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The Ottoman Empire, Zionism, and the Question of Palestine (1880–1908)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Mim Kemal Öke
Mim Kemal Öke
Affiliation:
Istanbul UniversityIstanbul, Turkey
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Extract

By the 1880s, the growth of anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria as well as the avalanche of pogroms in Russia and East Europe convinced a considerable section of the Jewish intelligentsia that assimilation was no longer a desirable nor a possible solution to the “Jewish Question.” They came to realize that Jews were not only a religious group, but also a separate nation, bound by a common faith and sentiment rather than by land. According to these Jewish nationalists, the Jewish Question could only be solved if the Jews stood on a par with other nations, which could be attained by the collective return of Jews to the ranks of the nations as a people living in their homeland. This was why Dr. Theodor Herzl, as the founder of political Zionism, insisted that the Jews should be “granted sovereignty over a portion of the globe large enough to satisfy the rightful requirements of a nation.”

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , August 1982 , pp. 329 - 341
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

NOTES

1 Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State: An Attempt to a Modern Solution to the Jewish Question (London, 1946), chap. ii.

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