Why did Jews want to immigrate to Palestine?

Answer 1

The territory that was referred to as Palestine was the historical homeland for Jews and there has been an uninterrupted Jewish presence in that land for over 3000 years. European Jews started returning to the land in noticeable numbers in the 1800's. Middle Eastern Jews moved to the land after the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948 due to severe persecution in the Islamic countries.

Answer 2

Israel is important to Jews because God promised it to Jacob (Genesis ch.28), the father of the Israelites, and his descendants. Jacob was renamed Israel by God (Genesis ch.35); and the Israelites lived in Israel during the era of the Patriarchs (220 years), during the era from Joshua until the First Destruction (850 years), during the Second Temple era (420 years) and afterwards. They remained a majority in the land for another 300 years after the Second Destruction; and a minority of Jews remained there throughout the ensuing centuries.

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Israel had been the site of the First Temple, built by King Solomon; the dynasty of King David; the Second Temple, built by Ezra; and the Hasmonean Dynasty. It was where the Hebrew Prophets lived, and where the Mishna (Oral Torah) was codified. Also, many of the Torah's commands apply only in Israel.

Answer 2

Answer 1

because they wanted to.

Answer 2

Certainly many Jews who survived the Holocaust wanted to go to Israel as it was trying to create a truly Jewish state. However, those Jews who tried to go home after the war found squatters living on their property who did not want to return the property to its rightful owners. Anti-Semitism had become entrenched, especially in smaller, less educated communities. Jews no longer had a place in Europe and wanted to live where they would not have to worry about discrimination.

Answer 3

Historically, the Jewish people had been ill-treated and harassed out of almost every country they had ever lived in. In particular, in Europe, the Holocaust resulted in 6,000,000 Jewish civilian deaths and an untold number of European Jews being forced out of their homes. The people who returned found that the population that came back was now intolerant of them. In the Arab World, Jews had been second-class citizens who had to pay special taxes and had fewer rights at law. When the Europeans came in and colonized the Middle East, they granted the Jews facial equality, which angered many Muslim Arabs and drew the Jews close to the colonizers. As the European countries began to give the Arab World independence, Jews were treated horribly for their connection to the former colonial infrastructure.

Since most of world Jewry was in either Europe or the Arab World, those push factors drove a large percentage of Jews to find a new place to live. They wanted a country where being Jewish was no longer a detriment, so they went to the British Mandate of Palestine because that territory was established with the intent of creating just such a Jewish homeland.

Answer 4

There were already 15,000 Jewish colonists in Palestine. The Great War of 1914-1918 displaced millions of Jews who were living in what had become battlegrounds: a territory called the Pale of Settlement, extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Because of their separate religion, customs and language (Yiddish) the Jews of Near and Far Europe had always been subject to unpredictable bouts of violence from their neighbors. The 20th century had started no differently, with the Kishineff Massacre of 1903, and the Russian massacres of 1905. After World War 1 left them homeless and starving, many Jews emigrated back to the ancient homeland in Palestine, until Britain, which controlled Palestine, limited their emigration.

Answer 5

A:Jews had already been moving into Palestine since late in the nineteenth century, a part of a Zionist aim to establish a Jewish homeland within Palestine. By the beginning of the twentieth century, there were 12 Zionist settlements in Palestine. By 1914, Jews constituted a tenth of the total population of the territory. The Balfour Declaration gave Jews hope that they could establish a homeland there, although Balfour had been careful to frame his declaration in terms of protecting the rights of the Arabs.

The Jewish population of Palestine continued to grow, by both legal and illegal Immigration. By the end of World War 2, it was clear that the Jewish population would achieve some form of statehood within the boundaries of Palestine. The traumatic events leading up to and during World War 2 resulted in a mass exodus of Jews from much of Europe, with the bulk going either to the United States or to Palestine. There was an expectation that a Jewish state would be carved out of Palestine, and this was an important reason for Jews moving there between the end of World War 2 and the Declaration of Independence. Some arrivals had religious motives, but the majority of immigrants during this period were secular Jews with little interest in religious antiquity and a preference for making their homes in the rich coastal areas rather than holy city of Jerusalem.

Answer 6

Many Jews came to Palestine from Europe, trying to escape the Nazi Holocaust. They also came with the dream that they could build their own lives and a country where they would not be subject to discrimination again.

Answer 7

Israel is important to Jews because God promised it to Jacob (Genesis ch.28), the father of the Israelites, and his descendants.

• Link: Jewish history timeline
  

Israel had been the site of the First Temple, built by King Solomon; the dynasty of King David; the Second Temple, built by Ezra; and the Hasmonean Dynasty. It was where the Hebrew Prophets lived. Also, many of the Torah's commands apply only in Israel.

See also the Related Links.

Link: Jewish history in Israel

Link: Is Israel still protected by God?

Link: Does Israel belong to the Jews?

Link: What a Muslim has to say

Answer 8

Because they were not welcome anywhere else.

Answer 9

This was motivated by Jewish Nationalism or ZIONISM.