adam offspring conflict: The Diaspora began in 586 BCE during the Babylonian occupation of Israel. The Babylonians destroyed the First Temple, which was central to Jewish culture at the time. After the 1st century Great Revolt and the 2nd century Bar Kokhba revolt, theRomans expelled the Jews from Judea, changing the name to Syria Palaestina. After almost two millennia of existence of theJewish diaspora without a national state, the Zionist movement was founded in the late 19th century by secular Jews, largely as a response by Ashkenazi Jews to risingantisemitism in Europe, exemplified by theDreyfus affair in France and the anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire. The Russian Empire, with its long record of state organized genocide and ethnic cleansing (pogroms) was widely regarded as the historic enemy of the Jewish people. As much of its leadership were German speakers, the Zionist movements headquarters were located in Berlin. At the start of World War I, most Jews (and Zionists) supported Germany in its war with Russia. In 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany, and in 1935 the Nuremberg Laws made German Jews (and later Austrian and Czech Jews) stateless refugees. Similar rules were applied by the many Nazi allies in Europe. During World War II, as the horrors of the Holocaust became known, the Zionist leadership formulated the One Million Plan, a reduction from Ben-Gurions previous target of two million immigrants. Following the end of the war, a massive wave of stateless Jews, mainly Holocaust survivors, began migrating to Palestine in small boats in defiance of British rules. Zionism has been characterized ascolonialism, and Zionism has been criticizedfor promoting unfair confiscation of land, involving the expulsion of, and causing violence towards, the Palestinians. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 05:24:17 +0000