An Open Letter to University Presidents
18 min read
Aliyah and the rebuilding the Land of Israel.
The 19th century saw an increase in Ashkenazic immigration to the Land of Israel, primarily due to the influence of Rabbi Eliyahu Kramer, known as the Vilna Gaon or the Gra, from Lithuania. A prominent scholar respected throughout the Jewish community, the Vilna Gaon yearned to settle in the Land of Israel. He attempted, unsuccessfully, to reach the Land of Israel, but the difficulties of the journey and his weak health forced him to turn back.
Rabbi Berel Wein writes1,
However, his attempt, though aborted, left a deep imprint on his followers and bore positive fruit in the next generation, as large numbers of his disciples settled in Israel and became major components of the Yishuv [settlement] in Jerusalem, Tiberias, and elsewhere in the country.
The followers of the Vilna Gaon came to the Land of Israel in three waves. In 1808, a group led by Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Shklov settled in Tiberias. In 1809, they were followed by a group led by Rabbi Saadia of Shklov and then another group led by Rabbi Yisrael of Shklov. Altogether, the three groups numbered 511 people2.
Dr. Morgenstern writes:
These olim [immigrants]3 were not fleeing from war, economic hardship or persecution, and they included some of Lithuania’s wealthiest and most respected and learned Jews. In fact, their aliyah was part of a Messianic revival that took place among the Jewish people in the early nineteenth century. But unlike the thousands of other Jews who had left the lands of the Ottoman Empire for Eretz Yisrael [Land of Israel] at that time to await the coming of Mashiach [messiah], whom they expected to arrive suddenly and by miraculous means in 1840, the Gra’s disciples clung to the view that the Geulah [redemption] was a historical process that should be advanced by human action.
To this end, they threw themselves into rebuilding the Land of Israel, and especially Jerusalem. As Ashkenazi Jews were still not allowed to settle in Jerusalem, some of them dressed like the Sephardim in order to make their way into the city. They advocated with the local authorities to permit Ashkenazi Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Ashkenazic neighborhood.
After much negotiation, they finally obtained permission in 1836. They dedicated a new synagogue and study hall and called it Menachem Tzion.
The Menachem Tzion synagogue in Jerusalem's Old City.
They also intended to work the land. They purchased cultivated agricultural land in the Galilee shortly after their arrival in the Land of Israel but were refused permission to lease land or engage in commerce in Jerusalem. Later, in 1839, they assisted Sir Moses Montefiore in his endeavor to purchase agricultural land and set up Jewish farming communities4.
Sir Moses Montefiore, a wealthy British financier, was another proponent of Jews settling in the Land of Israel. His first visit to the Land of Israel in 1827 had a profound effect on him, moving him to greater Jewish observance and to lending both financial and political support to the cause of settling the land5.
Portrait of Sir Moses Montefiore, 1881. Source: Henry Weigall
On his next visit in 1839, Sir Montefiore conceived of his plan to establish Jewish agricultural settlements to help the Jews living in the Land of Israel support themselves financially. After speaking with a few Jews already involved in agriculture in the Galilee, Montefiore wrote in his diary6:
From all information I have been able to gather, the land in this neighborhood appears to be particularly favorable for agricultural speculation. There are groves of olive trees, I should think, more than five hundred years old, vineyards, much pasture, plenty of wells and abundance of excellent water; also fig trees, walnuts, almonds, mulberries, &c., and rich fields of wheat, barley, and lentils; in fact it is a land that would produce almost everything in abundance, with very little skill and labor. I am sure if the plan I have in contemplation should succeed, it will be the means of introducing happiness and plenty into the Holy Land… I shall, please Heaven, on my return to England, form a company for the cultivation of the land and the encouragement of our brethren in Europe to return to Palestine… in the Holy Land they would find a greater certainty of success; here they will find wells already dug, olives and vines already planted, and a land so rich as to require little manure. By degrees I hope to induce the return of thousands of our brethren to the Land of Israel. I am sure they would be happy in the enjoyment of the observance of our holy religion, in a manner which is impossible in Europe.
Montefiore’s grand plans did not proceed smoothly, but he continued his efforts on behalf of the Jewish community in the Land of Israel for the rest of his long life. He established agricultural settlements and a textile factory, providing training for the workers.
After much diplomatic effort, Montefiore received permission to rebuild the Hurva synagogue in 1856. In 1860, Montefiore built the first Jewish settlement outside the Old City of Jerusalem. There, he built an almshouse for the poor, as well as the windmill that remains one of Jerusalem’s landmarks today.
The Montefiore windmill in the Yemin Moshe neighborhood in Jerusalem. Source: Jonathan Jacobi
The ideal of working the land in the Land of Israel spread to Russia. Rabbi Wein writes7,
In the late 1870s and early 1880s, there arose in Russia a strong support movement for emigration to Palestine. The movement itself was called the Chibath Zion and its adherents were Chovevei Zion – Lovers of Zion… Its purpose was not only to support the Jews who had already arrived in Palestine and settled there, but to encourage and facilitate large-scale group emigration from Russia to the Land of Israel. The goal was not political, but to foster Jewish agricultural settlement in the Land wherever possible.
The movement appealed to the philanthropist Baron Edmond de Rothschild, who agreed to assist in establishing numerous agricultural settlements in the Land of Israel. Petach Tikva was established in 1878, populated both by newcomers from Russia and by Jews from Jerusalem. Ekron, Gadera, Rishon Letzion, Zichron Yaakov, Rosh Pina, Yesod Hamaala, Metulla, and Hadera followed soon after.
The Sephardic community in the Land of Israel also grew in the 19th century. In 1810, a group of Jews from Kurdistan settled in Tiberias. In the next decades, there was an increase in immigration from Western North Africa. In Jerusalem, there were small communities from Georgia and Caucasus8.
By 1880, the Jewish population of the Land of Israel consisted of 26,000 people9. Such a large community necessitated many communal institutions. Shalom Ginat writes10:
During that period, the Jewish Settlement consisted entirely, with no exception to the rule, of religious Jews, who preserved the laws of the Torah; therefore there were everywhere synagogues and Yeshivot [Talmudic academies] for all the communities. As the population grew, the number of these institutions also grew… In addition, there were schools for the boys…
Despite earthquakes, epidemics, and other dangers, Jews pursued their dream of moving to the Land of Israel and building up its infrastructure.
Hasidic Jews celebrating Purim with a Sephardic Jew, Safed, 19th century. Unknown artist.
Towards the end of the 19th century, groups of Jews from Yemen began to immigrate to the Land of Israel, fulfilling the dream of many generations before them. The opening of the Suez Canal and the Ottoman Empire’s conquest of Yemen turned travel to the Land of Israel into a realistic possibility.
In 1884, several hundred Yemenite Jews, with financial assistance from European Jews, founded the neighborhood of Kfar Shiloach in the village of Silwan, between the Old City of Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives. There, they built a synagogue, and the community grew until they were evacuated by the British in the 1930s due to Arab violence in the areas.
Kfar Hashiloach, the Yemenite village in Silwan, Jerusalem, in 1891. Source: Chaim Molcho, Ezrat Niddachim Org., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Between 1881 and World War I, close to 5,000 Jews from Yemen immigrated to the Land of Israel11. Besides Jerusalem, they also settled in Jaffa and in agricultural settlements. By 1948, the Yemenite population in the Land of Israel consisted of 20,00012.
Two Jewish boys in Kfar Shiloach. Source: Frank Scholten, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
At the end of the 19th century, a new movement, called Zionism, had entered the Jewish landscape. By the beginning of the 20th century, it had spread throughout the Jewish community, bringing with it a new motivation for immigrating to the Land of Israel. Until then, Jews made aliyah for religious and spiritual reasons. These new immigrants were not necessarily religious, but they supported the ideal of building a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, the Jewish national homeland.
Between the turn of the century and World War I, 35,000 Zionist Jews came to the Land of Israel, where they established new agricultural settlements based on socialist values13.
Rabbi Wein writes14,
They believed in the sanctity of labor and the rights of the proletariat, and were opposed to the excesses of capitalism, and the power of religion… They looked forward to the utopian Marxist tomorrow and the ultimate triumph of the international workers’ movements. In a practical vein, they founded agricultural communes known as kibbutzim, where everyone contributed according to his abilities and everyone received according to his individual needs, where there was no private property and where even the privacy of the family was submerged in collective living. Degania, Ein-Harod, Givat Brenner, Nahalal, and other communal settlements were built with their sweat and blood. Swamps were drained, eucalyptus trees were planted to prevent the swamps’ return, rocks were cleared, barren land was plowed, and, grudgingly, the soil began to respond to the efforts of its new tenants.
Postcard from Rishon Letzion, circa 1900.
Besides settling the land, the leaders of the Zionist movement also got involved in political negotiations, with the goal of acquiring independence for the Jewish state.
Just before World War I, there were 100,000 Jews living in the Land of Israel15. There were also 500,000 Arabs, out of which 350,000 had migrated there in the previous thirty years. Rabbi Wein explains16,
As the Jews built a Western-style agricultural and industrial society, the poor, oppressed Arabs of the neighboring areas of the Ottoman Empire flocked to Palestine in numbers greater than Jewish immigration to Palestine itself. “The Arab population of Palestine was small and limited until Jewish settlement restored the barren lands and drew to it Arabs from neighboring countries.” (A statement made in 1953 by Dr. Carl Herman Voss, then chairman of the American Christian Palestine Committee.)
World War I brought tremendous suffering to many people throughout the world, including the Jews living in the Land of Israel, who were persecuted by the ruling Ottoman Empire. When the British conquered the Land of Israel from the Ottomans in 1917, the Jews living there were filled with hope.
Chaim Weizmann, who later became the first president of the State of Israel, was a chemist who provided invaluable assistance to Britain during World War I, earning the favor of British leadership. He describes his first meeting with Lord Arthur Balfour, the British foreign minister17:
I plunged into what I recall as a long harangue on the meaning of the Zionist movement. I dwelt on the spiritual side of Zionism. I pointed out that nothing but a deep religious conviction expressed in modern political terms could keep the movement alive, and this conviction had to be based on Palestine and on Palestine alone…
Then suddenly I said: “Mr. Balfour, supposing I were to offer you Paris instead of London, would you take it?”
He sat up, looked at me, and answered: “But, Dr. Weizmann, we have London.”
“That is true,” I said. “But we had Jerusalem when London was a marsh.”
Chaim Weizmann during his presidency. Source: Israel Government Press Office
Weizmann’s words were convincing. On November 2, 1917, Britain issued the famous Balfour declaration, which stated18, “His Majesty’s government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object.”
The Balfour Declaration, signed by Lord Balfour. Source: United Kingdom Government signed by Arthur Balfour, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Between 1917 and 1948, the Land of Israel remained under the British mandate. Despite their stated good intentions, Britain was not eager to accept Jews wishing to immigrate to the Land of Israel, or even to protect the Jews who were already there. They set strict immigration quotas and remained indifferent to Arab violence against the Jews.
Rabbi Wein explains19,
Rioting by Arabs had been a fact of life in Palestine for the last century of Turkish rule. The English were interested in a stable society and realized early on that enforcing the pro-Zionist tone of the Balfour Declaration would result in further and continuing Arab violence…
[British governor of Jerusalem Sir Ronald] Storrs and the English subtly gave the impression to the local Arabs that violence could abort the Balfour Declaration and the Arabs gladly responded to the hint. On April 1, 1920, [in] an Arab pogrom… [n]ine people died and 244 were wounded. The Arab police sided with the rioters and the British Army did not respond for five days. This pogrom set the pattern for life in Palestine: Arab violence, Jewish indignation, and British neutrality on the side of the Arabs were the story of Palestine from 1919 to 1948.
During the British mandate, there were windows when immigration was open and others when it was closed altogether. Shortly before and during the Holocaust, immigration was severely restricted. Many European Jews who attempted to immigrate to the Land of Israel to escape the Holocaust were denied permission and were later murdered by the Nazis. Some managed to enter Mandatory Palestine illegally, in what was called Aliyah Bet. It is estimated that about 110,000 Jewish immigrants entered the Land of Israel illegally between 1939 and 194820.
British policeman checking papers of passerby. Source: Hans Pinn, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Even after World War II, when survivors yearned to reach the Land of Israel, Britain maintained very tight immigration quotas. Some waited for years to get permission, while others attempted to enter illegally and were seized by the British authorities and placed in detention camps.
When the United Nations voted in favor of establishing the State of Israel in 1948, Jews all over the world celebrated. Now, any Jew from anywhere in the world was welcome to come and settle in the Land of Israel. Rabbi Wein writes21, “The population of Israel grew from 650,000 Jews in 1947 to 713,000 in 1948 and 965,000 in 1949.”
While many of the new immigrants were fulfilling their lifelong dream, others simply had nowhere else to go. Among them were Holocaust survivors who had attempted to return to their homes in Eastern Europe but were met with violence and pogroms by their former neighbors.
Rabbi Wein writes22,
In became clear to the 250,000 Jews in the DP camps and the other 200,000 Jewish refugees wandering over Europe that organized Jewish life in Europe, as they had known it, was at an end. Europe was not Judenrein, but it would no longer play the central role in Jewish life and history. Most of the Jewish survivors, dazed, broken, and pained, wished to go to Palestine.
But it wasn’t only the Holocaust survivors who found themselves homeless. In the years following the creation of the State of Israel, Arab countries either expelled their Jewish residents or persecuted them to such an extent that they had no choice but to run for their lives, leaving most of their property behind.
Israeli statesman Avi Beker writes23,
On 16 May 1948, the day after Israel declared independence, the Times published a front-page story with the headline: "Jews in Grave Danger in All Moslem Lands." The paper noted that for nearly four months, "the UN had had before it an appeal for immediate and urgent consideration of the case of the Jewish population in Arab and Moslem countries." A sub-headline stated that: "Nine Hundred Thousand Jews in Africa and Asia Face Wrath of Their Foes," and the article cited reports of deteriorating Jewish security including violent incidents. The Times points out that according to a law drafted by the Political Committee of the Arab League, all Jewish citizens of these countries would be considered "members of the minority Jewish state of Palestine." This implies that there was a clear Arab strategy to expel their Jewish citizens while expecting that they would find refuge in Israel.
The newly formed Israel welcomed all the Jewish refugees with open arms, despite many economical and logistical difficulties such a major influx presented. Over the next several decades, the State of Israel operated emergency rescue missions for Jewish refugees. In 1949, 50,000 Yemenite Jews were airlifted to Israel. In the early 1950s, 125,000 Iraqi Jews were airlifted to Israel. In 1984, 8,000 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel, followed by another 14,000 in 199124.
Flight during Operation Magic Carpet, bringing Yemenite Jews to Israel. Source: Humus sapiens at English Wikipedia. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990, a million people from all of its former republics made aliyah to Israel.
Recently, aliyah to Israel has been rising significantly. In 2022, 74,714 people made aliyah.
Arrival of a Nefesh B'Nefesh aliyah group flight from North America. Source: Eic413, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Experts predict a wave of aliyah in the near future. Shai Felber, deputy director of the Immigration and Integration Unit at the Jewish Agency, said in an interview with Globes25, “We will see a sharp increase in the number of immigrants… We are currently sitting with the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration and forming plans to provide a solution to this situation."
With the opportunity open to them, many Jews throughout the world now wish to return to the land that they and their ancestors have yearned for. History has come full circle, and the Land of Israel welcomes its people back.
Click here to read Part One and Part Two of this series.
