Major motivations for some Jews to choose Zionism included their failure to gain civic equality with their non-Jewish neighbors, and increasing outbreaks of rampant anti-Semitism. This account of the miserable economic situation of Jews in eastern Europe was another impetus for Jews to change their economic, political, and social condition through immigration.
Eventual founding leader of the World Zionist Organization Theodor Herzl says a Jewish state is need in response to antisemitism.
Max Nordau’s impassioned speech summarizes the unique Jewish identity of belief, Torah, ritual and community. With those central elements as a people, their state of impoverishment and wretched physical insecurity, he argues, are vital for rebuilding the Jewish national territory.
Three European journalists provide firsthand accounts of the First Zionist Congress and its delegates.
Chaim Weizmann advocates for Great Britain to be Palestine’s post-WWI administrator, seeking inclusion of specific territories for its boundaries, six months before Britain issues the Balfour Declaration.
The British Foreign Ministry promises to work toward a Jewish national home in Palestine with no harm to non-Jewish populations or to Jews living elsewhere who might want to support a Jewish home.
Writing early in the British administration of Palestine, sociologist Arjeh Tartakower assesses the inflationary effects of immigrant land purchases and the failure of absentee Arab landlords to provide any benefits or protection to tenant farmers.
JNF meeting minutes and other statements show the strategic approach to Jewish land purchases throughout the British Mandate period.
Zionists decide to hold the first international sports games in Tel Aviv bringing 400 Jewish athletes from 18 countries. The games open on March 28, 1932. Zionists value the games as a “possible awakening of youth in the Diaspora” to Zionism and the positive economic outcome for the Jewish community in Palestine.
Speculation again abounds whether a two state solution might be a seriously considered outcome to Palestinian-Israeli differences. A long history of its mention but not its implementation persists. Advocacy by external voices persists, but no one seems ready to make the critical political trade-offs required.
With more Arab sale offers than funds for purchases, Zionist leaders decide on strategic priorities and designate areas around Haifa, Jerusalem-Jaffa road, and the Galilee near headwaters of the
Jordan River.
Chaim Weizmann, a top Zionist leader, vividly pronounced parallel Jewish realities in 1938: disaster confronting Jews in Europe and advanced state building in Palestine. Ten years later history was written.
Zionist leaders—David Ben-Gurion, Chaim Weizmann and Eliezer Kaplan—learning of the British intent to limit severely the Jewish national home’s growth. Increasingly, they are also aware of the German government’s hostilities towards European Jewry.
In New York, urging American (Jewish) support, Ben-Gurion proclaims the eventual establishment of a Jewish state.
From the end of World War I until the June 1967 war, American Jewish attitudes toward Zionism moved from lukewarm embrace to full-throated support. The debate of American rabbis in the 1940s exemplified by this letter reflects attitudinal differences. The Holocaust, Israeli statehood and Israel’s stunning military success in June 1967 established Israel as a valued element in American Jewish identities.
In four days of sharply presented testimony and debate, the House evaluated the pros and cons of whether to endorse Jewish immigration to Palestine. Pressure from the Executive Branch not to pass such a resolution was heeded. According to Chief of Staff George Marshall “such a resolution would have adverse effects on the Moslem world.” This was the same argument that the State Department used in trying but failing to persuade President Truman in 1947 not to vote in favor of Palestine’s partition into Arab and Jewish states. The debate in the Congress took place more than a year before World War II ended in Europe. Fear of Arab state retaliation against the US never materialized because the US endorsed Jewish immigration to Palestine and a two state solution.
Moshe Sharett urges the British and Americans to open Palestine to unimpeded Jewish immigration from Europe.
The Declaration recounts the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, the birth of Zionism and U.N. recognition of a Jewish state’s legitimacy. It also promises that the state will be a democracy for all its citizens.
The Israel State Archives has collected government documents on the history of Israel’s interactions with the Beta Israel through the first operations to facilitate their emigration from Ethiopia in the 1980s.
Jews worldwide are given the right to come to Israel and become citizens.
Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and American Jewish Committee President Jacob Blaustein express a compromise in the American Jewish-Israel relationship: American Jews are excited and proud of Israel’s birth as a state but owe Israel no allegiance, and Israel does not speak for anyone but Israeli citizens.
Celebrating the creation and survival of the State of Israel, the yearbook provides a thorough history of the Zionist movement from the First Zionist Congress in 1897 to independence in 1948.
This report submitted to the United Nations at the end of 1951 notes that “some one million Jews have become the victims of accelerated antiSemitism” since 1948 in the Muslim countries of the Arab League and North Africa, “communities which have existed for thousands of years.” The report analyzes the situation for Jews overall and explains restrictions and oppressive measures country by country.
Israel’s first prime minister was a prolific writer. In this excerpt of a 50-page document, he notes that the Jewish nation’s DNA included relentless challenges marked by dispersal, ostracism and hatred by many people. Despite these adversities, Israel’s establishment symbolizes a remarkable victory against all odds — a culmination of the Jewish people’s tenacity and unyielding spirit. The state and Zionism were not remotely close to being finished, nor having succeeded in the quest for the Jewish people’s normalization.
