The Land of Israel
Level: Basic |
The history of the Jewish people begins with
Abraham, and the story of Abraham begins when
G-d tells him to leave his homeland, promising
Abraham and his descendants a new home in the land of Canaan. (Gen. 12).
This is the land now known as Israel, named after Abraham's
grandson, whose descendants are the Jewish people.
The land is often referred to as the Promised Land because of G-d's repeated
promise (Gen. 12:7, 13:15, 15:18, 17:8) to give the land to the descendants
of Abraham.
The land is described repeatedly in the Torah
as a good land and "a land flowing with milk and honey" (e.g., Ex. 3:8).
This description may not seem to fit well with the desert images we see on
the nightly news, but let's keep in mind that the land was repeatedly abused
by conquerors who were determined to make the land uninhabitable for the
Jews. In the few decades since the Jewish people regained control of the
land, we have seen a tremendous improvement in its agriculture. Israeli
agriculture today has a very high yield.
Jews have lived in this land continuously from the time of its original conquest
by Joshua more than 3200 years ago until the present day, though Jews were
not always in political control of the land, and Jews were not always the
majority of the land's population.
The land of Israel is central to Judaism. A substantial portion of Jewish
law is tied to the land of Israel, and can only be performed there. Some
rabbis have declared that it is a mitzvah
(commandment) to take possession of Israel and to live in it (relying on
Num. 33:53). The Talmud indicates that the
land itself is so holy that merely walking in it can gain you a place in
the World to Come.
Prayers for a return to Israel and Jerusalem
are included in daily prayers as well as many
holiday observances and special events.
Living outside of Israel is viewed as an unnatural state for a Jew. The world
outside of Israel is often referred to as "galut," which is usually translated
as "diaspora" (dispersion), but a more literal translation would be "exile"
or "captivity." When we live outside of Israel, we are living in exile from
our land.
Jews were exiled from the land of Israel by the Romans in 135
C.E., after they defeated the Jews in a three-year
war, and Jews did not have any control over the land again until 1948 C.E.
The Jewish people never gave up hope that we
would someday return to our home in Israel. That hope is expressed in the
song Ha-Tikvah (The Hope), the anthem of the Zionist movement and the state
of
Israel.
Kol od baleivav p'nima
Nefesh Y'hudi homiya
Ul'fa-atey mizrach kadima
Ayin L'Tziyon tzofiya
Od lo avda tikvateynu
Hatikva bat sh'not alpayim
Lih'yot am chofshi b'artzenu
Eretz Tziyon v'yirushalayim.
Lih'yot am chofshi b'artzenu
Eretz Tziyon v'yirushalayim.
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As long as deep within the heart
The Jewish soul is warm
And toward the edges of the east
An eye to Zion looks
Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope of two thousand years
To be a free people in our own land
In the land of Zion and Jerusalem.
To be a free people in our own land
In the land of Zion and Jerusalem. |
But for a long time, this desire for our homeland was merely a vague hope
without any concrete plans to achieve it. In the late 1800s, Theodor Herzl
and Chaim Weizmann founded Zionism, a political movement dedicated to the
creation of a Jewish state. They saw a state of Israel as a necessary refuge
for Jewish victims of oppression, especially in Russia, where pogroms were
decimating the Jewish population.
The name "Zionism" comes from the word "Zion," which was the name of a stronghold
in Jerusalem. Over time, the term "Zion" came to be applied to Jerusalem
in general, and later to the Jewish idea of utopia.
Zionism was not a religious movement; it was a primarily political. The early
Zionists sought to establish a secular state of Israel, recognized by the
world, through purely legal means. Theodor Herzl, for example, was a completely
assimilated secular Jewish journalist. He felt little attachment to his Jewish
heritage until he covered the trial of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish captain in
the French military who was (unjustly) convicted of passing secrets to Germany.
The charges against Dreyfus brought out a wave of anti-Jewish sentiment that
shocked Herzl into realizing the need for a Jewish state. Early Zionists
were so desperate for a refuge at one point that they actually considered
a proposal to create a Jewish homeland in Uganda. Alaska and Siberia were
also discussed. But the only land that truly inspired Jewish people worldwide
was our ancient homeland, at that time a part of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire
known as Palestine.
During World War I, the Zionist cause gained some degree of support from
Great Britain. In a 1917 letter from British foreign secretary Lord Balfour
to Jewish financier Lord Rothschild, the British government expressed a
commitment to creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This letter is commonly
known as the Balfour Declaration. Unfortunately, the British were speaking
out of both sides of their mouth, simultaneously promising Arabs their freedom
if they helped to defeat the Ottoman Empire, which at that time controlled
most of the Middle East (including the modern states of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan,
and Iraq, as well as significant portions of Saudi Arabia and northern Africa).
The British promised the Arabs that they would limit Jewish settlement in
Palestine mere months after the Balfour Declaration expressed support for
"the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."
After World War I, Palestine was assigned to the United Kingdom as a mandated
territory by the newly-formed League of Nations. The Palestinian Mandate
initially included the lands that are now Israel and Jordan, but all lands
east of the Jordan River were later placed into a separate mandate known
as Transjordan (now the nation of Jordan). The document creating the Palestinian
mandate incorporated the terms of the Balfour Declaration, promising the
creation of a national Jewish homeland within the mandated territory. Many
Arab leaders were initially willing to give Palestine to the Jews if the
rest of the Arab lands in the Middle East were under Arab control. However,
the Arabs living in Palestine vigorously opposed Jewish immigration into
the territory and the idea of a Jewish homeland. It is around this time that
the idea of Palestinian nationality (distinct from Arab nationality generally)
first begins to appear. There were many riots in the territory, and the British
came to believe that the conflicting claims were irreconcilable. In 1937,
the British recommended partition of the territory.
The Holocaust brought the need for a Jewish homeland into sharp focus for
both Jews and for the rest of the world. The Jews who tried to flee Nazi
Germany were often turned back due to immigration limitations at the borders
of every country, including the United States, Britain and Palestine. Many
of those who were sent back to Germany ended up in death camps where they
were systematically murdered.
The British were unable to come up with a solution that would satisfy either
Arabs or Jews, so in 1947, they handed the problem to the newly-founded United
Nations, which developed a partition plan dividing Palestine into Jewish
and Arab portions. The plan was ratified in November 1947. The mandate expired
on May 14, 1948 and British troops pulled out of Palestine. The Jews of Palestine
promptly declared the creation of the State of Israel, which was recognized
by several Western countries immediately.
However, the surrounding Arab nations did not recognize the validity of Israel
and invaded, claiming that they were filling a vacuum created by the termination
of the mandate and the absence of any legal authority to replace it. The
Arabs fought a year-long war to drive the Jews out. Miraculously, the new
state of Israel won this war, as well as every subsequent Arab-Israeli war,
gaining territory every time the Arabs attacked them.
 Today, approximately five million Jews, more than
a third of the world's Jewish population,
live in the land of Israel. Jews make up more than eighty percent of the
population of the land, and Jews are in political control of the land, though
non-Jews who become citizens of Israel have the same legal rights as Jewish
citizens of Israel. In fact, there are a few Arab members of the Knesset
(the Israeli parliament).
About half of all Israelis are Mizrachim,
descended from Jews who have been in the land since ancient times or who
were forced out of Arab countries after Israel was founded. Most of the rest
are Ashkenazic, descended from Jews who
fled persecution in Eastern Europe starting in the late 1800s, from Holocaust
survivors, or from other immigrants who came at various times. About 1% of
the Israeli population are the black Ethiopian Jews who fled during the brutal
Ethiopian famine in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Jews continue to immigrate to Israel in large numbers. Immigration to Israel
is referred to as aliyah (literally, ascension). Under Israel's Law of Return,
any Jew who has not renounced the Jewish faith
(by converting to another religion) can automatically become an Israeli citizen,
somewhat similar to the way Ireland gives automatic citizenship to second
or third generation descendants of Irish citizens.
Gentiles may also become citizens of Israel
after undergoing a standard naturalization process, much like the one required
to become a United States citizen.
Israel is governed by a legislative body called the Knesset (literally,
"Assembly"), made up of 120 members. Under the Israeli electoral system,
each party presents a list of candidates, and voters vote for the list rather
than for individual candidates. The party receives a number of seats proportional
to the number of votes it received, thus a party getting 10% of the vote
will get 10% of the available seats. As a result, no Israeli party ever has
a majority of the seats in the Knesset, and governmental business is conducted
by coalition building. This system can give minority groups a significant
amount of power, because their support may be needed to gain a majority.
Israel also has a president, elected by the Knesset, and a Prime Minister,
formerly elected directly but this system is in flux.
Most Jews today support the existence of the state of Israel, though not
necessarily all of the policies of its government (as one would expect in
any democracy). There are a small number of secular Jews who are anti-Zionist.
There is also a very small group of right-wing
Orthodox Jews who object to the existence
of the state of Israel, maintaining that it is a sin for us to create a Jewish
state when the messiah has not yet come. However,
this viewpoint does not reflect the mainstream opinion of Orthodoxy. Most
Orthodox Jews support the existence of the state of Israel as a homeland,
even though it is not the theological state of Israel that will be brought
about by the messiah.
This page barely scratches the surface of all there is to say about Israel
and Zionism. There are entire sites devoted to these subjects. Here are a
few that are worth checking out:
For an interesting perspective on the situation in Israel today, check out
The Long
Road to the Promised Land, a blog written by Gunter David. Gunter is
a retired American journalist who grew up in the land that is now Israel
before Israel became a state. His wife's family was in that land for four
generations, and both of them have family in Israel.
Virtual Jerusalem is a great
place to start your search for information about Israel. The site is based
in Israel, and has lots of useful information, including Israeli news, travel
information, information about making aliyah, and lots of great links.
You can also find a lot of useful information and links in
Shamash's Israel section.
AICE is an organization devoted to
fostering political, military and economic cooperation between the United
States and Israel.
 If you are interested in the history
of Zionism, you may want to read the founding treatise on the subject, Theodor
Herzl's
The
Jewish State, which you can buy from amazon.com by clicking the title
above.
© Copyright 5759-5766 (1999-2006), Tracey
R Rich
Unless otherwise stated on a page, the contents of this site,
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herein, were created by and are the sole property of Tracey R Rich. The contents
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