History and Impact of Zionism

Judaism is one of the world's oldest religions.

For more than three thousand years, Jews have defined themselves

by a covenant with God, kept through the Torah.

In the year seventy, Rome destroyed the temple in

Jerusalem, and the Jews were scattered across the world.

Their tradition taught that God had decreed this exile

and that only God would end it.

For eighteen centuries, Jews prayed for Jerusalem every

day, and some went to live there.

But no one organized a movement to take the land.

In the 1800s, nationalism swept Europe.

Some secular Jews adopted its idea: the Jews are

a nation like any other and need a state of their own.

In 1897, Theodore Herzl turned that idea

into a movement: Zionism.

Most leading rabbis of the time rejected it.

They saw a political movement putting nationality in the place of faith.

In 1948, the State of Israel was founded, calling

itself the Jewish State.

Many Jews support it. Many religious Jews still oppose

Zionism.

Either way, Zionism and Judaism are different things.

A state can be criticized like any state, and no Jew

answers for a government he never chose.