The Real Founders of the State of Israel

[shai77]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5kPtOT7qHw

[angryChineseKahanist]

I thought you were going to say hashem.

[shai77]

I thought this was an interesting video because I thought the secular zionists founded Israel but as we see it wasn't actually them who got there first.

[Dr. Dan]

The Yemenite Jews were amongst the first ones to make Aliyah before the founding of the current state.  But correct me if I"m wrong

[shai77]

not sure...maybe some came on foot or horseback but I think most waited due to some prophecy about them being brought on the wings of an eagle.

[muman613]

The first aliyah began in 1882 from Europe...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Aliyah

The First Aliyah (also The Farmers' Aliyah) was the first modern widespread wave of Zionist aliyah. Jews who migrated to Ottoman Palestine in this wave came mostly from Eastern Europe and from Yemen. "The First Aliyah began in 1882 and continued, intermittently, until 1903".[1][2] An estimated 25,000[3]–35,000[4] Jews immigrated to Ottoman Palestine during the First Aliyah. While all throughout history Jews immigrated to Israel (such as the Vilna Gaon's group), these were generally smaller groups with more religious motives, and did not have a purely secular political goal in mind.

Eastern European immigration[edit]

Reasons for immigration[edit]

The immigration to Ottoman Palestine occurred as part of the mass emigrations from Eastern Europe of approximately 2.5 million people[5] that occurred towards the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

A rapid increase in population had created economic problems in Eastern Europe. The problems affected Jewish societies in the Pale of Settlement, Galicia, and Romania.

Russian persecution of Jews was also a factor. In 1881, the czar Alexander II of Russia was assassinated, and the ruling bodies blamed the Jews for the assassination. Consequently, in addition to the May Laws, major anti-Jewish pogroms swept the Pale of Settlement. A movement called Hibbat Zion (love of Zion) spread across the Pale (helped by Leon Pinsker's pamphlet Auto-Emancipation), as well as the similar Bilu movement, which both encouraged Jews to immigrate to Ottoman Palestine.

Jews emigrated in relatively high numbers, proportionate to the Jewish population.[clarification needed] About 2 million of the 3.5 million went to the United States.[6] Only a small minority of 25,000 Jews moved to Ottoman Palestine.[7] Immigration took place in two primary stages 1881-2 and 1890-1. Land of Israel, also referred as Palestine and Southern Syria, was a part of the Ottoman Empire during this period.

The first central committee for the settlement of the Land of Israel and Syria which was also under the Ottoman rule was established by a convention of "Unions for the Agricultural Settlement of Israel" (Focsani Congress) held on January 11, 1882 in Romania. The committee was the first organization to form group aliyahs, such as the Jewish passenger ships it set sail from Galaţi.

After the first wave (early 1880s) there was another spike in aliyah in 1890. The reasons for the increase were:

* The Russian government officially approved the activity of Hovevei Zion in 1890. That same year the "Odessa Committee" began its operation in Jaffa. The purpose of this organization was to absorb immigrants in Ottoman Syria that came as a result of Hovevei Zion in Russia.

* Russian Jewry's situation deteriorated:

     * The authorities continued to push Jews out of business and trade.

     * Moscow was almost entirely "cleansed" of Jews.[8]

* The financial situation of the settlements from the previous decade improved due to the Baron de Rothschild's assistance (orchards were planted, wineries started).