Talk:Zionism#RfC

This claim that appears in the "The Peel Commission transfer proposal" section is based on a heavily truncated quote from Jabotinsky's book "The Jewish War Front", published in 1940, after the outbreak of WWII, and grossly misrepresents Jabotinsky's actual attitude towards the idea of population transfer.

First of all, for most of his life Jabotinsky vehemently opposed this idea, including as late as 1937, after it was proposed by the Peel Commission.{{cite journal | last = Rubin | first = Gil S. | title = Vladimir Jabotinsky and Population Transfers between Eastern Europe and Palestine | journal = The Historical Journal | volume = 62 | issue = 2 | page=12 | date = June 2019 | url = https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/historical-journal/article/abs/vladimir-jabotinsky-and-population-transfers-between-eastern-europe-and-palestine/1F25EEAD71D1AD4B1375A6F32A84CB34 |quote=...Jabotinsky also rejected the [partition] plan on moral grounds, fiercely opposing the idea of transferring the Arab population from Palestine. Jabotinsky underscored this point in several letters and speeches from 1937, and expanded on it in an article published in the Revisionist Zionist publication Hayarden...
Jabotinsky could not have been more clear about his opposition to transferring a single Arab from Palestine. He also argued that the Peel Commission drew the wrong lesson from the Greek–Turkish case. It was not a ‘great precedent’, as the commission noted in its report, but a tragedy that involved the expulsion of one million Greeks from Turkey.}}{{Cite book |last=Shumsky |first=Dmitry |url=https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300230130/beyond-the-nation-state/ |title=Beyond the Nation-State |publisher=Yale University Press |language=en-US |year=2018|page=230|quote=When the Peel Commission published its recommendation to partition Palestine on the basis of nationality through ethnic unification, Jabotinsky was horrified; he immediately recognized that the recommendations were based on the logic of ethnic cleansing. He not only opposed the plan because it would mean losing parts of the Land of Israel; he opposed it because he feared that expelling the Arabs from the Jewish state might serve what he sarcastically referred to as an “instructive precedent,” a boon for all those who sought to undermine the right to exist of the diasporic Jewish collectivities.}}

Second, while his opposition to population transfer weakened towards 1940, he still insisted that it would be "undesirable from many perspectives" and only considered the option of voluntary transfer.{{Cite journal |last=Shilon |first=Avi |date=February 8, 2021 |title=The Jabotinsky Paradox |url=https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/israel-zionism/2021/08/the-jabotinsky-paradox/ |journal=Mosaic |access-date=February 14, 2025 |quote=...in his last book, The Jewish War Front, Jabotinsky did not rule out the possibility of population transfer—that is, expulsion of Arabs. The book was published in 1940, shortly before his death, and was written in the gloomy context of World War II:
'I see no need for this exodus, and it would be undesirable from many perspectives. But if it becomes clear that the Arabs prefer to emigrate, this may be discussed without a trace of sorrow in the heart.'}}{{cite book | last = Schechtman | first = Joseph B. | title = The Vladimir Jabotinsky Story: Fighter and Prophet | publisher = Thomas Yoseloff | year = 1956 |quote =In his last book... he fully endorsed the idea of a voluntary Arab transfer from Palestine, though still insisting that it was not mandatory since, objectively, "Palestine, astride the Jordan, has room for the million of Arabs, room for another million of their eventual progeny, for several million Jews, and for peace."}}

Finally, this change of heart was not "inspired by Nazi demographic policies", but was primarily driven by the worsening conditions of European Jewry and the urgent need to find a solution for the large number of Jewish refugees. Additionally, he noted that the idea of population transfer was gaining increased support at the time, including from U.S. President Roosevelt.{{harvnb|Rubin|2019|p=16}}: "Jabotinsky’s change of heart was first and foremost a result of his predictions regarding the enormity of the Jewish refugee problem in Europe after the war. Jabotinsky concluded that the aftermath of the war would necessitate a far more radical emigration plan than he had previously envisioned – millions of Jews would have to be transferred to Palestine within a few short years...
Jabotinsky’s wartime embrace of population transfers was also a result of his predictions regarding the future ethnic make-up of Europe after the war. On the eve of the war, Jabotinsky was startled by the degree of support population transfers had come to enjoy among liberals and fascist alike; after the outbreak of war, he noted that it had become even more popular, winning the support of US President Roosevelt who spoke about the need for the post-war resettlement of millions of refugees." The cherry-picked quote mentioning Hitler appears in Jabotinsky's book within a broader discussion based on his observation that {{tq|"the idea of redistributing minorities en masse is becoming more popular among 'the best people' and there is no longer any taboo on the discussion of the subject."}}{{cite book | last = Jabotinsky | first = Vladimir | title = The War and the Jew | year = 1942 | orig-year=Originally published in 1940 as The Jewish War Front| pages=218-222 | url=https://archive.org/details/warandthejew009960mbp/page/n221/mode/2up }}

Consequently, I suggest removing this misleading passage.

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{{Reflist-talk}}

{{collapse bottom}} DancingOwl (talk) 15:47, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

:I dont think the passage contradicts what you're saying here:

:# He drew inspiration from similar policies in the 20th century

:# He sees the world as accommodating to population transfer schemes, with particular reference to hitler who gave it a 'good name'

:DMH223344 (talk) 19:20, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

::I think your description is much more accurate than how it's currently phrased in the article - the reference to Hitler is just one example he uses to demonstrate that the world is accommodating to population transfer idea, and framing Hitler's "demographic policies" as the reason for Zhabotinsky's change of heart is highly misleading. Not to mention that this phrasing omits the fact that he still considered population transfer 'undesirable from many perspectives,' and that his primary reason for being willing to consider it was the dire condition of European Jews following the outbreak of World War II. DancingOwl (talk) 09:05, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

:Just adding a dummy comment to prevent the bot from archiving this topic again DancingOwl (talk) 18:01, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

::@DancingOwl, an alternative to removing this passage is contextualising it by adding the sources you've mentioned here. Currently only Finkelstein's viewpoint is represented in the article. To satisfy WP:NPOV we have to provide a balanced coverage, something along the lines of

::{{cquote|Vladimir Jabotinsky rejected the 1937 Peel Commission's partition plan and condemning it as "ethnic cleansing." However, in his final 1940 book amid World War II, his position evolved to accept the possibility of voluntary Arab emigration—a shift linked to his growing concern about Jewish refugees in Europe and the increasing international acceptance of population transfers.}}

::Alaexis_¿question? 20:58, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

:::Actually, the paragraph that precedes this passage already contains a statement that is very similar to what you suggest:

:::{{tq2|It was the right wing of the Zionist movement that put forward the main arguments against transfer, with Jabotinsky strongly objecting it on moral grounds, and others mainly focusing on its impracticality. However, in his last book "The Jewish War Front" published in 1940, after the outbreak of WWII, Jabotinsky no longer ruled out the possibility of voluntary population transfer, though he still didn't view as a necessary solution.}}

:::The only things that is missing there is the {{tq|"a shift linked to his growing concern about Jewish refugees in Europe and the increasing international acceptance of population transfers"}} part, which is indeed an important part of the context that we can add to that text. DancingOwl (talk) 18:34, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

:I agree with @DMH223344 – the quote you've quoted agrees with the framing in the article, I don't think it needs to be removed. Smallangryplanet (talk) 12:14, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

::I quoted two authors - Shilon and Shechtman - neither of those quotes support the framing that Jabotinsky {{tq|"drew inspiration from the Nazi demographic policies"}}. DancingOwl (talk) 12:26, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

:::I support the edit DancingOwl is proposing. Relying on Finkelstein (2016), a highly polemical and not very scholarly book, skews the interpretation, and it would be better to go with how scholarly sources present this. BobFromBrockley (talk) 01:01, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

::I also agree with @DMH223344 and @Smallangryplanet that the quote should stay as is. The Finkelstein source meets RS, and subjective claims about its "polemical" or "not very scholarly" nature are not relevant. It is from a subject-matter expert and a reputable publisher. Moreover the claim that Jabotinsky was solely inspired by practical and moral concerns to support the ethnic cleansing of Arab Palestinians is not true, and it is not only Finkelstein who notes this. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/41857736 Madeleine Tress] (e.g. pages 317, 320) notes that these practical/moral concerns were merely a "convenient excuse", and that a racist and supremacist view inspired by fascists like Hitler and Mussolini undergirded his support for the ethnic cleansing. [https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Iron_Cage.html?id=nnxtAAAAMAAJ Rashid Khalidi] has made the same point in reference to his inspiration by Stalin's mass expulsions (page 187), quoting him: "There is no choice: the Arabs must make room for the Jews in Eretz Israel. If it was possible to transfer the Baltic peoples, it is also possible to move the Palestinian Arabs." There is ample sourcing for this. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 04:19, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:::Finkelstein is not an historian but an activist. He was fired from his university. It is not a RS at all. Michael Boutboul (talk) 08:24, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

::::It seems there is no consensus for this contentious paragraph in its current state with a single source. I’d add that the “later” is vague. I’m going to remove it, and suggest that those who think a version of it should be here propose some wording and sourcing that resolves the issues. BobFromBrockley (talk) 06:27, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::Editors who think it’s important can check if it is in Jabotinsky’s own article where a longer discussion of the quote might be appropriate. It is not significant in an article about Zionism in general BobFromBrockley (talk) 06:30, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::Please do not remove RS content that has been stable on the page when you do not have consensus to remove it, especially when it has been pointed out to you in talk that other RS also support it. If you want those additional sources to be added to it as well, that can be done, but removing it entirely is wholly unwarranted. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 06:41, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::So my removal was immediately reverted on the basis of no consensus for removal. It’s a vague and contentious passage based on a weak source that an equal number of editors have opposed. I think onus should be on those supporting inclusion to make the case and provide decent sourcing BobFromBrockley (talk) 06:42, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::Your case that the source for that long-standing content is not "decent" is not based on policy. The book is published by a reputable academic publisher, the scholar is a subject-matter expert, and I provided additional RS that also back up the content of it. And yes, you did not gain consensus for its removal.

::::::But since you insist that the sourcing for the claim that Jabotinsky's inspiration by authoritarian ethnic cleansing demographic policies is weak as it stands, we can add the Tress and Khalidi sources and expand the passage. What do you think about this:

::::::"Later, Vladimir Jabotinsky, the right-wing Zionist leader, drew inspiration from the demographic policies of Stalin, Mussolini and the Nazis, the latter of which resulted in the expulsion of 1.5 million Poles and Jews, in whose place Germans resettled.[204]

::::::In Jabotinsky's assessment: The world has become accustomed to the idea of mass migrations and has almost become fond of them. Hitler—as odious as he is to us—has given this idea a good name in the world.[204]" Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 06:51, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::I agree with Rev and others that Finkelstein is RS and the material from Jabotinsky that he quotes is worth including in the article in some form. However, I agree with DancingOwl and you that the language used in our article could and probably should be changed. I don't think the quote cited here supports the current phrasing that Jabotinsky "took inspiration". Unless Finkelstein himself makes this claim and backs it up further in the source, or if there is other support for this interpretation, I think the material should be rewritten and contextualized with what other sources say. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 23:38, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::And even if Finkelstein does say it, and even if he is a reliable source, this is clearly an interpretation, and an obviously controversial interpretation, so I don’t think we should just say it in our voice, but attribute that interpretation to him. BobFromBrockley (talk) 21:50, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Thank you {{u|Raskolnikov.Rev}} for this proposal. I could probably live with that much more, although I still think “drew inspiration” is an over-interpretation, especially in light of the actual quotations in the thread below. BobFromBrockley (talk) 21:54, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::Great to hear. The quotations presented below are not the relevant ones for that claim. Unfortunately I only have a version of the Tress article that has a faulty OCR so I will have to transcribe the relevant ones by hand. I will add those as soon as I can get to them over the next few days. It is also not the case that the Khalidi source does not have additional backing. I will present that too.

::::::::Regarding the language of "inspiration", I will reflect on that on the basis of the language used in the sources, and perhaps something else might be more appropriate for accuracy. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 17:17, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::Just a heads up to @Bobfrombrockley and others that I'm still working on this. I am going through all the sources in this section and am almost done with a response addressing everything, should be ready in the next few days. Raskolnikov.Rev (talk) 07:37, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Tres literally says that {{tq|Jabotinsky rejected expulsion of the Palestinian Arabs}} and her reference to Mussolini-Hitler's pact is based on Schechtman's book I quoted above, in which he says:

:::{{Tq2|On June 23, 1939, an agreement was signed between the Third Reich and Mussolini's Italy, providing for the voluntary transfer to the Reich of the 266,000 Germans from the Italian Southern Tirol... Jabotinsky was strongly impressed by this move. It reminded him of a talk he had... with the noted Anglo-Jewish writer and thinker, Israel Zangwill... In an article "A Talk With Zangwill", published late in July, 1939, Jabotinsky restated his objections to Zangwill's reasoning which, he admitted, might be logical, but was too far removed from his own conceptions. But the German-Italian transfer agreement seems to have made "one thing clear" to him : that "a precedent has been created here which the world will note and not forget, and this precedent may perhaps be fated to play an important role in our Jewish history as well?'" In his last book The War and the Jew, he fully endorsed the idea of a voluntary Arab transfer from Palestine, though still insisting that it was not mandatory since, objectively, "Palestine, astride the Jordan, has room for the million of Arabs, room for another million of their eventual progeny, for several million Jews, and for peace."}} DancingOwl (talk) 16:43, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::::And Khalidi is quoting Masalha, who in turn quotes this [https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1988/02/07/expelling-palestinians/a54c4262-ec35-4f20-a705-f47aa18d72db/ 1988 opinion article from Washington Post] that says the following:

::::{{Tq2|The Labor Zionists, influenced by the huge population transfers in Europe after World War I, believed that financial incentives would suffice. The conservative Zionist leader, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, also supported the idea. In November 1939, he wrote in a letter to one of his party members: "We should instruct American Jewry to mobilize half a billion dollars in order that Iraq and Saudi Arabia will absorb the Palestinian Arabs. There is no choice: The Arabs must make room for the Jews in Eretz Israel. If it was possible to transfer the Baltic peoples, it is also possible to move the Palestinian Arabs."}}

::::So

::::# Jabotinsky is talking about voluntary transfer based on financial incentives

::::# He's referring to the transfer of ethnic Germans from the Baltics to German-occupied areas that started in October 1939 (Soviet annexation of Baltic state took place half a year later, in 1940, so in November 1939 he could not possibly refer to Stalin's deportations from the Baltic states).

::::Also, it's worth mentioning that this opinion article seems to be the only source of this alleged quote - I couldn't locate it in any other source - either in English or in Hebrew - so I'm not sure how reliable it is, to beging with. DancingOwl (talk) 17:09, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::Thank you for the quotes. In my opinion, the second one refers not to the voluntary transfer of the 266,000 Germans from Italy's South Tyrol to the Reich, but more likely to the population exchange between Greece and Turkey around 1925, in the aftermath of World War I. This makes the sentence "Later, Vladimir Jabotinsky, the right-wing Zionist leader, drew inspiration from the Nazi demographic policies that resulted in the expulsion of 1.5 million Poles and Jews, in whose place Germans resettled. In Jabotinsky's assessment" even more controversial. Michael Boutboul (talk) 14:08, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::: This use of "inspiration" – and naming specific Nazi policies and practices which seem at odds with the rest of his writing — looks like original research. I removed the current wording and quote, which is provocative but not helpful out of context. A better place to add color on Jabotinsky's views would be immediately after the previous sentence about the evolution of his thoughts, which has a trio of better sources. – SJ + 03:07, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

:::seems a clear case of a WP:SYNTH violation to make a rather hefty and unsupported claim SecretName101 (talk) 12:22, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

I think we can ignore Finkelstein, since he is just quoting from Segev "One Palestine, Complete". Segev quotes it from Moshe Sharett's political diary. Another point to make is that Jabotinsky's public support for "voluntary" transfer from Palestine is predicated on "Palestine" including Jordan. Zero^talk 03:02, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

:Could you please quote from Moshe Sharett's political diary? So we can improve the text. Michael Boutboul (talk) 14:09, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

:: I don't have it. Segev's citation is "Sharett, Political Diary, vol. IV, p. 376." This is a Hebrew publication of Am Oved, 1974. Zero^talk 02:26, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:::So could you share Segev’s full quote on the topic? Michael Boutboul (talk) 11:24, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:::: {{tq2|During the 1940s the idea of transfer continued to circulate in the Zionist movement, bolstered by discussions at the outbreak of World War II about mass population transfers in territories occupied by the German army. "The world has become accustomed to the idea of mass migrations and has almost become fond of them," Ze'ev Jabotinsky wrote, adding that "Hitler—as odious as he is to us—has given this idea a good name in the world."}} (pages 406–407) Segev has several pages on the transfer idea, referring to quite a few prominent Zionists. Zero^talk 12:15, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::Since secondary sources are generally preferred over primary and tertiary ones on Wikipedia, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to use this quote from Segev instead of the one from Finkelstein? Michael Boutboul (talk) 12:00, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::: Zero and Boutboul, I added this ref to Segev after the existing sentence, which could be expanded. – SJ + 03:07, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::@Zero0000 that quote does not attribute Zionist inspiration from Hitler though, it talks about Hitler’s impact on international discourse among non-Zionists SecretName101 (talk) 12:29, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

I have a question, why is there no mention of the name :Bilad al-Sham on the whole article? This is part of the historical naming aspect from another perspective. I am more curious why there is no mention. Regards. Govvy (talk) 21:38, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::Thank you for your response above. I appreciate the feedback and have reformatted the proposal for clarity, as well as explicitly labeled each source for WP:RS compliance. I confirm that this request is authored and fact-checked by me, with AI used only for assistance. I am fully responsible for the content. To my knowledge, Wikipedia permits editors to use AI as an assistive tool.

::All proposed changes remain unrelated to the sentence currently under community moratorium (as of 21 February 2025). They address misrepresentations and omissions elsewhere in the lead and are based entirely on verifiable, reliable sources per WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:DUE.

{{Edit semi-protected|Zionism|answered=yes}}

::Request to reopen edit proposal – All changes remain unrelated to arbitration-moratorium content.

::== 1. Misrepresentation of the Balfour Declaration ==

::Proposed change:

::> “The 1922 Mandate for Palestine, incorporating the Balfour Declaration, supported the establishment of a Jewish national home while explicitly protecting the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities.”

::Sources (WP:RS):

::* UK National Archives, FO 371/30564 – full text of the Balfour Declaration.

::* League of Nations, 1922 Mandate for Palestine, Articles 2 & 6 – [https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/2FCA2C68106F11AB05256BCF007BF3CB?OpenDocument Official UN archive].

::== 2. Omission of Equal Citizenship Post-1948 ==

::Proposed addition:

::> “Following independence, Israel granted full citizenship to all residents within its borders, including approximately 160,000 Arabs, consistent with the principles outlined in the Balfour Declaration and UN Resolution 181.”

::Sources (WP:RS):

::* UNGA Resolution 181 (1947), Article 2 – [https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text]

::* Israeli Nationality Law (1952), Section 2(a) – [https://www.knesset.gov.il/review/data/eng/law/kns2_nationality_eng.pdf]

::== 3. Anachronistic Use of “Palestinians” Pre-1948 ==

::Proposed correction:

::> “An estimated 160,000 of the approximately 870,000 Arab inhabitants of Mandatory Palestine remained…”

::Sources (WP:RS):

::* Bernard Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semites, Oxford University Press.

::* Encyclopaedia Britannica, entry: “Palestine (pre-1948)” – [https://www.britannica.com/place/Palestine]

::== 4. Definition of Zionism ==

::Proposed lead sentence:

::> “Zionism is a Jewish nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century, aiming to establish a national homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine.”

::Sources (WP:RS):

::* Encyclopaedia Britannica, entry: “Zionism” – [https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zionism]

::* Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism (Schocken, 2003).

::* The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 7.

::These changes reflect verified historical content and comply fully with Wikipedia’s sourcing, neutrality, and due-weight policies.

::If any sources are questioned, please tell me which ones so that I can look into the matter and respond appropriately

::I respectfully request reconsideration. Thank you. Utalempe (talk) 15:10, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

:{{not done for now}}: This page has 1,731 watchers, and I suggest you start a discussion on the merits of the material and its sources. Inclusion should be based on WP:CONSENSUS, not the opinion of one editor (me or you). —Fortuna, imperatrix 11:31, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

{{atopy

| result = There is a moratorium on any discussion seeking to remove "Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible." from teh article. Please see the current consensus notice at the top of this page. TarnishedPath^talk 01:23, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

}}

I propose the opening section of this article to begin as below. The article over all has gotten beyond the topic at hand. It ventures into the pejorative connotations of the term "Zionist," and does not clearly explain the basic concept. I state this because scholars have looked at the page and have come away with misconceptions.

Zionism  is the expression of the yearning of the Jewish people for home, what the Welsh would call hiraeth, combined with the Biblical commandment to reside in the land of Judea and Samaria.  To some extent it is a modern movement based upon this ancient one, “modern” meaning having begun in the early 1800s.

The term Zion (Ṣīyyon, or IPA: [tsijon]) comes from the name of the hill upon which King David built his palace.[1]  In early times, the Jews lived in an independent state in the area known as Palestine.  However, in 586 BCE, Babylonians captured Jerusalem and drove out most of the Jews.  The Jews rebuilt both the holy Temple and the society, yet again in 68 CE it was destroyed, this time by the Romans.[2]  Yet Jews have lived there throughout.

“Zionist” has taken on, in some circles, a pejorative connotation, based in part on the notion set forth in propaganda over the past couple hundred years that Jews have limitless power and have been concentrating it on committing heinous acts upon other citizens of the world.  (See also WikiPedia, Antisemitism and Timeline of Antisemitism.)

Over the centuries, Jews have repeated in daily prayers their desire to come back together as one people, in their historic land.  The yearning is so old, they signify it by pulling together the four corners of their prayer shawl and calling for returning “from the four corners of the earth.” (See Numbers 24:17, e.g.)

According to a report put forth on May 11, 2021, by the Pew Research Center, eight in ten U.S. Jews say caring about Israel is an essential or important part of what being Jewish means to them.  Nearly six in ten express a personal emotional attachment to Israel, and a similar share reports following news about Israel.[3]  Of course, a central tenet in Jewish culture is that the laws of the country in which one lives supersede Jewish law.  Most Jews in the U.S. are Americans first; the idea of split allegiance was introduced to inspire prejudice against Jews (similar to the way it has been used against Catholics with the claim that their allegiance is split with the Vatican).

While some Jews have remained in the city of Jerusalem and surrounding territories for millennia, most have been dispersed to other lands all around the world.  Most of that dispersion has been the result of their place of residence deciding – regardless of how they were contributing to the society, how involved they were, how assimilated they had become, what they had to offer - they were no longer welcome.  In many cases the form of notification was torture and death.  (See also WikiPedia, The Timeline of Antisemitism.)

The feeling of longing to return was expressed in poem by Judah Halevi (ca 1085-1140 CE) living in Spain[4]:

My heart is in the east, and I in the uttermost west –

How can I find savour in food?  How shall it be sweet

to me?  How shall I render my pledges and vows, while

yet Zion lieth beneath the fetter of Edom, and I in

Arab chains?  A trifle would it seem to me to leave

all the good things of Spain –

Seeing how precious it would be to behold the dust

of the desolate sanctuary.

Underlying Judah Halevi’s expression of what would come to be known as Zionism was the acute awareness of how vulnerable were the Jews in Spain.  After the decline of the Córdoba caliphate early in the eleventh century, Arabs and Berbers rose in influence.  Educated Jews found welcome positions as physician, scribe, scholar, and advisor, but the political instability of the region would prove most unsettling to the Jews employed in the higher courts.  Halevi was said to have set out for the Holy Land, though there is no evidence that he made it there.[5]

On December 31, 1066, came the first recorded instance of Muslim persecution of Spanish Jews, when a Muslim mob stormed through Granada’s Jewish quarter.  In 1090, the Almoravides conquered Granada, and many Jews fled.[6]

Meanwhile, the Christian Crusades had begun.  Rumor had it that circa 1009 the Fatimid caliph had been behind the burning of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, and that he had done so on the advice of the Jews of Orléans.  Rodulfus Glaber, an eleventh-century anti-Jewish propagandist, around 1045 completed his Five Books of Histories. Most Christian publications were antithetical to Jews and Judaism, and this laid the groundwork for the centuries of the murderous Crusades across Europe and northern Africa.  The goal was the taking of Jerusalem (from the Muslims) for Christianity.  Meanwhile, Jews were being oppressed throughout the lands, being forced to convert, forced to work only in certain fields, and forced underground with their religious practices.[7]

Eventually, as socialism was being formulated generally among European Jews, Moses Hess (1812-1875) would begin to realize the value of creating a Jewish nation.  He detailed this in his book Rome and Jerusalem (1862).[8]

By the middle of the nineteenth century, there were 4,750,000 Jews in the world, with 72 percent in Eastern Europe, fourteen percent in Western Europe, and 1.5 percent in America.  The Jews of Western Europe found reasons to leave behind their Judaism and actually be welcomed in society, a change from their prior fates.  In Eastern Europe, however, czarist Russia held sway, and the persecution was horrendous.[9]

In 1827, Sir Moses Montefiore (1784-1885), a Jew who had served as Lord Mayor of London, visited Palestine and began working on plans to bring agriculture and industry to the region. Larger than life in many ways, and married into the Rothschild family, Montefiore set into motion a movement that Baron Edmond James de Rothschild (1845-1934) would further serve, saving the early modernization initiatives from collapse.  They were not interested in what would come to be known as Political Zionism, the belief that Jews must have their own state; they wanted only to create a refuge in the Holy Land for those who wished to go there to live or die.[10]

Thus, beginning in the 1880s, Jews were traveling to Palestine for such refuge.  Each year between 1881 and 1899, an average of 23,000 Jews left Russia, with most going to the United States, a few remaining in Europe, and even fewer going to Palestine.[11]  Living in Palestine was incredibly difficult.  They relied upon occasional contributions from Russian and Romanian philanthropic Zionists (known as the Hibbat Zion, lovers of Zion), and were battling the anger of the Turks who really did not want them in the Ottoman Empire.  According to one estimate, in 1914 there were 604,000 non-Jews and 85,000 Jews as the land became Palestine under the British Mandate.[12]

According to author Charles E. Silberman, in ''A Certain People"[13], some Jewish writers expressed the feeling that life living under other peoples' rule was a waste:

"In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, … secular Zionists accepted the notion that anti-Semitism was the inevitable if unfortunate by-product of the fact that Jews were different and thus resented by the host peoples among whom they resided.  The solution to “the Jewish problem,” therefore, was what Zionists called the “normalization” of Jewish life.  If Jews were allowed to create their own state, they would become k’chol ha-goyim, a nation like every other nation.  Those who wanted to remain Jews would move to the Jewish state, while those who remained in the Diaspora would disappear through assimilation – a phenomenon devoutly to be hoped for, because, as one Zionist theorist wrote, 'The Judaism of the Galut [Diaspora] is not worthy of survival.'"

He goes on, “To many Zionists of that time, the preceding eighteen centuries of Jewish history had been an aberration and a waste,” the thought being that the Jews had not made their own history, the non-Jews had made it for them.  Thus was the beginning of Secular Zionism which arose among those Jews who wished to shake the bonds of religion and recreate themselves as a people.[14]

See detailed information about Theodor Herzl, below, for historic context of this time period.

In 1904, soon after the death of Theodor Herzl, a young chemist named Chaim Weizmann moved from Vienna to Manchester, England.  Feeling the burden of the Zionist movement upon him, he continued to support what Herzl had created.  Both his career in chemistry and his work toward Zionism flourished.

World War I pitted the Ottoman Empire, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria against the British Empire, France, Russia, and eventually Italy and the United States.  Dr. Weizmann recognized a difficulty in providing military munitions, and devised a formula for creating saltpeter (potassium nitrate) without the use of organic matter.  He offered the formula to the British government.  Asked what payment he was requesting, he indicated that he would give the formula to the government and would continue to produce the saltpeter through the fighting in return for a homeland for the Jewish people.[15]

Weizmann had met Arthur James Balfour (1^st Earl of Balfour, 1848-1930) in 1906.  Under consideration for a homeland was Uganda, despite Jews already living and actively immigrating to Palestine. According to Weizmann’s autobiography, as reported by Abba Eban[16], Weizmann met with Balfour, and to point out a different way of viewing the question:

Then suddenly I said:  “Mr. Balfour, supposing I were to offer you Paris instead of London, would you take it?”

He sat up, looked at me, and answered: “But, Dr. Weizmann, we have London.”

“That is true,” I said.  “But we had Jerusalem when London was a marsh.”

Meanwhile, Weizmann collected friends to the Zionist cause, including Charles Prestwich Scott, the editor of the Manchester Guardian (1846-1932); Herbert Samuel (1870-1963), first Jew to enter the cabinet and later the first high commissioner for Palestine; and David Lloyd George (1863-1945), who became minister of munitions in 1915 and prime minister in 1916.[17]

On November 2, 1917, Lord Balfour’s Declaration was put forth, saying:

His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

Although the details remained to be determined, reclamation of a homeland was within sight.

----[1] The World Book Encyclopedia, January 1, 1961, edition, “Zionism.”

[2] Ibid.

[3] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/u-s-jews-connections-with-and-attitudes-toward-israel/

Pew Research Center, Report of May 11, 2021.

[4] Eban, Abba, Heritage – Civilization and the Jews, Summit Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1984, p. 144.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid., p. 145.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid., page 237.

[9] Ibid., page 238.

[10] Ibid., page 246.

[11] Ibid., page 249.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Silberman, Charles E., A Certain People, Summit Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1985.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Story Corps Archive, interview of E. Joseph Charny, October 26, 2016, https://archive.storycorps.org/interviews/mby015533/, at 16:00.

[16] Eban, Abba, Heritage – Civilization and the Jews, Summit Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1984, p.255.

[17] Ibid. Etheldreda (talk) 18:51, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

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