The Zionist Movement

Essay # 53703

History > Middle Eastern
History > Religion
Religion and Theology > Judaism

A description of the founders of the modern Zionist movement and the path the movement took.

1,457 words () | 6 sources | APA | 2004 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper establishes the Jewish foundations for a claim to the Holy Land and the reasons their own nation was pursued. It traces the influential leaders who paved the way for the modern Zionist movement and describes the early leaders' successes and failures and their influence on the leaders who formed the World Zionist Organization. It also examines the steps leading up to the establishment of a Jewish homeland and the progress they made in settling and moving into this land.

From the Paper:

"An early precursor to Zionistic thought was Rabbi Yehudah Alkalai. In 1834, he wrote a booklet entitled Shema Yisrael (Hear, O Israel), in which he proposed the creation of Jewish colonies in the Holy Land as necessary to the Redemption of the land. The Blood Accusation of 1840, in which the Jews of Damascus were accused of sacrificing gentiles and using the blood of the victims in the Passover, convinced Alkalai that for security and freedom the Jewish people needed a life of its own, within its ancestral home. He believed the Jews would be able to buy this land from the Turks, as Abraham had bought the land from Ephram. To fulfill this goal, Alkalai proposed the formation a "Great Assembly" to create a national fund to purchase the land."