1866–1932) sculptor, the founder of Bezalel art school; Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874–1925), illustrator who was often called the “first Zionist artists”, belong.

 

Boris Schatz