Jewish Populations during Middle Ages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_diaspora

Ashkenazi Jews

Ashkenazi Jews is a general category of Jewish populations who immigrated to what is now Germany and northeastern France during the Middle Ages and until modern times used to adhere to the Yiddish culture and the Ashkenazi prayer style.

Sephardic Jews

Sephardi Jews are Jews whose ancestors lived in Spain or Portugal. Some 300,000 Jews resided in Spain before the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century, when the Reyes Católicos reconquered Spain from the Arabs and ordered the Jews to convert to Catholicism, leave the country or face execution without trial. Those who chose not to convert, between 40,000 and 100,000, were expelled from Spain in 1492 in the wake of the Alhambra decree.[113] Sephardic Jews subsequently migrated to North Africa (Maghreb), Christian Europe (Netherlands, Britain, France and Poland), throughout the Ottoman Empire and even the newly discovered Latin America. In the Ottoman Empire, the Sephardim mostly settled in the European portion of the Empire, and mainly in the major cities such as: Istanbul, Selânik and Bursa. Selânik, which is today known as Thessaloniki and found in modern-day Greece, had a large and flourishing Sephardic community as was the community of Maltese Jews in Malta.

Mizrahi Jews

Mizrahi Jews are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus, largely originating from the Babylonian Jewry of the classic period. The term Mizrahi is used in Israel in the language of politics, media and some social scientists for Jews from the Arab world and adjacent, primarily Muslim-majority countries. The definition of Mizrahi includes the modern Iraqi Jews, Syrian Jews, Lebanese Jews, Persian Jews, Afghan Jews, Bukharian Jews, Kurdish Jews, Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews. Some also include the North-African Sephardic communities and Yemenite Jews under the definition of Mizrahi, but do that from rather political generalization than ancestral reasons.

Yemenite Jews

Temanim

Temanim are Jews who were living in Yemen prior to immigrating to Ottoman Palestine and Israel.

Karaim

Karaim are Jews who used to live mostly in Egypt, Iraq, and Crimea during the Middle Ages. T

https://en.wikipediaorg/wiki/Jewish_diaspora

Ethnic - Sephardic or Sephardi Jews

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephardic_Jews

Sephardic or Sephardi Jews (Hebrew: יהדות ספרד, romanized: Yahadut Sefarad, transl. Jewry of Hispania; Ladino: Djudíos Sefardíes), also Sephardim [a][1] or Peninsular Jews,[2] are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the Iberian Peninsula. The term, which is derived from the Hebrew Sepharad (lit. 'Spain'), can also refer to the Mizrahi Jews of Western Asia and North Africa, who were also influenced by Sephardic law and customs.[3] Many Iberian Jewish exiles also later sought refuge in Mizrahi Jewish communities, resulting in integration with those communities.

The Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula prospered for centuries under the Muslim reign of Al-Andalus following the Umayyad conquest of Hispania, but their fortunes began to decline with the Christian Reconquista campaign to retake Spain. In 1492, the Alhambra Decree by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain called for the expulsion of Jews, and in 1496, King Manuel I of Portugal issued a similar edict for the expulsion of both Jews and Muslims.[4] These actions resulted in a combination of internal and external migrations, mass conversions, and executions. By the late 15th century, Sephardic Jews had been largely expelled from Spain and scattered across North Africa, Western Asia, Southern and Southeastern Europe, either settling near existing Jewish communities or as the first in new frontiers, such as along the Silk Road.[5]

Historically, the vernacular languages of the Sephardic Jews and their descendants have been variants of either Spanish, Portuguese, or Catalan, though they have also adopted and adapted other languages. The historical forms of Spanish that differing Sephardic communities spoke communally were related to the date of their departure from Iberia and their status at that time as either New Christians or Jews. Judaeo-Spanish, also called Ladino, is a Romance language derived from Old Spanish that was spoken by the eastern Sephardic Jews who settled in the Eastern Mediterranean after their expulsion from Spain in 1492; Haketia (also known as "Tetuani Ladino" in Algeria), an Arabic-influenced variety of Judaeo-Spanish, was spoken by North African Sephardic Jews who settled in the region after the 1492 Spanish expulsion.

In 2015, more than five centuries after the expulsion, both Spain and Portugal enacted laws allowing Sephardic Jews who could prove their ancestral origins in those countries to apply for citizenship.[6] The Spanish law that offered citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews expired in 2019, although subsequent extensions were granted by the Spanish government —due to the COVID-19 pandemic— in order to file pending documents and sign delayed declarations before a notary public in Spain.[7] In the case of Portugal, the nationality law was modified in 2022 with very stringent requirements for new Sephardic applicants,[8][9] effectively ending the possibility of successful applications without evidence of a personal travel history to Portugal —which is tantamount to prior permanent residence— or ownership of inherited property or concerns on Portuguese soil.[10]

Etymology

The name Sephardi means "Spanish" or "Hispanic", derived from Sepharad (Hebrew: סְפָרַד‎, Modern: Sfarád, Tiberian: Səp̄āráḏ), a Biblical location.[11] The location of the biblical Sepharad points to the Iberian peninsula, then the westernmost outpost of Phoenician maritime trade.[12] Jewish presence in Iberia is believed to have started during the reign of King Solomon, whose excise imposed taxes on Iberian exiles. Although the first date of arrival of Jews in Iberia is the subject of ongoing archaeological research, there is evidence of established Jewish communities as early as the 1st century CE.[13][better source needed]

Modern transliteration of Hebrew romanizes the consonant פ (pe without a dagesh dot placed in its center) as the digraph ph, in order to represent fe or the single phoneme /f/ , the English sound that is voiceless labiodental fricative. In other languages and scripts, "Sephardi" may be translated as plural Hebrew: סְפָרַדִּים‎, Modern: Sfaraddim, Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm; Spanish: Sefardíes; Portuguese: Sefarditas; Catalan: Sefardites; Aragonese: Safardís; Basque: Sefardiak; French: Séfarades; Galician: Sefardís; Italian: Sefarditi; Greek: Σεφαρδίτες, Sephardites; Serbo-Croatian: Сефарди, Sefardi; Judaeo-Spanish: Sefaradies/Sefaradim; and Arabic: سفارديون, Safārdiyyūn.

Definition

Jewish Festival in Tetuan, Alfred Dehodencq, 1865, Paris Museum of Jewish Art and History

Narrow ethnic definition

In the narrower ethnic definition, a Sephardi Jew is one descended from the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula in the late 15th century, immediately prior to the issuance of the Alhambra Decree of 1492 by order of the Catholic Monarchs in Spain, and the decree of 1496 in Portugal by order of King Manuel I.

In Hebrew, the term "Sephardim Tehorim" (ספרדים טהורים‎, literally "Pure Sephardim"), derived from a misunderstanding of the initials ס"ט "Samekh Tet" traditionally used with some proper names (which stand for sofo tov, "may his end be good"[14][better source needed]), has in recent times been used in some quarters to distinguish Sephardim proper, "who trace their lineage back to the Iberian/Spanish population", from Sephardim in the broader religious sense.[15] This distinction has also been made in reference to 21st-century genetic findings in research on 'Pure Sephardim', in contrast to other communities of Jews today who are part of the broad classification of Sephardi.[16]

Ethnic Sephardic Jews have had a presence in North Africa and various parts of the Mediterranean and Western Asia due to their expulsion from Spain. There have also been Sephardic communities in South America and India.

Katalanim

Originally the Jews spoke of Sefarad referring to Al-Andalus[17] and not the entire peninsula, nor as it is understood today, in which the term Sefarad is used in modern Hebrew to refer to Spain.[18] This has caused a long misunderstanding, since traditionally the entire Iberian Diaspora has been included in a single group. But the historiographical research reveals that that word, seen as homogeneous, was actually divided into distinct groups: the Sephardim, coming from the countries of the Castilian crown, Castilian language speakers, and the Katalanim / Katalaní, originally from the Crown of Aragon, Judeo-Catalan speakers.[19][20][21][22]

Broad religious definition

See also: Sephardic law and customs, Sephardic Haredim, Maghrebi Jews, Mashriqi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, and Jewish ethnic divisions

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The modern Israeli Hebrew definition of Sephardi is a much broader, religious based, definition that generally excludes ethnic considerations. In its most basic form, this broad religious definition of a Sephardi refers to any Jew, of any ethnic background, who follows the customs and traditions of Sepharad. For religious purposes, and in modern Israel, "Sephardim" is most often used in this wider sense. It encompasses most non-Ashkenazi Jews who are not ethnically Sephardi, but are in most instances of West Asian or North African origin. They are classified as Sephardi because they commonly use a Sephardic style of liturgy; this constitutes a majority of Mizrahi Jews in the 21st century.

The term Sephardi in the broad sense, describes the nusach (Hebrew language, "liturgical tradition") used by Sephardi Jews in their Siddur (prayer book). A nusach is defined by a liturgical tradition's choice of prayers, order of prayers, text of prayers and melodies used in the singing of prayers. Sephardim traditionally pray using Minhag Sefarad.

The term Nusach Sefard or Nusach Sfarad does not refer to the liturgy generally recited by Sephardim proper or even Sephardi in a broader sense, but rather to an alternative Eastern European liturgy used by many Hasidim, who are Ashkenazi.

Additionally, Ethiopian Jews, whose branch of practiced Judaism is known as Haymanot, have been included under the oversight of Israel's already broad Sephardic Chief Rabbinate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephardic_Jews  

The Land of Israel

אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל

Eretz Yisra'el (in Hebrew)

• Israel is the land promised to Abraham in the Bible

• Israel is central to the Jewish religion

• Zionism is a political movement to establish a Jewish homeland

• Israel is a democratic country

• Israel is home to more than 1/3 of the world's Jews

• 20% of Israel's citizens are not Jewish

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, Gen. 13:15, Gen. 15:18, Gen. 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 and were at times a small minority.

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.

What's Nu? | Current Calendar | About
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https://www.jewfaq.org/land_of_israel  

Genes Suggest European Women at Root of Ashkenazi Family Tree

By Nicholas Wade

• Oct. 8, 2013\

• https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/science/ashkenazi-origins-may-be-with-european-women-study-finds.html#:~:text=A%20new%20genetic%20analysis%20has,source%20of%20the%20Ashkenazi%20ancestors.

• 
  

Over the last 15 years geneticists have identified links between the world’s Jewish communities that point to a common ancestry as well as a common religion. Still, the origin of one of the most important Jewish populations, the Ashkenazim of Central and Eastern Europe, has remained a mystery.

A new genetic analysis has now filled in another piece of the origins puzzle, pointing to European women as the principal female founders, and to the Jewish community of the early Roman empire as the possible source of the Ashkenazi ancestors.

The finding establishes that the women who founded the Ashkenazi Jewish community of Europe were not from the Near East, as previously supposed, and reinforces the idea that many Jewish communities outside Israel were founded by single men who married and converted local women.

The study, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, is based on a genetic analysis of maternal lineages. A team led by Martin B. Richards of the University of Huddersfield in England took a fresh look at Ashkenazi lineages by decoding the entire mitochondrial genomes of people from Europe and the Near East.

Earlier DNA studies showed that Jewish communities around the world had been founded by men whose Y chromosomes bore DNA patterns typically found in the Near East. But there was a surprise when geneticists turned to examine the women founders by analyzing mitochondrial DNA, a genetic element that is separate from the main human genome and inherited just through the female line.

Unlike the Y chromosomes, the mitochondrial DNA showed no common pattern. In several of the smaller Jewish communities it clearly resembled that of the surrounding population, suggesting a migration pattern in which the men had arrived single, perhaps as traders, and taken local wives who then converted to Judaism.

But it wasn’t clear whether or not this was true of the Ashkenazim. Mitochondrial DNA tends to change quite rapidly, or to drift, as geneticists say, and the Ashkenazi DNA has drifted so far it was hard to pinpoint its origin.

This uncertainty seemed to be resolved by a survey published in 2006. Its authors reported that the four most common mitochondrial DNA lineages among Ashkenazis came from the Near East, implying that just four Jewish women were the ancestresses of nearly half of today’s Ashkenazim. Under this scenario, it seemed more likely that the Ashkenazim were the result of a migration of whole communities of men and women together.

But decoding DNA was still quite expensive at that time and the authors of the 2006 survey analyzed only a short length of the mitochondrial DNA, containing just 1,000 or so of its 16,600 DNA units, in all their subjects.

The four mitochondrial lineages common among Ashkenazis are now very rare elsewhere in the Near East and Europe, making it hard to identify with certainty the lineages from which they originated.

With the entire mitochondrial genome in hand, Dr. Richards could draw up family trees with a much finer resolution than before. His trees show that the four major Ashkenazi lineages in fact form clusters within descent lines that were established in Europe some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. The same is true of most of the minor lineages.

“Thus the great majority of Ashkenazi maternal lineages were not brought from the Levant, as commonly supposed,” Dr. Richards and colleagues conclude in their paper. Overall, at least 80 percent of Ashkenazi maternal ancestry comes from women indigenous to Europe, and 8 percent from the Near East, with the rest uncertain, the researchers estimate.

Dr. Richards estimates that the four major lineages became incorporated into the Ashkenazi community at least 2,000 years ago. A large Jewish community flourished in Rome at this time and included many converts. This community could have been the source of both the Ashkenazim of Europe and the Sephardim of Spain and Portugal, given that the two groups have considerable genetic commonality, Dr. Richards said.

Doron M. Behar, of the Gene by Gene company in Houston and a co-author of the 2006 survey, said he disagreed with Dr. Richards’ conclusions but declined to explain his reasons, saying they had to appear first in a scientific journal.

David B. Goldstein, a geneticist at Duke University who first detected the similarity between the founding mothers of Jewish communities and their host populations, said the new analysis was well done but that the estimate of 80 percent European origin for the Ashkenazi maternal lineages was not statistically justified, given that mitochondrial DNA lineages rise and fall in a random way.

A recent analysis based on the whole genomes, not just mitochondrial DNA, of Jewish communities around the world noted that almost all overlap with non-Jewish populations of the Levant, “consistent with an ancestral Levantine contribution to much of contemporary Jewry.” Dr. Richards said that the finding was compatible with his own, given that the Levantine contribution was not that great.

Another recent study, also based on whole genomes, found that a mixture of European ancestries ranged from 30 percent to 60 percent among Ashkenazi and Sephardi populations, with Northern Italians showing the greatest proximity to Jews of any Europeans.

The authors of this study in Nature Communications, led by Gil Atzmon of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, noted that there had been mass conversions to Judaism in the early Roman empire, resulting in some 6 million citizens, or 10 percent of the population, practicing Judaism.

Dr. Richards sees this as a possible time and place at which the four European lineages could have entered the Jewish community, becoming very numerous much later as the Ashkenazi population in northern Europe expanded from around 25,000 in 1300 A.D., to more than 8.5 million at the beginning of the 20th century.

The Mysteries and Wonders of Our DNA

• In the first effort of its kind, researchers now have linked DNA from 27 African Americans buried in the cemetery to nearly 42,000 living relatives.

• Environmental DNA research has aided conservation, but scientists say its ability to glean information about humans poses dangers.

• More than 20 years after scientists first released a draft sequence of the human genome, a newly released edition that accounted for different ethnic backgrounds is a major step toward a deeper understanding of human biology.

• That person who looks just like you is not your twin. But if scientists compared your genomes, they might find a lot in common.

• Firms are turning to DNA and A.I. to help answer a surprisingly tricky question: What country do some products really come from?

• A team of scientists spent years tracking down some of the strangest creatures on Earth. The findings may help learn more about human health.

Genes Suggest European Women at Root of Ashkenazi Family Tree - The New York Times.

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GENES- Key thing–previously thought four mothers from the near east…

GENEs-Nearly Half Of Ashkenazi Jews Descended From Four 'Founding Mothers'

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060117083446.htm

Date: January 17, 2006

The Matrilineal Ancestry of Ashkenazi Jewry: Portrait of a Recent Founder Event

Volume 78, Issue 3, March 2006, Pages 487-497

Source: American Technion Society

Some 3.5 million or 40 percent of Ashkenazi Jews are descended from just four “founding mothers” who lived in Europe 1,000 years ago. The mothers were part of a small group who founded the Ashkenazi Jewish community, which was established in Europe as a result of migration from the Near East. 

Both the extent and location of the maternal ancestral deme from which the Ashkenazi Jewry arose remain obscure. Here, using complete sequences of the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), we show that close to one-half of Ashkenazi Jews, estimated at 8,000,000 people, can be traced back to only 4 women carrying distinct mtDNAs that are virtually absent in other populations, with the important exception of low frequencies among non-Ashkenazi Jews. We conclude that four founding mtDNAs, likely of Near Eastern ancestry, underwent major expansion(s) in Europe within the past millennium.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929707623878

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Yishuv

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yishuv

Yishuv (Hebrew: ישוב, literally "settlement"), Ha-Yishuv (Hebrew: הישוב "the Yishuv"), or Ha-Yishuv Ha-Ivri (Hebrew: הישוב העברי "the Hebrew Yishuv") denote the body of Jewish residents in the Land of Israel (corresponding to the southern part of Ottoman Syria until 1918, OETA South 1917–1920, and Mandatory Palestine 1920–1948) prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. 

The term came into use in the 1880s, when there were about 25,000 Jews living across the Land of Israel, and continued to be used until 1948, by which time there were some 630,000 Jews there.[1] The term is still in use to denote the pre-1948 Jewish residents in the Land of Israel.[2]

A distinction is sometimes drawn between the Old Yishuv and the New Yishuv. The Old Yishuv refers to all the Jews living in the Land of Israel before the first Zionist immigration wave (aliyah) of 1882, and to their descendants who kept the old, non-Zionist way of life until 1948. The Old Yishuv residents were religious Jews, living mainly in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, and Hebron. There were smaller communities in Jaffa, Haifa, Peki'in, Acre, Nablus, Shfaram, and until 1779[citation needed] also in Gaza. In the final centuries before modern Zionism, a large part of the Old Yishuv spent their time studying the Torah and lived off charity (halukka), donated by Jews in the Diaspora.[3]

The term New Yishuv refers to those who adopted a new approach, based on economic independence and various national ideologies, rather than strictly religious reasons for settling in the "Holy Land".[citation needed] The precursors already began building homes outside the Old City walls of Jerusalem in the 1860s, followed soon after by the founders of the moshava of Petah Tikva, and fully getting in swing with the First Aliyah of 1882, followed by the founding of neighbourhoods and villages until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.[citation needed]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yishuv  

Collection Guide - Historical Papers at Hoover Institution

∞ https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf8870063c/

Collection Title:

Collection Number:

Get Items:

Hurewitz (J. C.) papers

https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf8870063c/dsc/

box 2, folder 7

Iraq. Correspondence Relating to Assyrian Settlement from 13th July 1932 to 5th August 1933. Booklet printed by Government of Iraq 1933

Israel/Palestine

box 3, folder 1

Agudas Israel World Organization. Memoranda and conference reports 1941-1946

Scope and Contents note

Includes Isaac Breuer, "Judaism and National Home" (mainly processed).

Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry

box 3, folder 2

Arab evidence 1946

Scope and Contents note

Processed.

box 3, folder 3

Statement to Committee by Ihud (Union) Association of Palestine 1946

Scope and Contents note

Processed.

box 3, folder 4

Archives. Legal agreement and pamphlet 1952-1954

Scope and Contents note

In Hebrew (processed).

https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf8870063c/dsc/

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\

Collection Guide - Historical Papers at Hoover Institution

∞ https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf8870063c/

Collection Title:

Collection Number:

Get Items:

Hurewitz (J. C.) papers

https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf8870063c/dsc/

Iraq. Correspondence Relating to Assyrian Settlement from 13th July 1932 to 5th August 1933. Booklet printed by Government of Iraq 1933

https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf8870063c/dsc/  

Jewish Migration into Israel

The First Aliyah  - 25,000 emigrants to Israel 

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

The First Aliyah (Hebrew: העלייה הראשונה, HaAliyah HaRishona), also known as the agriculture Aliyah, was a major wave of Jewish immigration (aliyah) to Ottoman Syria between 1881 and 1903.[1][2] Jews who migrated in this wave came mostly from Eastern Europe and from Yemen. 

An estimated 25,000[3] Jews immigrated. Many of the European Jewish immigrants during the late 19th-early 20th century period gave up after a few months and went back to their country of origin, often suffering from hunger and disease.[4]

Because there had been a wave of immigration to Palestine starting in the mid-19th century (between 1840 and 1880, the Jewish population rose from 9,000 to 23,000),[5] use of the term "First Aliyah" is controversial.[6] Nearly all of the Jews from Eastern Europe before that time came from traditional Jewish families who were not inspired by modern Zionist ideology, but rather by traditional ideas of the holiness of the land combined with practical / economic considerations.[5]

After the first wave in the early 1880s, there was another spike in 1890. The Russian Empire officially approved the activity of Hovevei Zion in 1890. The same year, the "Odessa Committee" began its operation in Jaffa. The purpose of this organization was to absorb immigrants to Ottoman Syria who came as a result of the activities of Hovevei Zion in Russia. Also Russian Jewry's situation deteriorated as the authorities continued to push Jews out of business and trade and Moscow was almost entirely cleansed of Jews.[9]

The relationship of the members of the First Aliyah with the Old Yishuv was strained. There were disagreements about economic and ideological issues. Only a few groups from the Old Yishuv sought to take part in the First Aliyah's settlement effort, one such group being the Peace of Jerusalem (Shlom Yerushalayim).[10]

Israeli historian Benny Morris wrote:

But the major cause of tension and violence throughout the period 1882–1914 was not accidents, misunderstandings or the attitudes and behaviors of either side, but objective historical conditions and the conflicting interests and goals of the two populations. The Arabs sought instinctively to retain the Arab and Muslim character of the region and to maintain their position as its rightful inhabitants; the Zionists sought radically to change the status quo, buy as much land as possible, settle on it, and eventually turn an Arab-populated country into a Jewish homeland.
For decades the Zionists tried to camouflage their real aspirations, for fear of angering the authorities and the Arabs. They were, however, certain of their aims and of the means needed to achieve them. Internal correspondence amongst the olim from the very beginning of the Zionist enterprise leaves little room for doubt.[11]

From Eastern Europe

Jewish immigration to Ottoman Palestine from Eastern Europe occurred as part of mass emigrations of approximately 2.5 million people[12] that took place towards the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. A rapid increase in population had created economic problems that affected Jewish societies in the Pale of Settlement in Russia, Galicia, and Romania.[7]

Persecution of Jews in Russia was also a factor. In 1881, Tsar Alexander II of Russia was assassinated, and the authorities 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 did the similar Bilu movement. Both movements encouraged Jews to emigrate to Ottoman Palestine.[citation needed]

From Yemen

The first group of immigrants from Yemen came approximately seven months before most of the Eastern European Jews arrived in Palestine.[citation needed]

Due to the changes in the Ottoman Empire, citizens could move more freely, and in 1869, travel was improved with the opening of the Suez Canal, which reduced the travel time from Yemen to Ottoman Syria. Certain Yemenite Jews interpreted these changes and the new developments in the "Holy Land" as heavenly signs that the time of redemption was near. By settling in Ottoman Syria, they would play a part in what they believed could precipitate the anticipated messianic era. Emigration from Yemen to the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem (Ottoman Syria) began in early 1881 and continued almost without interruption until 1914. It was during this time that about 10% of the Yemenite Jews left. From 1881 to 1882, a few hundred Jews left Sanaa and several nearby settlements. This wave was followed by other Jews from central Yemen who continued to move into Ottoman Syrian provinces until 1914. The majority of these groups moved into Jerusalem and Jaffa. In 1884, some families settled into a new-built neighborhood called Yemenite Village Kfar Hashiloach (Hebrew: כפר השילוח) in the Jerusalem district of Silwan, and built the Old Yemenite Synagogue.[13][14]

Before World War I, there was another wave that began in 1906 and continued until 1914. Hundreds of Yemenite Jews made their way to Ottoman Syria and chose to settle in the agricultural settlements. It was after these movements that the World Zionist Organization sent Shmuel Yavne'eli to Yemen to encourage Jews to emigrate to the Land of Israel. Yavne'eli reached Yemen at the beginning of 1911 and returned to Ottoman Syria in April 1912. Due to Yavne'eli's efforts, about 1,000 Jews left central and southern Yemen, with several hundred more arriving before 1914.[15]

Settlement

Kindergarten in Rishon Lezion, c.1898

The First Aliyah laid the cornerstone for Jewish settlement in Israel and created several settlements – Rishon LeZion, Rosh Pinna, Zikhron Ya'akov, Gedera, among others. Immigrants of the First Aliyah also contributed to existing Jewish towns and settlements, notably Petah Tikva. The first neighbourhoods of Tel Aviv (Neve Tzedek, 1887; and Neve Shalom, 1890) were also built by members of the aliyah, although it was not until the Second Aliyah that Tel Aviv was officially founded.[citation needed]

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The Second Aliyah  - 35,000 emigrants

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Aliyah

The Second Aliyah (Hebrew: העלייה השנייה, HaAliyah HaShniya) was an aliyah (Jewish immigration to Palestine) that took place between 1904 and 1914, during which approximately 35,000 Jews immigrated into Ottoman-ruled Palestine, mostly from the Russian Empire,[1] some from Yemen.[2]

The Second Aliyah was a small part of the greater emigration of Jews from Eastern Europe which lasted from the 1870s until the 1920s. During this time, over two million Jews emigrated from Eastern Europe. The majority of these emigrants settled in the United States where there was the greatest economic opportunity. Others settled in South America, Australia, and South Africa and only a small fraction of Jews who migrated went to Palestine.[3]

There are multiple reasons for this mass emigration from Eastern Europe and the most commonly talked about is the growing antisemitism in Russia and the Pale of Settlement. The manifestations of this antisemitism were various pogroms, notably the Kishinev pogrom and the pogroms that attended the 1905 Russian Revolution. The other major factor for emigration was economic hardship. The majority of the Jewish population of Eastern Europe was poor and they left in search of a better life. Jews left Eastern Europe in search of a better economic situation which the majority found in the United States.[4]

Palestine on the other hand offered very limited economic incentives for new immigrants. Palestine was not a place for poor immigrants to come and better their economic situation because there was very little industry. Thus, the majority of the Jewish immigrants found a livelihood through working the land.[citation needed] Many of the European Jewish immigrants during the late 19th-early 20th century period gave up after a few months and went back to their country of origin, often suffering from hunger and disease.[5] David Ben Gurion estimated that 90% of the Second Aliyah “despaired of the country and left”.[6]

Settlement

Many of the Second Aliyah immigrants were idealists, inspired by the revolutionary ideals then sweeping the Russian Empire who sought to create a communal agricultural settlement system in Palestine; others were evading conscription into the Tzarist Russian army.[7] In 1906 there were 13 Jewish agricultural settlements all owned or administered by the Jewish Colonisation Association and funded by Baron Edmond de Rothschild. In 1907 it is estimated there were 550 active pioneers[8] The first kibbutz, Degania, was founded in 1909.

Most of those arriving were married, many with children; 40% were women. Few had any resources and many remained destitute.[9] Some of the immigrants, such as Akiva Aryeh Weiss, who preferred to settle in the new district created Ahuzat Bayit near Jaffa, which was later renamed as Tel Aviv. In 1914 it had a Jewish population of 2,000.[10]

Wider immigration and Zionism

There is a large misconception that Zionism played a major role in the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel during The Second Aliyah. While Zionism may have had some influence, it cannot be viewed as a substantial factor of influencing emigration to Ottoman Syria when looking at the greater context of Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe. The two major reasons for Jewish emigration were poverty and persecution and Ottoman Syria did not offer a respite from either. Jews emigrating from Eastern Europe often experienced much hardship on their way to their destinations, especially those going to Palestine.[11] Ottoman government had been negative to the migration of Jews ("Yishuv") to Palestine from late 19th c. till the end of the 1st World War. One of the reasons was that most of the Jews had foreign citizenship, which curtailed the Empire's ability to deal with them and enforce Ottoman law. Expulsions, deportations, arrests, denial of Ottoman nationality were some of the measures used to contain the Jewish immigration. Among the deportees were David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi.[12]

The idea that the Second Aliyah was a realization of the zionist movement does not take all the hardships endured by the immigrants into account. Because of this, the majority of Jewish emigrants went to the United States where there was much more economic opportunity. Between the years 1907-1914 almost 1.5 million Jews went through Ellis Island, while only about 20,000 immigrated to Palestine.[13]

The word Aliyah in Hebrew means ascent, which has the idealistic connotation of returning to the ancient Jewish homeland, reflected by Zionism. In reality Zionism had little influence on Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel during that period. As the Zionist movement gained strength through the 20th century, more Jews immigrated to the Land of Israel as a result. However, during the Second Aliyah period, 1904-1914, Zionism did not play a big role in influencing Jewish immigration.[citation needed] One of Ben Gurion's biographers states that there were only a few hundred idealists like Ben Gurion, totaling fewer than half the number of Templers living in Palestine at the time.[14]

Culture

The Second Aliyah is largely credited with the revival of the Hebrew language and establishing it as the standard language for Jews in Israel. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda contributed to the creation of the first modern Hebrew dictionary. Although he was an immigrant of the First Aliyah, his work mostly bore fruit during the second.

Ya'acov Ben-Dov became the first filmmaker to work in Hebrew.

The Second Aliyah also established the first Hebrew high school in Israel, the Herzliya Hebrew High School in Tel Aviv.

Prior to the First World War it is estimated that more than 40,000 of the Jews in Palestine held Russian citizenship.[15]

Defense

The Second Aliyah created the security organization, HaShomer, which became the precedent for future Jewish defense organizations such as the Haganah. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Aliyah

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Hovevei Zion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovevei_Zion

Hovevei Zion (Hebrew: חובבי ציון, lit. [Those who are] Lovers of Zion), also known as Hibbat Zion (Hebrew: חיבת ציון), refers to a variety of organizations which were founded in 1881 in response to the Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire and were officially constituted as a group at a conference led by Leon Pinsker in 1884.[1]

The organizations are now considered the forerunners and foundation-builders of modern Zionism. Many of the first groups were established in Eastern European countries in the early 1880s with the aim to promote Jewish immigration to Palestine, and advance Jewish settlement there, particularly agricultural. Most of them stayed away from politics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovevei_Zion  

What Is Reform Zionism?

https://reformjudaism.org/beliefs-practices/israel-reform-judaism/what-reform-zionism-0

Reform Zionism accepts and supports the foundational aim of Zionism: the establishment of a Jewish State in Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people.

Reform Zionism is a continuation of the early Zionist dream to foster a living, breathing national culture that represents the highest ideals of Jewish peoplehood. Foremost among these ideals is for Jews to be free and liberated citizens of the world who also contribute as Jews to our global civilization.

The work of Zionism did not end when the State of Israel was established in 1948. As Reform Zionists, we strive to make the State of Israel a true inheritor of the prophetic tradition of the Jewish people: a nation devoted to pursuing justice and creating a complete world.

Our love for Israel is channeled into efforts that advance the vision of what we believe Israel can – and must – yet be.

We believe that a Jewish state must be a democratic state that celebrates the pluralism of Jewish practice and identity.

We celebrate the notion of k’lal Yisrael, the unity of the Jewish people.

We seek to integrate Jewish tradition into the realities of the modern world, believing in individuals’ right to shape their own Jewish identity and way of life.

We are part of an active, global network of Jews of all ages, united by our love for Israel and our commitment to securing an Israel that fulfills the promise of its founding document:

“THE STATE OF ISRAEL will … foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education, and culture….”

We advocate for Israel as it should be and as it must become: a society that reflects both democratic values and religious pluralism.

Reform Zionist Organizations

• Arzenu: Arzenu serves as the political voice of Reform, Progressive, and Liberal religious Zionists within the World Zionist Organization and its subsidiaries. Arzenu , which has constituent groups in 14 countries around the world, partners with local constituents to promote Zionist interest and activities in its congregations; represents Reform Jewish values and interests in the governing bodies of the National Institutions of the State of Israel; and uses its political strength in the National Institutions to advocate for Reform Zionist values with the government of Israel.

• ARZA: ARZA, the Association of Reform Zionists, is a member organization of ARZENU and serves as the Israel arm of the North American Reform Jewish Movement (headed by the Union for Reform Judaism). ARZA works to center a connection to Israel in the American Reform community and to strengthen the Reform Movement on the ground in Israel.

• ARZA Canada: ARZA Canada, a member organization of ARZENU, works to connect with Reform communities throughout Canada, foster connections with and strengthen ties to the Reform Movement in Israel, and work to realize the vision of Reform Zionism.

• Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism: IMPJ seeks to complete the Zionist dream: a modern State of Israel that is inclusive, moral, and a home for us all. Along with its global partners, IMPJ works for the full and equal acceptance of and respect for the Reform Movement – and Reform and Progressive Jews – as a legitimate stream of Judaism by the Israeli government.

• Israel Religious Action Center: IRAC is the public and legal advocacy arm of the Reform Movement in Israel, advancing pluralism in Israeli society and defending the freedoms of conscience, faith and religion. Infusing social justice advocacy with the spiritual energy and humanist worldview of Progressive Judaism, IRAC is the leading Jewish organization advocating for a broadly inclusive Israeli democracy.

What Is Reform Zionism?  

2018 Reform Judaism Doubles Down on Zionism

Gil Troy [Zionist, Yudof’s pal at Academic Engagement Network]

Reform Judaism Doubles Down on Zionism  Jewish Journal

September 26, 2018

In June, the Reform movement decided to resist the headlines announcing the growing, “unprecedented” rupture between American Jewry and Israel by doubling-down on “our ties to Israel,” in the words of Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) President Rabbi Rick Jacobs. The URJ’s North American board meeting passed a resolution re-affirming the Jerusalem Program, the basic articulation of the Zionist Idea. As the “official platform of the World Zionist Organization and the Zionist Movement,” the Jerusalem Program proclaims that “Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people … views a Jewish, Zionist, democratic and secure State of Israel to be the expression of the common responsibility of the Jewish people for its continuity and future.”

It’s outrageous. With one move, that darned movement defied three stereotypes distorting the Jewish — and American — conversation about Israel. How dare the Reform movement affirm its loyalty to Israel and Zionism when everyone knows its members are liberal traitors who prove that liberalism and Zionism are incompatible. How dare the Reform movement refute the claim that relations between American Jewry and Israel are deteriorating. And how dare those Reformers resist the universalist and anti-Israel drift everyone insists is sweeping American Jewry!

Apparently, such insolence runs much deeper than a quick, easy resolution. Rabbi Josh Weinberg, the young, dynamic head of the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA), reports that ARZA and the URJ are deepening their institutional ties. “Increasingly,” Weinberg said, “we will be building programming, in North America and increasing our support for our movement in Israel, in the pews, in our camps, and in Israel’s streets, reflecting a basic commitment of every Jew to God, Torah and Israel.” Acknowledging that we’re living through “exciting and challenging times,” Weinberg said, “we’re looking to enhance our connection to Israel and to make Israel a central part of every Reform Jew’s identity.”

Sarcasm aside, the Reform movement is doing precisely what it should be doing. This valued member of the Zionist movement won’t be defined by its enemies — either within the Jewish world or beyond. True, Reform Jews are overwhelmingly politically liberal. But anyone who knows anything about Zionism knows that Zionism without liberalism ain’t Zionism. Israel’s Declaration of Independence — and daily realities — bring liberal nationalism to life.

Even a brief history of Reform Zionism goes deeper. It proves how Zionist the Reform movement has become. It shows how much closer American Jews and Israeli Jews are than they once were. And it suggests that Reform particularists should have an upper hand in the intellectual civil war they must win against universalists.

“Judaism is fundamentally national,” the Cultural Zionist Ahad Ha’am insisted in 1910, denouncing “the ‘Reformers’” efforts “to separate the Jewish religion from its national element.” Initially, Reform Jewry rejected peoplehood and Palestine. America’s Reform rabbis distorted Jewish history and ideology — anticipating today’s ultra-ultra-Orthodox Jews — in their 1885 Pittsburgh Platform when they declared: “We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community.”

“Anyone who knows anything about Zionism knows that Zionism without liberalism ain’t Zionism.”

The Holocaust erased any doubts that we are one people, intertwined. In 1937, the Reform movement’s Columbus Platform affirmed the “Jewish people” and their “obligation … to aid” in “up-building Palestine as a Jewish homeland.”

Three decades later, the process peaked. The 1967 Six-Day War’s impact surprised many Reform Jews, deepening, as Reform theologian Eugene Borowitz recalled, “a very personal existential sense of the particularity of what it is to be a Jew, the specificity of being a Jew as a member of an ethnic community.” When “Old Jerusalem was captured and was somehow, to use that marvelous word, ‘ours,’ ” Borowitz wrote, “it hit us with an impact which we couldn’t imagine, and suddenly we realized the depths of roots we had in a very specific place.”

Rabbi Richard Hirsch has made “Zionizing” Reform Jewry his life’s work. A progressive activist who lent his Washington, D.C., offices to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1960s, Hirsch moved to Jerusalem in 1973. In establishing the Hebrew Union College’s magnificent campus overlooking Jerusalem’s Old City, Hirsch said the movement was marrying history.

In 2000, Hirsch articulated Reform Jewry’s “Declaration of Interdependence”: “of people and faith, of Jewish tradition and contemporary needs, of the universal and the particular, of Israel and the Diaspora, of each Jew with all Jews. ” The “establishment, protection, and development of the State of Israel are integral premises of Progressive Jewish belief,” Hirsch wrote. “This eternal covenant between God and the people of Israel is inseparable from the Land of Israel.”

Rabbi Richard Hirsch

(Photo from Vimeo)

While ideological rivals, Borowitz and Hirsch affirmed peoplehood and land — not just religion and ethics — as central to Reform Jewry. Rabbi David Ellenson has continued Hirsch’s teaching, demonstrating that the best way to be a good universalist is to be a proud particularist. Dismayed that too many secular Israelis build their identities solely on national and communal lines while too many American Jews build their identities around “individual choice and religious voluntarism above peoplehood and nationality,” Ellenson challenges all Jews to embrace their “national and religious foundations.”

An academic with deep Los Angeles roots, currently serving as interim president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Ellenson celebrates the Jewish people’s “return to history” as an opportunity to apply high ideals developed over millennia in a modern state. “Reform Zionism needs to know and affirm the religious significance of this [political] fact,” he wrote in 2014. Ever balancing, Ellenson explains: “Our Zionism must be built upon the dialectical foundations of universalism and particularism and the interplay between them.”

This is the proud legacy the URJ affirmed. This is the ideological vision it must embrace. I invite Reform Jews to join Jews throughout the world in hosting Zionist salons this year. Read Reform Zionist texts like these, which appear in my book “The Zionist Ideas.” Read other religious Zionists and compare their visions. Discuss progressive Zionists with whom you agree — or even right-leaning Zionists you might dislike.

Let’s jumpstart a modern Zionist conversation, house by house, boardroom by boardroom, synagogue by synagogue. And let’s embrace “identity Zionism,” not only asking what we can do for Israel, but understanding what Israel, land, peoplehood, Zionism, do for us —  individually, collectively, existentially.

Recently designated one of Algemeiner’s J-100, one of the top 100 people “positively influencing Jewish life,” Gil Troy is the author of the recently released “The Zionist Ideas” (Jewish Publication Society), an update and expansion of Arthur Hertzberg’s anthology “The Zionist Idea.” A distinguished scholar of North American History at McGill University, Troy is the author of 10  books on American history, including “The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s.” www.zionistideas.com

Reform Judaism Doubles Down on Zionism

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