There is no Israel without Jews. There are no Jews without Israel (Part 1)
We want to take advantage of this moment when everyone’s eyes are turned to Israel, in this time of war, to bring some clarifications that in our view are essential, specially to the Body of Messiah Yeshua.
We as believers must not only to know the Scriptures but also understand the modern history of Israel.
Many people want to pray for Israel, but they don’t know how. We believe that we must pray according to the Word of God. One of the most repeated topics in Scripture related to Israel is the return of the Jewish people to their land. We can find more than 160 passages on this subject.
On our website you can download for free a booklet with more than 160 passages to pray the Word, which, in the spiritual world, is very important, as this is one of the most repeated subjects in the Tanach.
In Hebrew, the word used to speak of the return to the land of Israel is “aliyah”, which means ascention. Always in the Scriptures, when referring to the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the expression used is “going up to Jerusalem”, because it is located on the mountains.
“Aliyah” – the word and its meaning
Aliyah, (pl. Aliyot) “ascension” is the arrival of Jews as individuals or groups, from exile or the Diaspora to live in Eretz Yisrael – the Land of Israel. Those who “ascend” for this purpose are known as olim – a term used in the Bible when the Children of Israel came up from Egypt (Genesis 50:14 and Num. 32:11) and – at a later period – for the exiles who returned from captivity in Babylon (Ezra 2:1,59 and Nehemiah 5-6). The call of Cyrus, King of Persia, in 538 BCE, uses this term “ascend” or “go up” in Ezra 1:3 and II Chron. 36:23 “‘
“Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The Lord , the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him. Let him go up.’”’
2 Chronicles 36:23
It was aliyah that recreated the Jewish Community after the Babylonian Exile, provided the community with some of its prominent spiritual leaders during the Second Temple and subsequent periods, preserved and repeatedly renewed the Jewish presence in Eretz Yisrael during the Byzantine, Arab, Mamluk, Ottoman, and British periods, and ruled and re-established the State of Israel in modern times.
Therefore we wish to bring a biblical basis and historical confirmation to clarify and reaffirm the Jewish connection and the right of biblical and legal possession over the land of Israel.
Psalm 24:1
‘ The earth is the Lord ’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, ‘
Here it is clear that the whole earth belongs to Yahaveh, the creator of all things, He is sovereign. As we try to understand historical facts and events only with human eyes, we lose focus. We need to submit to Him first. He has dominion over all nations and conducts history as he pleases.
Psalm 132:13-14
‘For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his dwelling place: “This is my resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it. ‘
Here, we see that out of the nations, He chose a place to dwell. He chose a place to make his name known. This place is Zion, Jerusalem, which is also called by Him “Bride”, countless times. Ki mi Tzion tetze Torah – udvar Hashem mYerusalaim (For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Isaiah – 2.3)
Deuteronomy 32:8-9
‘When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the Lord ’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage. ‘
We see that He also chose a people and gave a piece of land as an inheritance to them.
The first Biblical Aliyah is described in the Parashah (Weekly Bible Reading Portion) called: Lech Lechah:
‘Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. ‘
Genesis 12:1
In Genesis 15:18-21 we understand more about the boundaries of this land:
‘On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”’
What is clear here is that the PROMISED LAND is much larger than today’s Israel’s borders.
The second great Biblical Aliyah is in Exodus 12, when with a strong hand the Lord brought the people of Israel out of Egypt after 430 years of exile. When Joshua entered the Promised Land, after winning the battles, the division was made between the tribes of Israel and their descendants. (Joshua chapters 13 to 21).
In 597 BC, the Babylonian Exile takes place. And God had already warned Moses about the exile in Deuteronomy 28:63-64
‘And as the Lord took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the Lord will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you. And you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to take possession of it. “And the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. ‘
And why did this happen?
Because the land is holy, it is consecrated to God, He has chosen Zion to make His name known and sanctified to all nations. We have failed to sanctify God’s name and His land. In Leviticus 18:25 we see what would happen to us:
‘and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. ‘
On the other hand, we see that there is a time of exile to be fulfilled. The Babylonian exile lasted 70 years. He warned his prophets about this time. After this period, our people should return. Cyrus was used by God to release a decree of return for our people to go up with Ezra and Nehemiah back to our land.
Ezekiel 39:28
‘Then they shall know that I am the Lord their God, because I sent them into exile among the nations and then assembled them into their own land. I will leave none of them remaining among the nations anymore. ‘
The diaspora is called “captivity” by God – He does not want us to remain there. It is just a period of correction, like a Father to his child.
‘As a pleasing aroma I will accept you, when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you have been scattered. And I will manifest my holiness among you in the sight of the nations. And you shall know that I am the Lord , when I bring you into the land of Israel, the country that I swore to give to your fathers. ‘
Ezekiel 20:41.42
He rejoices, it is an incense to his nostrils when we return to the land of Israel.
God’s name is sanctified before the nations when we, the Jews, return to the land He has given us. The holy people in the holy land—the firstborn and priestly nation.
Returning to the historical sequence, in the year 70 AD the Roman exile occurs. However, Jews always remained in the land (the remnant) during all the empires that conquered the land of Israel later, Byzantine, Mamluk, Ottoman Turkish, and British.
From the Second Temple to Hibbat Zion
The Lovers of Zion, also Hovevei Zion (Hebrew: חובבי ציון) or Hibbat Zion (Hebrew: חיבת ציון), were a variety of proto-Zionist organizations founded in 1881 in response to anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire and were officially constituted as a group at a conference led by Leon Pinsker in 1884.
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 of promoting Jewish immigration to Palestine and advancing Jewish settlement there, particularly agricultural. Most of them stayed away from politics.
Aliyah until the Arab conquest
During the time of the Second Temple, there were many immigrants to Eretz Yisrael. Aliyah, mainly from Babylonian scholars, did not cease after the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE). This flow of aliyah ended in 520 when Mar Zutra, descendant of the exilarch in Babylon, settled in Tiberias and was appointed head of the Academy.
From the Arab conquest to the Ottoman conquest
There is little information about aliyah in the following centuries, the period of the Muslim conquest (636-638). In the 11th century, important arrivals included Solomon ben Judah, from Morocco, head of the Academy in Jerusalem and Ramleh; and baby Nasi Daniel. Azariah, a descendant of the Babylonian exiles. By the end of the 12th century, more Jews from North Africa had arrived as a result of the persecutions there.
The persecutions of Jews in Europe also contributed to aliyah. The most important immigration of this wave was that of the “300 French and English rabbis” who went to Eretz Yisrael in 1210-1211. The most important aliyah in this century was that of Nahmanides in 1267. Since his arrival, it is said that the settlement was continuous in Jerusalem.
By the end of the 13th century, aliyah had ceased as a result of the violent battles between the Crusaders and the Muslims. In the 14th century, Jews came from Spain and Germany. Several Italian Jews arrived in Eretz Yisrael in the 15th century and left their mark on the Jewish community. Immigrants from Mesopotamia, Persia, India, China, Yemen, and North Africa are also mentioned in this century.
From the Ottoman (Turkish) conquest to Hibbat Zion
The Turkish conquest in 1516 was followed by the aliyah of many Jews from the East, Sicily (Italy), France, and Germany – as well as refugees from the Spanish and Portuguese expulsions. Some of them settled in Jerusalem, but most of them settled in Safed. A large role in aliyah was played by immigrants from North Africa.
The flourishing of Kabbalah in Safed attracted additional aliyah, which continued throughout the 16th century – from France, Germany, Italy, and other European countries, as well as from North Africa and the East. In 1700, a group of 1,500 Jews from Europe, led by Rabbi Judah Hasid, settled in Jerusalem. In the mid-17th century, there was an important aliyah of Turkish Jews.
The end of the 18th century marks the beginning of the aliyah of Hassidim, who made it a principle of his teachings. The first organized aliyah of hasidim, led by the disciples of the Ba’al Shem Tov, took place in 1764. This aliyah was followed by more aliyot of Hasidim in subsequent generations. In 1808, the Perushim, the disciples of Elijah, the Gaon of Vilna, also organized an aliyah, establishing a community in Jerusalem.
In 1830, aliyah from Germany began and a sizable aliyah came from the Netherlands. There was also a considerable aliyah from Hungary. During the 19th century, considerable aliyot also occurred in eastern countries, including Turkey, North Africa, Iraq, Persia, Bukhara, Kurdistan, Afghanistan, the Caucasus, and Yemen.
New Aliyah – Modern Zionist Aliyot (1882 – 1948)
The First Aliyah (1882–1903)
The beginning of the return of modern Jews to Eretz Yisrael – the Land of Israel – which laid the foundation for the establishment of the State of Israel, was due to a combination of three causes:
– the ancient devotion of the Jews to their historical homeland,
– the wave of pogroms in Russia
(A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th and 20th century attacks on Jews in the Russian Empire (mostly within the Pale of Settlement). Retrospectively, similar attacks against Jews that occurred in other times and places also became known as pogroms. )
– the efforts of an active minority convinced that return to the homeland was the only lasting and fundamental solution to the Jewish problem.
Theodor Herzl – Austro-Hungarian – initially secular, assimilated, but when he saw the growing anti-Semitism in Europe, he began to be awakened to his calling. Herzl organized the First Zionist Congress in 1897 in Basel, Switzerland and wrote in his diary about this day of the congress, which became a prophetic statement:
“At Basel I founded the Jewish state. If I were to say this today, I would be greeted by universal laughter. In five years, perhaps, and certainly in 50, everyone will see it.”
On May 14, 1948 – 51 years later, there was the declaration of Israel’s Independence on the day of the end of the British Mandate.
The First Aliyah consisted of individuals and small groups, mainly under the inspiration of Hibbat Zion and the Bilu movement, which established the first rural settlements – moshavot. About 25,000 – mostly from Eastern Europe – came during this period. There were two main influxes: in 1882-1884 and 1890-91.
In 1903, the end of the First Aliyah period, 28 new moshavot were founded and 90,000 acres of land were purchased. There was also the beginning of urban settlements, especially in Jaffa, where 3,000 newcomers had made their homes.
Hebrew was beginning to be a spoken language once again, and the first Hebrew primary schools were established.
Overall, however, the pioneering impulse was exhausted and a period of stagnation set in. A turning point occurred in 1904, when the Second Aliyah began.
The Second Aliyah (1904–1914)
The depression caused by the stagnation of the early settlements, the controversies in the Zionist Organization over the Uganda Scheme, and Herzl’s death in 1904 were followed by a new surge of pioneering fervor that produced the Second Aliyah. The first impulse of the new wave came from the Kishinev Pogroms of 1903 and another two years later. The Second Aliyah consisted of young men and women, mainly from Russia, many of them imbued with socialist ideas. These young people were guided not only by a more conscious and consistent national ideology, but they were also spurred on by the ideal of laying the foundation for a community of workers in Eretz Yisrael.
The young pioneers of the Second Aliyah usually worked as indentured laborers in the moshavot or in the cities. They established the first Jewish labor parties – Po’alei Zion, based on the philosophy of Ber Borochov, and Ha’Poel HaZair, which was influenced by the philosophy of A.D. Gordon. It was also their initiative that led to the establishment of the first kevuzah.
In 1909 they laid the foundation for the first Jewish City – Tel Aviv. The young pioneers of the Second Aliyah were also active in early Jewish self-defense and established the HaShomer watchmen’s association. They introduced Hebrew into all walks of life and laid the foundation for a new Hebrew printing press and literature.
The influx, which totaled about 40.000, was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I.
The Third Aliyah (1919–1923)
The Third Aliyah of 1919 was partly a continuation of the war-interrupted Second. A renewed impetus—the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution, the postwar pogroms in Ukraine, and the influence of European national struggles—coincided with renewed hope, inspired by the Balfour Declaration and the British conquest of Palestine. The road to the west of the United States was still open, and most of those who chose the Land of Israel did so out of Zionist convictions.
In all, the Third Aliyah brought 35,000 immigrants: 53% from Russia, 36% from Poland and the rest from Lithuania, Romania and other Eastern European countries, as well as 800 from Western and Central Europe. Many of the 35,000 newcomers to the Third Aliyah were graduates of the HeHalutz movement in Russia and Poland and HaShomer HaZair in Galicia.
These young pioneers were a creative force, who transformed the character of the Yishuv and—along with their predecessors of the Second Aliyah—played a prominent role in its leadership. They founded the Histadrut, the nationwide labor organization, played a leading role in the creation of the Haganah defense organization; it provided workers for the construction of housing and roads and the beginning of industry; It strengthened the foundation of Jewish agriculture. The Third Aliyah also expanded the map of Jewish settlement by establishing many kibbutzim and moshavim.
The Fourth Aliyah (1924–1928)
In mid-1924, a new wave of immigration took hold, different in social composition from its predecessor. There was a drop in the flow of pioneers, mainly because of the restrictions on leaving Soviet Russia. On the other hand, there has been an increase in the immigration of middle-class people – shopkeepers and artisans – mainly from Poland.
This was the result of two developments:
– the economic crisis in Poland and the economic restrictions imposed on Polish Jews (hence the name “Grabski Aliyah” in honor of the Polish finance minister);
– the severe limitations on immigration to the United States, introduced in 1924.
Most of the newcomers, with no desire to change their way of life, settled in the cities, especially in Tel Aviv. They invested some of their small capital in workshops and factories, small hotels, restaurants, and shops, but most of their investments were made in construction. There has also been significant rural development in the Coastal Plain. New villages, based on citrus orchards, were founded.
In all, The Fourth Aliyah brought 67,000 immigrants, half of them from Poland. In 1926, however, the influx was interrupted by a severe economic crisis. Of the 13,000 who arrived in 1926, more than half left the country. In 1927, more than 5,000 people left the country and only 2,300 arrived. In 1928, the number of arrivals and departures was equal – about 2,000. The first signs of economic recovery came in 1929, when Aliyah recovered again.
To be continued…