#well said

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"I have to say this: …Sploosh."

- Player, while the tavern was being flooded by Umberlee

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[agelan]

I am normal and can be trusted around a cute dude's neck

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Zionism before Zionism

May 9, 2023 via RootsMetals

THE BEGINNING: RETURN TO ZION

In 587/586 BCE, the Babylonian Empire conquered Jerusalem. In 597 BCE, 587/586 BCE, and 582/581 BCE, the Jews of Jerusalem were mass deported (i.e. ethnic cleansing) out of the Land of Israel and into Babylon. This deportation — estimated to have consisted of about 25 percent of the Jewish population of the Kingdom of Judah — and the destruction of Jerusalem are thoroughly corroborated by archeological record.

In 539 BCE, the Jews exiled to Babylon were permitted to return to the Land of Israel. Though many stayed, others went back home. This event is known as the “Return to Zion” and is actually where the term “Zionism” comes from. Remember, this happened in 539 BCE — 2436 years before the First Zionist Congress. 

Tehillim (Psalms) 137 is a poem written during the period of exile in Babylon. It describes the pain and sadness of exile and the desire to return to and exercise sovereignty in the Land of Israel:

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. / We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. / For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. / How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land. / If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget [her cunning]. / If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy. / Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof. / O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. / Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

MACCABEAN REVOLT

The Maccabean Revolt (167-160 BCE) was a Jewish revolt against the foreign rule of the Greek Seleucid Empire, which Jews to this day commemorate every year during the festival of Hanukkah. In 198 BCE, the Seleucid Empire conquered Judea from the (Macedonian Greek) Ptolemaic Kingdom. In 168 BCE, King Antiochus IV Epiphanes launched an oppressive campaign against his Jewish subjects, outlawing Jewish practice and implementing Pagan worship in the holy Jewish Temple. This triggered a rebellion, led by Judah Maccabeus (Judah the Maccabee) and his family. Initially the revolt started as guerilla warfare targeting Greek government and military officials, but eventually the Maccabees were able organize an army. The revolt was successful, and in 164 BCE, Judah the Maccabee entered Jerusalem and rededicated the Temple to the Israelite God. Nevertheless, the civil war persisted for decades. In 141 BCE, Simon Thassi, Judah’s brother, established the Hasmonean dynasty. By 110 BCE, the Hasmonean dynasty ruled over a semi-autonomous Jewish kingdom, known as the Hasmonean Kingdom of Judea. This was the last time — save for a brief period in the early seventh century — that Jews had any sovereignty over our ancestral land until 1948. The Hasmonean Kingdom, however, was short-lived, ceasing to exist in 63 BCE, when Judea fell into the hands of the Roman Republic, after decades of infighting among the Hasmoneans and civil unrest. In 37 BCE, Herod the Great defeated the last Hasmonean king and Judea fell under the complete control of the Roman Empire. 

FIRST JEWISH REVOLT

Between 66-73 CE, the Jews in Judea revolted against Roman rule for the first time. The revolt ended in disaster, with Jewish towns decimated, tens of thousands massacred, and the Second Temple destroyed. 

For years, tensions between the Romans and Jews had been simmering in Judea. Following anti-taxation protests, the Roman governor plundered the Jewish Temple, raided Jerusalem, and arrested prominent Jewish leaders. This escalated the violence, with Jewish rebels initially making significant advances. In 70 CE, the Romans circled Jerusalem but were unable to breach its walls, so they set up camp around the city and began building trenches around the circumference of the walls. Anyone caught in the trenches attempting to flee the city was crucified; at one point, the Romans were crucifying 500 Jews a day. For seven months, the Romans sieged Jerusalem, until the summer of 70 CE, when they were finally able to breach the city walls. Records of the time indicate that all of the besieged Jews — men, women, even children — fought to the death, preferring to die for the cause of sovereignty over survival if survival meant that the Romans would exile them from their homeland. Ultimately, the Romans ransacked and burnt the entire city. The Second Temple was destroyed once again on July 29 or 30 of 70 CE, which also fell on the 9th of the Hebrew month of Av. The Romans pillaged the temple, taking with them its spoils to Rome. The looted Jewish treasures remained in Rome until the year 455, when vandals raided the city. After that, their whereabouts become murky. It’s likely that they were long melted down or used to construct any number of churches. There has long been a baseless conspiracy theory that the items, including the menorah, are hidden away in a Vatican basement.

The First Jewish-Roman War ended with the Roman siege of Masada in 73-74 CE. In total, nearly 100,000 Jewish rebels were killed. According to first century Jewish historian Josephus, over one million Jewish civilians were killed; historians today think the number is closer to 300,000, as Judea couldn’t support a population large enough to produce such death tolls. 

BAR KOKHBA REVOLT

The Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-135 CE) was the third of the Jewish-Roman Wars when Jewish rebels revolted against the rule of the Roman Empire. The revolt broke out due to tensions left over from the First Jewish-Roman War, economic changes in Judea, the suppression of Jewish revolts elsewhere in the Roman Empire, and the Roman construction of a new city over the ruins of Jerusalem, as well as the construction of a temple dedicated to the Roman god Jupiter over the remains of the holy Jewish Temple. 

The revolt was led by Simon Bar Kokhba, who sought to expel the Roman occupiers, rebuild the Temple, and even revive Hebrew, the Indigenous language of the Jewish People, as an everyday spoken tongue. Unfortunately, the revolt was unsuccessful. In a retaliatory act of genocide, the Roman emperor Hadrian massacred some 600,000 Jews and razed over 1000 towns and villages. Some ~400,000 more Jews died due to famine and disease. The Hadrianic Genocide was the biggest calamity to befall the Jewish People until the Holocaust nearly 2000 years later.

Following the Jewish defeat, Hadrian dissolved the Roman province of Judea and established another province, Syria-Palestina in its stead. Most historians agree that he did so to erase the Jewish ties to the land. The Romans established a colony, Aelia Capitolina, on the ruins of Jerusalem. Jews were banned from the city, only permitted to enter on the 9th of the Hebrew month of Av, to commemorate the destruction of the Temples.

REVOLT AGAINST GALLUS

Following the Bar Kokhba Revolt and Hadrian’s successive ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Jewish People, the Jewish population of the Land of Israel had been all but decimated. Nevertheless, in 351-352, the fledgling Jewish community once again revolted against the occupation of the Roman Empire.

Under Emperor Constantine II, the Jews of Palestine were seriously persecuted. For example, synagogues were ransacked by mobs, not unlike pogroms. Resentment grew among the Jewish population: first, the Romans had taken away their political independence, and now, their entire culture and religion was suppressed.

In 350, the Romans pursued a military campaign against the Sasanians to the East. In the midst of this unrest, the Jews in Palestine revolted. The revolt was led by Isaac of Diocaesarea and began with an attack on the Roman garrison. 

Eventually the Jewish rebels gained control of Tiberias and Diospolis (Lod), but the Romans quickly crushed the revolt and razed the cities to the ground. Several thousand Jewish rebels were killed, though the exact number is unknown. 

REVOLT AGAINST HERACLIUS

The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, reigned the region today known as Israel-Palestine during almost the entirety of the period between 324-636. During this time, it was Christian policy to convert Jews to Christianity, with nearly half of the Indigenous Jewish and Samaritan populations ultimately adopting the Christian religion. During this period, Jews still formed the majority of the population in Palestine. Jews faced severe restrictions during Byzantine rule. It was illegal to become Jewish, and Jews who harassed Christians in any way faced capital punishment. The Byzantines humiliated Jews in any way that they could, severely crushing freedoms, which resulted in the loss of social and cultural life. 

The Roman Empire — and later, the Byzantine Empire — fought periodic wars against the Persians from 53 BCE to 628 CE, right before the Muslim conquest of Persia. Between 602-628, war broke out once again between the Persians and Byzantines. The Persian king, Khosrau II, hoped to reach as far west as possible, to gain access to the Mediterranean Sea. To do so, he knew that he needed to pass through Palestine. Perhaps to reward the Jews for their loyalty, he agreed to assign the conquest of Palestine to Jewish troops. The Jews in Palestine enthusiastically welcomed the Persian Jewish troops and allied with them. The Persian Jewish troops were led by Nehemiah Ben Hushiel. Within Palestine, the Jewish rebellion was led by Benjamin of Tiberias, a wealthy Jew who invested his money into the rebellion. In 614, following a short siege, Jerusalem fell into Persian hands. After the Persians conquered Jerusalem, as well as the rest of Palestine, they moved on to the rest of their conquests; only the Jews — Persian and local — remained, with Jerusalem now in their hands for the first time since the Bar Kokhba Revolt. 

Despite the Jews’ loyalty to the Persians, King Khosrau II quickly switched allegiances by 617, replacing the Jewish governor of Jerusalem with a Christian, who prohibited more Jews from settling in Jerusalem. Shortly thereafter, in 628, the Byzantines recaptured Jerusalem from the Persians, once again crushing the Jewish population with their oppressive rule.

IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Thanks to the discovery of the Cairo Geniza in 1896, historians can now trace numerous attempts from Jews to resettle in the Land of Israel during the early Arab colonization period in the seventh and sixth centuries. For example, there are records of Babylonian Jews migrating to Palestine during this time. Due to the harsh policies of Arabization and economic marginalization, however, Jews also left Palestine, and many of these attempts were unsuccessful. 

A very significant attempt to resettle autonomously in the Land of Israel took place in the ninth and tenth centuries, when a large number of Karaite Jews established a major community in Jerusalem. 

As mentioned, few of these attempts were successful in any capacity because of the harsh conditions imposed on Jews at the time. Letters between the Jews of Jerusalem and the Jews of Cairo during the period of the Arab Empires indicate that the taxes imposed upon the Jewish population of Palestine were especially crippling. When Jews in Jerusalem failed to pay their taxes, they were subject to various punishments, including imprisonment, torture, and even death. Additionally, centuries of colonization had devastated the land, which was now barren and riddled with disease. 

We know very little about some of these “Zionist” attempts. For example, in 1210, “three hundred rabbis” migrated to the Land of Israel, but what happened to them is uncertain. Following the expulsions of Jews from England, Spain, Portugal, France, and Austria, many Jews resettled in Palestine.

One of the most notable “Zionist” leaders from this period was Doña Gracia Mendes Nasi, a Crypto-Jew born in Portugal in 1510 who accumulated a fortune and ardently supported Jewish migration and community-building in Palestine, establishing successful, self-sufficient communities. During her lifetime, Palestine was under the occupation of the Ottoman Empire. Nasi fostered a close relationship with the Ottoman court, determined to establish a “safe homeland” for Jews in Palestine — exactly as the modern political Zionists envisioned a few centuries later. 

Other significant migrations were made by Jews fleeing Ukraine in the seventeenth century. 

18TH & 19TH CENTURIES

The First (Zionist) Aliyah is dated to 1881-1903, but large numbers of Jews tried to (re) establish the Jewish community in the Land of Israel long before that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Like the political Zionists a little bit later, they faced fierce opposition from the local Arab population and struggled under difficult conditions.

In 1700, Rabbi Yehuda Hehasid moved his group of followers to Jerusalem. Jewish residents of Jerusalem enthusiastically built homes and a synagogue in anticipation for their arrival. In 1720, local Arabs broke into the synagogue, destroyed it, and expelled all Ashkenazi Jews from the city. Ashkenazi Jews did not return to Jerusalem until 1812, after being banished for almost 100 years by the Arab residents. 

Between 1740 and 1750, thousands of Jews immigrated to Palestine. In 1740, the Ottoman authorities invited Rabbi Haim Abulafia to restore the ancient city of Tiberias, one of the four sacred cities in Judaism, which had been abandoned for 70 years thanks to the harsh economic and environmental conditions resulting from centuries of colonialism. Rabbi Abulafia breathed new life into the city, which many Jews considered a sign that the Messiah was soon to come.

Hasidic groups began re-settling in masses in the Land of Israel in 1742, building new synagogues and other infrastructure, primarily in the four sacred cities: Hebron, Tiberias, Safed, and Jerusalem.

Like the modern political Zionists that came later, the followers of Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna purchased the first lands for agricultural development in 1810. In 1811, 80 Jewish families coming from Hungary attempted to migrate to work in agriculture, but they were attacked on their way and had to return back home. 

In the 1830s, more Jewish agricultural communities were established and many Jews from the Diaspora were encouraged to migrate. In 1839, Moses Montefiore tried to come to an agreement with the ruler of Egypt, Muhammad Ali, to establish Jewish agricultural communities in the Land of Israel. However, an antisemitic incident in Damascus ruined the agreement, so Montefiore started to disguise his Zionist projects as philanthropy. 

In 1860, a number of prominent rabbis founded the Jewish Company for the Settlement of the Holy Land. I’m the 1860s and 1870s, dozens of prominent rabbis expressed their support for Zionism, especially in light of the persecution of Jews in Europe. Finally, in 1873, Rabbi Akiva Schlesinger wrote a plan for the development of an independent Jewish state in the Land of Israel based on democratic — not religious — principles. 

It’s important to note that these events of the nineteenth century differed very little from the activities of the modern political Zionists just a few decades later; the main difference was that these earlier activities were predominantly spiritually-motivated, whereas the Zionists that came later were largely secular and predominantly socialist. 

For a full bibliography of my sources, please head over to my Patreon. 

Zionism before Zionism

THE BEGINNING: RETURN TO ZION In 587/586 BCE, the Babylonian Empire conquered Jerusalem. In 597 BCE, 587/586 BCE, and 582/581 BCE, the Jews

[tikkunolamresistance]

is Zionism...European?

September 26, 2024 via https://www.debbielechtman.com/blogs/news/is-zionism-european

Please note: this post is specifically about the modern Zionist political movement that began in the 19th century. That said, Jews in the Middle East and North Africa have been at the very forefront of the Jewish fight for sovereignty in our ancestral homeland for over 2000 years. For a more in-depth look at that, please see my post "Zionism Before Zionism." (x)

THE ISSUE

Anti-Zionists often claim Zionism is a European movement. While it’s certainly true that the World Zionist Organization was founded in Europe, and while it’s true that most prominent early Zionist leaders resided in Europe, Jews residing in the Middle East and North Africa were involved in Zionist political activism from the very outset.

A few things to keep in mind when considering the role that Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews played in early Zionist political activism: 

While early on the Soviet Union — and later, Nazi Germany — criminalized Zionism, Jews in Europe generally could participate freely in Zionist activism without legal, social, or economic repercussions. On the other hand, Zionism was quickly outlawed in most of the Middle East. This meant that many Jews in the Middle East and North Africa stayed away from the movement out of fear for their safety.

The idea that Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews had no interest in Jewish sovereignty and instead were duped by “European” Jews into migrating to Israel is racist and orientalist. Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews are just as capable of critical thought as anyone else, and they had as much of an interest and stake in their political autonomy as Ashkenazi Jews did.

The erasure of Mizrahi and Sephardic Zionist history is just another instance of the systematic erasure of the history and existence of Mizrahim and Sepharadim. You cannot adequately tell the Jewish story in its entirety while erasing the story of the Jews in the Middle East.

FIRST, WHAT DO I MEAN BY ZIONISM?

Zionism is the Jewish movement for self-determination in the Land of Israel, the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people. Today, in practical terms, Zionism is support for the existence of the State of Israel. Self-determination is the concept that peoples who share a national identity — not to be confused with nationality — have a legal right to choose their own governance, rather than being forced into living under the thumb of an empire. Self-determination is a basic tenet of international law, applicable to everyone.

In 1897, Jewish delegates from across the world met for the First Zionist Congress. There, they defined Zionism in simple terms: “Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Eretz ­Israel [the Land of Israel] secured under public law.” That’s it. Beyond that, people who identify as Zionist don’t necessarily agree on anything else.

MANDATE PALESTINE

While there were strong tensions between the pre-existing Jewish community in Palestine (known now as the Old Yishuv) and the newer Zionist immigrants (known as the New Yishuv), the leaders of the Old Yishuv were supportive of a sovereign, Jewish national home. For instance, Yaakov Meir spoke fluent Hebrew and encouraged the construction of new Jewish Quarters in Jerusalem. He also eagerly supported the re-establishment of an independent Jewish Israeli nation.

At the 1921 Cairo Conference, the Jewish National Council of Palestine, which represented the interests of the “Palestinian” Jews, thanked the British for supporting "the rebuilding of the Jewish National Home" (for more on how the British betrayed Zionism, see my post, “The British”) and asked that in doing so, Jews did not deprive Arabs “of their legitimate rights.” They also applauded the new Zionist immigrants for their accomplishments in the last 40 years, such as the cultivation of the land, which had undergone desertification after centuries of colonial mismanagement. 

Even the most isolated and ancient Jewish community in Palestine, the Musta’arabi Jews of Peki’in, who had lived in the Galilee continuously since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, formed relationships with the Zionist movement, when, in 1922, a young Zionist activist and historian named Yitzhak Ben Zvi connected with the tiny community. Ben Zvi later became the second president of Israel.

After the 1929 antisemitic massacres, which targeted not the new Zionist immigrants but the oldest Jewish communities in Palestine, virtually all Jews in Mandatory Palestine united under the Zionist cause, with many of them joining the Jewish paramilitaries Haganah and Irgun. In 1947, a representative of the Old Yishuv, Eliahu Eliachar, testified before the United Nations, passionately arguing in favor of the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state in Palestine.

LEBANON

In the early 20th century, the Jewish community in Lebanon was widely sympathetic to the Zionist cause, so much so that the Jewish leadership in Beirut aligned themselves with the Zionist B’nai B’rith organization.The Jewish community in Lebanon and the Yishuv in Palestine maintained constant contact. Zionist sentiment was promoted in the Lebanese Jewish education system. Some influential Lebanese Jewish Zionist figures included Joseph Azar and Joseph Farhi. Nevertheless, the French authorities strongly discouraged Zionist activism, seeing it as a threat to their colonial rule. The 1929 Hebron Massacre in Mandatory Palestine, however, drastically shifted the attitudes of the Lebanese Jewish community, which became afraid of openly identifying with Zionism, especially after the virulently antisemitic Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was expelled from Mandatory Palestine and began disseminating his hateful propaganda among the Lebanese Arab population. “Before the disturbance of August 1929 the Jews...of Lebanon manifested much sympathy for the Zionist cause and worked actively for the sake of Palestine. They had established associations which collected money for Keren Kayemeth and Keren Heyesod…[After 1929, the Jews] started to fear from anything having any connection with Zionism and ceased to hold meetings and collect money,” Azar noted. “[The Jewish Communal Council in Beirut] endeavored to prevent anything having a Jewish national aspect because they feared that this might wound the feelings of the Muslims."

IRAQ

In the 1920s, the Jews of Iraq were generally sympathetic toward Zionism, though few were actively involved in the movement. In 1921, the British granted a permit to the Zionist organization in Baghdad, though the Iraqi government did not renew it the following year. Zionist activism in Iraq was tolerated until 1929, after which Zionist meetings were banned and Hebrew and Jewish history teachers from Mandatory Palestine were expelled from Iraq. In 1935, Iraq outlawed Zionism.

After the 1941 Nazi-inspired Farhud pogrom, the Jewish community in Iraq, led by Zionist activists, began organizing and forming self-defense groups. Iraqi Jewish Zionist activists established contacts with their counterparts in Mandatory Palestine, and later, in the State of Israel. In 1942, the Yishuv started sending Zionist emissaries to Iraq.

The Zionist movement in Iraq tended to appeal to the younger generation more than the older generation, though up until 1948, direct involvement with the movement was rare. Many chose not to affiliate with Zionism not for ideological reasons, but rather, because such an affiliation could wreck their social, political, and economic status.

In 1947, a representative of the Iraqi Jewish community, by the name of Mr. Sassoon, testified before the United Nations on behalf of the Zionist movement in favor of the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.

SYRIA

Syrian Jews began organizing for the Zionist cause in Damascus as early as the late 19th century. However, the movement weakened thanks to internal disputes and the French occupation of Syria, as the French authorities were hostile to Zionism, which they worried would threaten their domain over Syria.

Though Jewish community leaders in Syria often had to publicly disavow Zionism for the safety of the Jewish population, sympathy toward the Zionist cause grew among the Syrian Jews in the 1930s, especially in light of economic hardships, growing resentment of the Arab population toward the Jews, and the Zionist movement’s successes. “It was only in the mid-to-late 1930s that Zionism began to grow in Aleppo -– although not to flourish. Zionist-influenced sports and cultural activities on a small scale began then, manifested by the ‘Maccabi Football (soccer) Club’ and small Zionist discussion groups,” according to historian Joseph Sutton.

In September 1933, the head of the Committee of the World Federation of Sephardi Jews in Aleppo, Meir Nahmad, wrote to complain that the Jewish Agency had not provided immigration certificates to Aleppo’s Jews, given “Nearly everyone has the desire to travel to Palestine.” By 1936, it was reported that most of the Jewish youth in Aleppo had adopted the Zionist cause.

While many Syrian Jews were indifferent to Arab nationalist aspirations, others supported both Zionism and Arab nationalism, believing that both movements could be reconciled.

EGYPT

Though not all Egyptian Jews were initially on board with Zionism, Egypt still produced some important Zionist figures, such as Egyptian Karaite Jewish scholar Mourad Farag, who identified both as an Egyptian nationalist and as a Zionist. In 1923, Farag wrote “al-Qudsiyyat” (“Jerusalemica”), arguably the most passionate defense of Zionism in the Arabic language. 

In 1926, the Cairo Jewish Council sympathetically acknowledged the establishment of a Zionist organization in Alexandria, though 15 years later, the same council wrote a letter complaining of Zionist activity. As was the case in other countries in the Middle East, as more of the Egyptian general population became hostile to Zionism, the Jewish community sought to distance itself from it more for their safety.

Zionist activity in Egypt reached its peak in the 1930s, with the establishment of the Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza‘ir youth organization. Up until 1947, Egypt and Palestine had open borders, meaning that both Jewish communities maintained strong relations. Egyptian Jews invested heavily into the Yishuv in Palestine. Some Egyptian Jews that contributed to the development of the Yishuv included Baron Felix de Menasce, head of the community in Alexandria, who had a close relationship with Chaim Weizmann, and Albert Mosseri. In 1918, de Menasce had founded the “Pro-Palestine Organization: Committee for Reform of the Land of Israel” in Alexandria. After the 1929 Hebron Massacre, de Menasce even tried to purchase the Western Wall on behalf of the Zionist movement.

YEMEN

n 1882, a mass migration of Yemenite Jews to the Land of Israel coincided with the First (modern Zionist) Aliyah. In 1982, a century later, renowned Yemenite rabbi Rabbi Yosef Qafiḥ explained his community’s views toward Zionism to the Israeli Knesset: “The concept of ‘Zionism’ has been invoked here several times. In Yemen, this concept did not exist as the name of a movement or a distinct internal group. The Diaspora throughout Yemen was there on a temporary basis...Aliyah [immigration to the Land of Israel] naturally continued in a normal, organic fashion, because everyone was a candidate; everyone waited for the right moment, for the removal of his particular barriers.”

In other words, in Yemen, there was no need for a distinct “Zionist” movement, because the concept of Zionism was embedded into the very Jewish identity of the community.

Nevertheless, once in the Land of Israel, many Yemenite Jewish women, in particular, identified strongly with the movement, particularly given the egalitarian ideals of the New Yishuv.

NORTH AFRICA

North African Jewish communities expressed interest in Zionism as early as the First Zionist Congress. On November 8, 1897, for example, the Jewish Chronicle reported, “The Jews of Morocco watch with interest the progress of the proceedings [of the Zionist Congress]. All Jews may not be in agreement with items of the Congress program, but it seems natural, from some Moroccan-Jewish points of view, that they should all sympathize with the spirit of the thing...” The first Zionist organization appeared in Morocco in 1900. After the San Remo Conference and the issuing of the Balfour Declaration, Moroccan Jewish Zionist activists sought to establish contacts with Zionist figures in Europe and Palestine.

A big obstacle for the Zionist Jews in Morocco was the hostility of the French and Spanish authorities, which often shut down Zionist organizations, as well as the hostility that the general Muslim population felt toward Zionism. Even so, by 1946, it was reported that the Moroccan Jewish community had donated 1,200,000 francs to the Jewish National Fund. 

During the first several Zionist Congresses, the Tunisian Jewish community sent congratulatory telegrams. Some early Zionist figures in Tunisia included Gabriel Allouche, Jacques Shalom, Alfred Allouche, Jules Bonan, and Jacques Vehel. The first Zionist organization in Tunis, Agudat-Zion, was established in 1911. In Tunisia, the mainstream strain of Zionism at the time -- Labor Zionism -- was deeply unpopular, due to its socialist and secular tendencies, and most were drawn instead to Jabotinsky’s Revisionist Zionism. That said, some, like Albert Memmi, who later became a famous anti-imperialist writer, joined Hashomer Hatzair, the Labor Zionist youth organization.

Of all Jewish communities in North Africa, the Algerian community was the least interested in Zionism, likely because of their rapid assimilation into French society. That said, as early as 1897, a small Zionist group in Algeria endorsed the idea of Zionism.

CENTRAL ASIA

The city of Baku, Azerbaijan became a stronghold of Zionist activism even before the First Zionist Congress in 1897. In fact, the proto-Zionist organization, Hovovei Zion, translating to “Lovers of Zion,” had established a branch in Baku in 1891.

The First Zionist Congress, held in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897, saw representatives from the Azeri Mountain Jewish and the Georgian Jewish communities. The Mountain Jewish community also sent delegates to the Fourth and Sixth Zionist Congresses. Despite the fact that Zionist activities were heavily monitored by the Russian authorities, the Mountain Jewish community held various fundraising events for the Zionist cause.

At the 1919 Third Zionist Congress of the Caucasus, one of the items on the agenda was a discussion on the desire of 12,000 Mountain Jews to immediately migrate to Palestine. Zionist activity in Azerbaijan reached its peak between 1918-1920, after which the Soviets outlawed it entirely.

SO...IS ZIONISM EUROPEAN?

It would be insincere to argue that Zionism, as a political movement, did not have cultural influences from Europe. Labor Zionism, for example, was deeply influenced by the socialist movement rising in popularity in Europe in the early 20th century. But the premise of Zionism, at its core -- that Jews have a legal right to self-determine in the Land of Israel -- is not of European origin in the slightest. Modern political Zionism was a political movement rooted in over 2000 years of tradition originating from the Middle East. In fact, the term “Zionism” itself comes from the Return to Zion, an event that occurred in Jerusalem and Babylon in 539 BCE, long before there were ever any Jews in Europe.

For over 2000 years, Jews continuously tried to reassert their autonomy in Eretz Israel. These efforts were started by different Jewish sub-groups; for example, in 614, Persian Jews led a campaign for Jewish autonomy in Jerusalem, a campaign which the Jews living in the Land of Israel welcomed and eventually joined. To reiterate, the desire for Jewish sovereignty in Israel is not a European political philosophy or ideology. It’s a Jewish aspiration at its core, one that comes from the Land of Israel itself. In the world that we live in, ideological cross-pollination, so to speak, is inevitable. Many, many independence movements in the Americas and Africa found inspiration in European events and ideologies, such as the French Revolution or communism.

It’s also important to note that Jews in Europe, up until that point, were considered “foreign” to Europe. They were not considered culturally or “racially” European, and thus, any Jewish political movement wasn’t working on “behalf” of Europe, either. It’s also important not to delegitimize the historical claim that Jews have to the Land of Israel, regardless of where they spent their Diaspora experience.

is Zionism...European?

Please note: this post is specifically about the modern Zionist political movement that began in the 19th century. That said, Jews in the Mi

[mischiefmaker615]

it’s usually because once we read the original book or series, we want to see more. more of our favourite character, or elaborating on something that we thought didn’t get enough time, fix-it-fics if we didn’t like a certain plot point, or writing different ships than the original material, if we think that some other characters might be cute together. for me at least, fanfiction isn’t just about reading it’s about getting more content for stories and characters that i already love

My Original Post: Random thought of the day,.. I always knew there was fan fiction of movie/show characters, actors, what have you.. but I always found it weird people make fan fiction with characters from books. I’m not talking about like Frankenstein for example., but smut book characters and then they take those characters and write them in their own fan books..

idk like, if I wanted to read about said character, why seek out fan fiction when I could read the book theyre already in? “because you can read them in different scenarios”

True, but it’s the closest thing that makes me hesitate within literature. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, you do you but,, just found it strange as I was thinking about it this morning Lol

thank you for coming to my ted talk 😆