Hastening Redemption

Last updated
Seal of Jewish community in Jerusalem in the 19th century Perushim Jerusalem seal (19th-cent.).jpg
Seal of Jewish community in Jerusalem in the 19th century

Hastening Redemption: Messianism and the Resettlement of the Land of Israel is a history of nineteenth century Jewish immigration to Palestine published in 1985 by Israeli historian Arie Morgenstern. Publication of the book led to a scholarly reconsideration of the followers of the Vilna Gaon, who were not previously thought of as messianic in outlook. According to Morgenstern, the messianic impulse that motivated Jews to settle in the Land of Israel and the belief in the centrality of Eretz Yisrael were critical components in Jewish spiritual life that predated the Zionist era. He bases his findings on documentation made available by the opening of archives in the former Soviet Union and archival discoveries in Western and Central Europe. [1]

Jewish immigration in 1808-1840

According to a certain pietistic reading of the Bible and Talmud, it was said that the Messiah would arrive in the Hebrew year 5600, or 1840. Beginning in the early years of the nineteenth century, thousands of Jews able to finance the journey moved with their families to the Land of Israel to await the great event. The arrival of large numbers of followers of the Vilna Gaon, known collectively as the perushim , was especially notable. Sizeable groups are recorded as arriving from Jewish communities all over the world, including Persia, Yemen, Morocco, Algeria and Russia. [2] [3]

The Gaon's followers initially settled in Tiberias and then Safed. Later, some of them moved to Jerusalem and continued to live there, abandoning their messianic beliefs when the Messiah failed to appear in 1840. [4]

The settlers' early enthusiasm was tempered by a devastating cholera epidemic in 1813. [5] Much hardship was caused by the underdeveloped state of the economy and the Ottoman government's disinterest in securing the life and property of its subjects. The mortality rates among the immigrants were extraordinarily high. Life was difficult for everyone, but Jews suffered even more due to laws that forbade them to bear arms (making it impossible for Jewish travelers to defend themselves from bandits), build housing or establish synagogues. These restrictions could only be overcome by means of substantial bribes, and even that was only possible in the event that the responsible officials were corrupt and not especially ill-disposed towards Jews.

Some disciples of the Gaon arrived from Lithuania as part of the Hazon Zion (Vision of Zion) movement led by Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Shklov. [6]

Conditions improved after the conquest of Syria (of which the Land of Israel was then part) by Muhammad Ali of Egypt in 1832. A letter from Jerusalem in 1834 describes large-scale immigration to the Holy Land: “It should be known to you that from other lands, worthy people are actually streaming to the Four Holy Cities (Hebron, Jerusalem, Tiberias and Safed)” [7]

The new government was more lenient in its treatment of the Jews, allowing the rebuilding of synagogues in Tiberias and Safed destroyed by the Galilee earthquake of 1837 and the building of some Jewish housing.

Related Research Articles

This is a list of notable events in the development of Jewish history. All dates are given according to the Common Era, not the Hebrew calendar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of Zionism</span>

This is a partial timeline of Zionism in the modern era, since the start of the 16th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aliyah</span> Immigration of Jews from the diaspora to the Land of Israel

Aliyah is the immigration of Jews from the diaspora to, historically, the geographical Land of Israel, which is in the modern era chiefly represented by the State of Israel. Traditionally described as "the act of going up", moving to the Land of Israel or "making aliyah" is one of the most basic tenets of Zionism. The opposite action—emigration by Jews from the Land of Israel—is referred to in the Hebrew language as yerida. The Law of Return that was passed by the Israeli parliament in 1950 gives all diaspora Jews, as well as their children and grandchildren, the right to relocate to Israel and acquire Israeli citizenship on the basis of connecting to their Jewish identity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hurva Synagogue</span> Synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem

The Hurva Synagogue, also known as Hurvat Rabbi Yehudah he-Hasid, is a synagogue located in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vilna Gaon</span> Polish-Lithuanian rabbi and Talmudist (1720–1797)

Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, known as the Vilna Gaon or Elijah of Vilna, or by his Hebrew acronym HaGra, was a Lithuanian Jewish Talmudist, halakhist, kabbalist, and the foremost leader of misnagdic (non-hasidic) Jewry of the past few centuries. He is commonly referred to in Hebrew as ha-Gaon he-Chasid mi-Vilna, "the pious genius from Vilnius".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judah Alkalai</span>

Judah ben Solomon Chai Alkalai was a Sephardic Jewish rabbi, and one of the influential precursors of modern Zionism along with the Prussian Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer. Although he was a Sephardic Jew, he played an important role in a process widely attributed to the Ashkenazi Jews. Alkalai became noted through his advocacy in favor of the restoration of the Jews to the Land of Israel. By reason of some of his projects, he may justly be regarded as one of the precursors of the modern Zionists such as Theodor Herzl.

Palestinian Jews or Jewish Palestinians were the Jewish inhabitants of the Palestine region prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

<i>Perushim</i> Disciples of the Vilna Gaon

The perushim were Jewish disciples of the Vilna Gaon, Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, who left Lithuania at the beginning of the 19th century to settle in the Land of Israel, which was then part of Ottoman Syria under Ottoman rule. They were from the section of the community known as mitnagdim in Lithuania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">First Aliyah</span> Jewish immigration to Palestine (1881–1903)

The First Aliyah, also known as the agriculture Aliyah, was a major wave of Jewish immigration (aliyah) to Ottoman Syria between 1881 and 1903. Jews who migrated in this wave came mostly from Eastern Europe and from Yemen. An estimated 25,000 Jews immigrated. Many of the European Jewish immigrants during the late 19th-early 20th century period gave up after a few months and went back to their country of origin, often suffering from hunger and disease.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judah HeHasid (Jerusalem)</span> 17th-century Jewish preacher

Judah he-Hasid Segal ha-Levi was a Jewish preacher who led the largest organized group of Jewish immigrants to the Land of Israel in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The history of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel is about the history and religion of the Jews, who originated in the Land of Israel, and have maintained physical, cultural, and religious ties to it ever since. First emerging in the later part of the 2nd millennium BCE as an outgrowth of southern Canaanites, the Hebrew Bible claims that a United Israelite monarchy existed starting in the 10th century BCE. The first appearance of the name "Israel" in the non-Biblical historic record is the Egyptian Merneptah Stele, circa 1200 BCE. During biblical times, two kingdoms occupied the highland zone, the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) in the north, and the Kingdom of Judah in the south. The Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and the Kingdom of Judah by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Initially exiled to Babylon, upon the defeat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire by the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great, many of the Jewish exiles returned to Jerusalem, building the Second Temple.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yisroel ben Shmuel of Shklov</span>

Yisroel ben Shmuel Ashkenazi of Shklov was a Lithuanian Jewish Talmudist, one of a group of Talmudical scholars of Shklov who were attracted to Vilna by Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, known as the Vilna Gaon (1720–97). He was one of "the last arrivals," and attended upon the Gaon as a disciple for less than a year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chabad messianism</span> Belief that Menachem Mendel Schneerson is the Jewish messiah

Messianism in Chabad refers to the contested beliefs among members of the Chabad-Lubavitch community—a group within Hasidic Judaism—regarding the Jewish messiah. Many in the Chabad community believe that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the deceased seventh Rebbe of the Chabad-Lubavitch dynasty, is the Jewish messiah. The issue remains controversial within both the Chabad movement and the broader Jewish community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Old Yishuv</span> Ottoman-era Jewish community in the Levant prior to the onset of Zionist immigration

The Old Yishuv were the Jewish communities of the region of Palestine during the Ottoman period, up to the onset of Zionist aliyah and the consolidation of the New Yishuv by the end of World War I. In the late 19th century, the Old Yishuv comprised 0.3% of the world's Jews, representing 2–5% of the population of the Palestine region.

Avraham Wolfensohn (1783–1855) was a Jewish rabbi, Talmudic judge and leader of the Ashkenazi community in Safed, Ottoman Galilee in the mid-19th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Proto-Zionism</span>

Proto-Zionism is a term attributed to the ideas of a group of men deeply affected by the idea of modern nationalism spread in Europe in the 19th century as they sought to establish a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel. The central activity of these men was between the years 1860 to 1874, before the Zionist movement established practical (1881) and political Zionism (1896). It is for this reason that they are called precursors of Zionism, or proto-Zionists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bab Hutta</span>

Bāb Ḥuṭṭa is a neighborhood in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem to the north of the Haram al-Sharif. The name literally means "Forgiveness Gate", referring to the Remission Gate of the Haram compound, connected by Bāb Ḥuṭṭa Street.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natan Friedland</span> Rabbi, speaker, and scribe. One of the introducers of Zionism

Nat(h)an Friedland was a rabbi and member of the H'bat Tsion movement, one of the fathers of the movement for settling the Land of Israel. He grew up in Taurig, Lithuania in the early decades of the 19th century and died in Jerusalem in 1883. He became one of the most prolific Zionist writers of the H'bat Tsion movement in the mid-1800s. He was one of several writers and thinkers of the 19th century created the intellectual basis for a new Jewish state. Friedland's collected writings, including his most popular work, "Der Cos", were translated from the Yiddish to modern Hebrew. All these publications are in Hebrew except the Jewish Encyclopedia article which is in English.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yosef Rivlin</span> Orthodox Jewish scholar (1836–1896)

Yosef Yitzhak "Yoshya" Rivlin was an Orthodox Jewish scholar, writer, and community leader in the Old Yishuv of Jerusalem. Scion of a family of Perushim, disciples of the Vilna Gaon who immigrated to Israel in the early 19th century, Rivlin spearheaded the establishment of the first Jewish neighborhoods outside the Old City walls. He helped found a total of 13 neighborhoods, beginning with Nahalat Shiv'a and Mea Shearim. His activities earned him the nickname Shtetlmacher ("Town-Maker"). He directed the Central Committee of Knesseth Israel, the supreme council of the Ashkenazi community in the Old Yishuv, for over 30 years.

References

  1. Dispersion and the Longing for Zion, 1240-1840
  2. Ofri Ilani, The Messiah brought the first immigrants, Haaretz, 06/01/2008
  3. Gil Student, Slow Pace And The Rebirth Of Israel, Jewish Press, May 7, 2008.
  4. The Messiah brought the first immigrants
  5. Israel Jews and Judaism
  6. Reshaping Palestine: From Muhammad Ali to the British Mandate, 1831-1922, Martin Sicker
  7. Hastening Redemption: Messianism and the Resettlement of the Land of Israel, Arie Morgenstern, Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 52, letter from Jerusalem, 24 December 1834.