Why did the Jews move to Israel/Palestine in 1882 ?

[ronki23]

I thought the creation of Israel was due to the Holocaust and the Jews having somewhere safe to live but the Jews started moving to Palestine in 1882 .

I know there was a partition plan in 1920 to seperate Jordan from Palestine and then further partition under the Peel proposal. Why did the Arabs say no to the Peel plan ?

 

[Harel13]

The 1882 date is a common misconception. Actually, Jews have always been travelling to Israel since the beginning of the diaspora (when that actually began is debatable). The numbers started to significantly spike around 1700 when Rabbi Yehudah the Pietist came here with thousands of other Jews. Over the next couple of centuries, more and more Jews began coming. The reason for this is that the notion of self-kick-starting the Jewish redemption began becoming more widespread around the Jewish world. Until then, Jews mostly hung around in exile, waiting for the Jewish messiah to redeem them. Individuals or small groups travelled to Israel and settled there, but on smaller scales. Jews of course come to Israel because it is our land, historically. The numbers began really spiking around the 1880's and onwards.

 

[Wandering Monk]

I thought the creation of Israel was due to the Holocaust and the Jews having somewhere safe to live but the Jews started moving to Palestine in 1882 .

I know there was a partition plan in 1920 to seperate Jordan from Palestine and then further partition under the Peel proposal. Why did the Arabs say no to the Peel plan ?

IIRC, there were pogroms in Russia and the Pale that drove many to leave for Palestine.

 

[rosends]

There have been Jewish immigrants for a long time...
History of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel - Wikipedia

 

[Harel13]

Why did the Arabs say no to the Peel plan ?

As far as I know, the Arabs said no to the Peel plan for the exact same reason they said no to every other partition plan: They want it all.

 

[Kooky]

I thought the creation of Israel was due to the Holocaust and the Jews having somewhere safe to live but the Jews started moving to Palestine in 1882 .

Ever heard of this Theodor Herzl guy? I recommend checking out his Wiki page and working from there.

 

[Kooky]

The 1882 date is a common misconception. Actually, Jews have always been travelling to Israel since the beginning of the diaspora (when that actually began is debatable). The numbers started to significantly spike around 1700 when Rabbi Yehudah the Pietist came here with thousands of other Jews. Over the next couple of centuries, more and more Jews began coming. The reason for this is that the notion of self-kick-starting the Jewish redemption began becoming more widespread around the Jewish world. Until then, Jews mostly hung around in exile, waiting for the Jewish messiah to redeem them. Individuals or small groups travelled to Israel and settled there, but on smaller scales. Jews of course come to Israel because it is our land, historically. The numbers began really spiking around the 1880's and onwards.

I contend that the idea of creating an entire new state just for Jews was a significant departure from the relationship diaspora communities previously had with Israel for centuries. Here is what Herzl argued in The Jewish State:

In both countries important experiments in colonization have been made, though on the mistaken principle of a gradual infiltration of Jews. An infiltration is bound to end badly. It continues till the inevitable moment when the native population feels itself threatened, and forces the Government to stop a further influx of Jews. Immigration is consequently futile unless we have the sovereign right to continue such immigration.

(my bold)
So while immigration to Palestine clearly had been going on long before that, it was only with Herzl, and the subsequent formation of the Zionist project that the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state was considered essential to the continuation of the Jewish nation.

 

[Harel13]

I contend that idea of creating an entire new state just for Jews was a significant departure from the relationship diaspora communities previously had with Israel for centuries.

It really isn't. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Hertzl and his doings, but arguably, nothing he did was new. Please, let's be aware of the bigger historical picture.

 

[Shaul]

A more important question is why did so many Arabs move to Israel/Palestine during the British mandate? Many of the Arabs claiming to be Palestinians don’t have historic roots there.

 

[ronki23]

A more important question is why did so many Arabs move to Israel/Palestine during the British mandate? Many of the Arabs claiming to be Palestinians don’t have historic roots there.

I'm not taking sides but Palestine at the time was part of Jordan so naturally there would be Arabs spread throughout what was then known as Jordan; especially as Syria was also nearby.

It's the first I've heard that Arabs moved to Palestine

 

[Kooky]

It really isn't. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Hertzl and his doings, but arguably, nothing he did was new. Please, let's be aware of the bigger historical picture.

What he did was new insofar as it culminated in the Zionist demand for a sovereign Jewish state as a home for the new Jewish colonization project. Jews had been a minority in Palestine for over 1500 years at that point, and Ashkenazi migration into Palestine did not become numerically significant until the tail end of the 19th century.

 

[Kooky]

It's the first I've heard that Arabs moved to Palestine

We don't really know whether the Muslim majority population of Palestine that would be later displaced by Israeli colonists used to be immigrants or simply religious converts to Islam.

The pre-industrial rulers of the Middle East didn't really manage to create anything resembling modern census data, and even if they did, it would be lost to us now.

 

[Harel13]

What he did was new insofar as it culminated in the Zionist demand for a sovereign Jewish state as a home for the new Jewish colonization project. Jews had been a minority in Palestine for over 1500 years at that point, and Ashkenazi migration into Palestine did not become numerically significant until the tail end of the 19th century.

As they say in my history department, history is written by the historians. And the first Israeli historians were secular fans of Hertzl. They shaped the view still popular to this day that Hertzl invented Zionism or at least Modern Zionism. He really did not. But, in any case, I don't have time to collect evidence for my argument, so we'll leave it at that.

 

[Kooky]

For the record, I did not mean to imply that Herzl alone invented Zionism to any extent, but I do not think it can be denied that his books were enormously influential in German and Yiddish speaking Central Europe where I assume a lot of his core audience lived, and where a lot of the Ashkenazi pioneers of Zionism originated.

(I would also argue that in the virulently antisemitic political atmosphere of Central and East Europe, the prospect of a Jewish national state held a special kind of appeal that it may not have had in other parts of the world.)

 

[Flankerl]

There was nothing special to the Aliyot of the old and new Yishuv.
The old moved for religious and the new for safety reasons.

The major difference was security: Prior to the 19th century travel was dangerous inside realms, let alone all over the world.
If it hadn't been so dangerous the old Yishuv would've been far more numerous.

 

[ronki23]

There was nothing special to the Aliyot of the old and new Yishuv.
The old moved for religious and the new for safety reasons.

The major difference was security: Prior to the 19th century travel was dangerous inside realms, let alone all over the world.
If it hadn't been so dangerous the old Yishuv would've been far more numerous.

Welcome back

 

[Kooky]

There was nothing special to the Aliyot of the old and new Yishuv.
The old moved for religious and the new for safety reasons.

The major difference was security: Prior to the 19th century travel was dangerous inside realms, let alone all over the world.
If it hadn't been so dangerous the old Yishuv would've been far more numerous.

Sephardic Jews fled the Spanish inquisition en masse to the Netherlands and the Ottoman Empire, mass migration due to persecution is hardly a new phenomenon among Jewish communities. But I would recognize a difference between that, and calling for the creation of a sovereign nation state specifically to house all those migrants.

 

[ronki23]

Who oppressed the Jews before Hitler ? Particularly in Europe ?

The reason I'm asking is because there was a rather long period where there weren't that many Jews and more Palestinians living there ?

 

[rosends]

Who oppressed the Jews before Hitler ? Particularly in Europe ?

The reason I'm asking is because there was a rather long period where there weren't that many Jews and more Palestinians living there ?

Do you want a reverse chronological list based by countries listed alphabetically? The pogroms in Russia (and, for example, Chevron). The expulsions, the selective taxes, the forced conversions, the destroyed synagogues...it didn't all start in 1933 and it wasn;t limited to Europe -- the Palestinians (that is, the residents of the region pre-1948) included Jews who were murdered and whose belongings were taken.

---------edit-----------
a side thought -- even the renaming of the region as Syria Palestina was an example of oppression of Jews.

 

[ronki23]

Do you want a reverse chronological list based by countries listed alphabetically? The pogroms in Russia (and, for example, Chevron). The expulsions, the selective taxes, the forced conversions, the destroyed synagogues...it didn't all start in 1933 and it wasn;t limited to Europe -- the Palestinians (that is, the residents of the region pre-1948) included Jews who were murdered and whose belongings were taken.

---------edit-----------
a side thought -- even the renaming of the region as Syria Palestina was an example of oppression of Jews.

I'm not taking sides but wasn't there a period where there weren't many Jews in Palestine and it was an Arab majority ?

And if the Jews were persecuted in Europe before the Nazis them why were there so many still in Europe until the Nazis ?

Why didn't they leave Europe sooner if there were multiple purges in the Russian Empire? Wouldn't one purge be enough of a catalyst ?

I'm genuinely curious