A short history of the modern state of Israel: Part1(introduction)
Introduction
The following series of articles draws heavily 'Zionism' by David Engel and 'The Story of Israel' by Martin Gilbert. We would recommend these books as an introduction to this topic.
In 1700 the Jewish population of Palestine was at an historic low of 3,000 people. It appears that certain Jewish religious ideas discouraged Diaspora Jews from trying to reclaim sovereignty in the land. They saw the exile as God’s punishment and thought that if the Jews tried to resettle the land before the Messiah came, God was liable to interpret their actions as rebellion and extend the exile.
A minority understood the concepts of exile and Messiah differently, however, and they believed that God would only send the Messiah after Jews showed that they were prepared not merely to pray for a return to Palestine, but to live in the land. This minority view gained influence from the sixteenth century onwards and by the beginning of the eighteenth century some Jewish leaders were organising groups to settle the country.
Post-French Revolution
The century following the French Revolution of 1789 was a stressful and turbulent time in Jewish history. This resulted largely from powerful changes that took place throughout Europe concerning how states, societies and individuals related to each other. Prior to the French Revolution most Europeans thought of states as the creations of ruling families that governed them in whatever way they wanted. The Revolution changed this to a new political model where states were governed by the entire body of individuals. For Jews adjusting to this new system was not a simple matter.
Before the Revolution the Jews had a charter of rights in any given country and if they were good citizens they were secure and even welcomed because of the economic advantage they brought. Following the Revolution, Jews’ citizenship in the states was decided by non-Jewish citizens as a whole. Debates raged as to whether Jews should be admitted as citizens or not. By 1870 Jews were full citizens in most countries in Western and Central Europe. Most Jews then gradually abandoned their distinctiveness other than their religion.
However, only 15% of Europe’s nine million Jews lived in states of this type. The vast majority lived in Austria-Hungary (with over two million Jews) and Russia (with over five million), which were the two great multinational empires of Eastern Europe. After the First World War these empires were split into a number of new states on ethno-linguistic lines – Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. But Jews did not form a majority in any of the nations they resided in, so it was unlikely that they would ever be a state in their own right.
Towards Zionism (1800 onwards)
From about 1880 onwards Jews began to think about how they could become a state in their own right and the Zionist movement grew out of this. Some Jews continued to favour integration but others began to favour Jewish nationalism and the need for a Jewish homeland, somewhere where they could be safe and secure and govern themselves.
Some Jews continued to favour integration but others began to favour Jewish nationalism and the need for a Jewish homeland, somewhere where they could be safe and secure and govern themselves