Napoleon Bonaparte 1799

Napoleon did express interest in establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine, but it wasn’t a formal suggestion. In 1799, during his campaign in Egypt and Palestine, Napoleon issued a letter to the Jewish community of the region, expressing his support for Jewish aspirations for self-governance and encouraging them to reclaim their homeland. However, this proposal didn’t result in any concrete action or significant change at the time.

Palestine 1850

In 1850, Palestine was inhabited by Muslims, Armenians, Christians, and Jews. According to the Ottoman census provincial yearbook, Palestine had 63,659 recorded households. Roughly 85% were Muslim, 11% were Christian and 4% Jewish. The Jewish population was recorded at about 14,730, and increased to 24,000 by 1882.

First Aliyah

The First Aliyah, also known as the agriculture Aliyah, was a major wave of Jewish immigration (aliyah) to Ottoman Palestine between 1881 and 1903. Jews who migrated in this wave came mostly from Eastern Europe and from Yemen, stimulated by pogroms and violence against the Jewish communities in those areas. An estimated 25,000 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.

At the beginning of the period, the Jewish population in the Ottoman Palestine was around 26,000. Over the course of the First Aliyah, many immigrants arrived from different countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia. By the end of this period, the Jewish population in the land had grown to approximately 55,000.

Because there had been a wave of immigration to Ottoman Syria starting in the mid-19th century (between 1840 and 1880, the Jewish population rose from 9,000 to 23,000), use of the term “First Aliyah” is controversial. 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. The first Aliyah represents the beginning of organized Zionism in the Land of Israel which is how it differs from earlier immigration.

Hovevei Zion

The Lovers of Zion, also Hovevei Zion or Hibbat Zion, were a variety of proto-Zionist organizations 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. 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.

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.

The Ottoman authorities recognized the Jewish immigration wave to the land as early as November 1882. They understood from the beginning of the 1880s that it was part of a larger Jewish national plan. Consequently, they took steps to limit the entry options for Jews into the country. Restrictions were imposed, despite the Sultan’s permit for Jewish settlement given during a meeting with two Jewish representatives from Romania in May 1882. The scope of the immigration diminished due to these restrictions and the difficulties faced by the immigrants.

Palestine 1920

From 1882 to 1919, the Zionist colonial settlement project in Palestine was, in its beginnings, a total failure. The main and central role in stimulating the economy belongs to the Palestinian Arab people and not to Jewish immigrants. The Zionist project was mainly established in and around the city of Jaffa because it was the most important city in Palestine and they built several neighborhoods and they were not treated as a strategic threat because the project was a failure. From 1882 to 1919, the number of Jews in the city of Jaffa and northeast of the city of Jaffa was 2,000. The overwhelming majority of Jewish immigrants arriving in Palestine could no longer continue, because the climate, the food and culture did not suit them, and so they migrated to other places. In practice, for the first 40 years, the Zionist project was a total failure.

“The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man.”

“Palestine has been my home. My country to which I have the utmost loyalty and love until I was forcibly and illegally expelled by Israeli Haganah. -X.O. Nashashibi”

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