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Shtetl at Sea – Knesset Israel Illegal Immigration Ship

Mordechay Saar Marmorstein

The SS Knesset Israel set sail to break the British blockade barring Holocaust survivors from the land of Israel. Packed with young and old from all walks of life, this floating shtetl defied His Majesty’s...

ArticlesEuropeIssue 67 | December 2023Pre-state of IsraelZionism

Seder Under Siege – Seder in Jerusalem 1948

Moshe Ehrnvald

As the sun set on the British Mandate and rose over the new State of Israel, civil war raged between Arabs and Jews. Jerusalem’s hundred thousand Jewish residents prepared to celebrate Pesach under siege, unsure...

ArticlesIssue 72 | March 2025JerusalemPesachPost-1948War of IndependenceZionism

Loving Zion From Gaza – Pioneers in Gaza

Ido Yisraeli

After touring the land of Israel, an early Zionist delegation proposed resettling European Jews not just in agricultural colonies but in cities. A pioneer group from Jaffa agreed to pave the way in Gaza, writing...

19th centuryArticlesIssue 72 | March 2025Land of IsraelZionism

Book Review | Moynihan’s Moment

Yitzhak Klein

Musings on history, alternative history, and theology based on the surprising final scene of Tarantino’s film. Yitzhak Klein Moynihan’s Moment: America’s Fight against Zionism as RacismGil Troy Oxford University Press,2013, 358 pages On November 10,...

20th centuryAmericaBook ReviewsColumnsIssue 16 | April-May 2013StatesmenZionism

Breakthrough to the Negev – Jewish Settlement of the Negev

Dotan Goren

At the end of the 1930s, the land of Israel’s parched south was devoid of Jewish settlement. In the decade leading up to the establishment of the State of Israel, however, the region suddenly boomed,...

ArticlesIssue 70 | September 2024Land of IsraelPre-state of IsraelZionism

Voices of the Past | Eliezer Ben Yehuda

Eliezer Ben Yehuda

Father of modern Hebrew Eliezer Ben Yehuda describes how Balkan nationalism drew him to Zionism Eliezer Ben Yehuda Eliezer Ben Yehuda (see “Hebrew Zealot,” Segula 22) wrote this article soon after the issuance of the...

19th centuryColumnsGreeceIssue 71 | December 2024WritersZionism

Journey of an Idea – From Rabbi Bibas to Herzl

Yitzhak Krausz

Back to the article The First Zionist Visionary – Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai The concept of the Jewish people’s revival in its ancient homeland shuttled between a disintegrating Ottoman Empire and Balkan countries aspiring to independence....

19th centuryGreeceIssue 71 | December 2024RabbisZionism

From the Archives | Building Zion from Rhodesia

Denise Rein

A booklet produced by a Zionist youth movement in Rhodesia reflects a rich and vibrant community that lasted less than a century. Its young authors had no idea civil war was about to change their...

20th centuryAfricaColumnsIssue 26 | May 2015Jewish CommunitiesZionism

Births of a Nation – Jewish Birth Rate in Mandate Palestine

Lilach Rosenberg-Fridman

Thanks to its high birth rate, Israel is one of the West’s only growing societies. Under the British Mandate, however, the Zionist campaign for large Jewish families largely flopped. What factors outweighed the urgent demographic...

ArticlesIssue 70 | September 2024Land of IsraelPre-state of IsraelZionism

Full Circle – Hora

Amit Assis

Though nostalgically associated with Israel’s early days, the hora was originally neither socialist nor Jewish. So how did this folk dance become synonymous with young Zionists circling under a starry sky? Amit Assis There was...

20th centuryArticlesIsrael Independence DayIssue 45 | November 2018Land of IsraelZionism

Awakening from Despair – Yosef Haim Brenner

Amit Assis

Yosef Haim Brenner’s stories are steeped in his own experiences. Deeply troubled by the Jewish people’s desperate state, he saw no solution in the land of Israel yet spoke up for it heroically. In life,...

20th centuryArticlesIssue 69 | June 2024Land of IsraelLiterature and CultureZionism

Zionism

Shtetl at Sea – Knesset Israel Illegal Immigration Ship