Some background information
In Israel, there is a corrupt and crumbling Ottoman Empire and approximately 26,000 Jews living mostly in four holy cities. In Europe the “Hibat Zion” movement is gaining strength and the Zionist dream is taking shape.
The First Aliyah
The Aliyah of Farmers
(1881-1903)
The first wave of immigrants in the history of the pioneer settlement in the Land of Israel lasted more than 2o years, from 1882 to 1903 bringing with it 20,000 – 30,000 people. Most of the people were traditional religious people that went to Jerusalem and other holy cities. They joined the people of the “Old Yishuv”‘
Some of the immigrants belonged to “Hovevi Zion”, which was established in Eastern Europe following the pogroms and the repression of the Jews. They hoped to establish a “colony” of farmers in the Land of Israel. These immigrants, from Russia, Romania and Poland, together with some natives of the Land of Israel, founded the villages of Rishon LeZion, Zichron Ya’akov, Rosh Pina, Mazkeret Batya and Yesod Hama’ala in the years 1882-1884.
A second wave of immigrants from Russia and Poland, still part of the “First Aliyah”, arrived in the years 1890-1891. They founded new villages, such as Rehovot and Hadera, which were not connected to the Baron Rothschild and his clerks.
The Response of the Turkish Government
The Turkish government (The Land of Israel was part of the Ottoman Empire) was alarmed by the flow of immigrants and their acquisition of land and so they forbade further immigration. Thus, the flow of immigrants declined and very few new villages were established, such as Motza, Be’er Tuvia (which was then called Kastina and Metulla. At the end of 1900, the Baron Rothschild transferred the care of the colonies to the Jewish Charitable Association. They founded several villages in the Lower Galilee between 1901 and 1903, including Menachmia, Kfar Tabor, Yavniel and Ilania (Shajara).
Education and Culture During the First Aliyah
Before the first Aliyah, education in the “Old Yishuv” consisted of solely religious studies conducted in the “cheder” (Talmud Torah), yeshivas and the synagogues of each ethnic group. The period of the First Aliyah witnessed a revolution in the fields of culture and education.
Eliezer Ben Yehuda began his battle to make Hebrew the spoken language of the Yishuv. He added words as the need arose and he established Hebrew schools, where Hebrew was the dominant language, in the settlements. French, the language of The Baron’s clerks, was gradually pushed aside. Moreover, secular subjects were added to the schools’ curriculum. Mathematics, English and science became an integral part of the curriculum.
What else do you have to know about the First Aliyah?
The Old Yishuv
The “Old Yishuv” is the name given to the groups of people that had been living in the Land of Israel prior to the First Aliyah. This name was given to them at the time of the First Aliyah, which was called the “New Yishuv”. From the end of the 18th century until the 1880s, with the arrival of the First Aliyah, the Jewish population in Israel grew from approximately 6,000 to approximately 26,000.
A prominent figure in this area was Sir Moshe Montefiore. In 1914, on the eve of World War I, most of the Jewish population of the Land of Israel, 60,000 out of 85,000 Jews consisted of people from the Old Yishuv and their descendants. Most of them lived in four holy cities: Jerusalem, Safad, Hebron and Tiberias. The 25,000 Jews of the New Yishuv lived mainly in Jaffa, Haifa and the villages.
The Baron Rothschild
“I will climb up into the palm-tree..”
This is the name given to the “Aliyah” from Yemen in 1882 (תרמ”ב). This name comes from verse 6, 10 in Song of Songs. It is a change in the order of the letters in the Hebrew year (.תרמ”ב).
חושו אחים, חושו!
מילים: יחיאל מיכל פינס
לחן: עממי רוסי
חוּשׁוּ, אַחִים, חוּשׁוּ!
נָרִימָה פְּעָמֵינוּ!
טוּשׂוּ, אַחִים, טוּשׂוּ,
לְאֶרֶץ אֲבוֹתֵינוּ!
לֹא לָנוּ הַמְּנוּחָה,
לֹא לָנוּ הַמַּרְגּוֹעַ
בָּאֶרֶץ הַקְּרוּחָה
וְשִׁלְטוֹן הָאֶזְרוֹעַ!
רֵעַי בִּי יְהַתֵּלוּ
מַה לְּךָ אֶרֶץ מוֹרָשָׁה?
שָׁם אִיִּים יֵילִילוּ –
תּוּר לְךָ אֶרֶץ חֲדָשָׁה!
The Mass immigration
1870-1914
This was a demographic phenomenon in which more than 35 million people emigrated from Eastern Europe westward, to Western Europe and lands across the sea. The most popular destination was the United States, to which 22 million immigrants arrived, including two million Jews.
In addition to the economic and demographic situation, the pogroms which took place at the end of the 19th century (with the encouragement of the Russian government which wanted to place the blame for the economic and social difficulties on the Jews) caused the Jews to understand that they could not find their place and be integrated into the Russian society. The desperation made them seek a new future in other lands, in liberal and democratic western countries.