Yishuv

The Yishuv is the term used for the Jewish entity in the Land of Israel beginning in the last quarter of the 19th century, with the departure of members of the Old Yishuv from the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem and the founding of Mikveh Israel and Petah Tikva, and continuing through the First Aliyah in 1881 and the establishment of the colonies, in a continuous historical sequence until the Declaration of the State of Israel.

This entity was also called "the Hebrew Yishuv" היישוב העברי and is referred to by that name in the Declaration of Independence.

The term "Yishuv" has additional forms: "the Jewish Yishuv" or "the Jewish Yishuv in the Land of Israel" – to distinguish between Jews in the Land of Israel and the Arabs of the country; "the New Yishuv" – to distinguish between the Zionist settlers and the long-established Jewish residents of the "Old Yishuv" היישוב הישן; and "the Organized Yishuv" – to distinguish between those who obeyed the leadership of the Yishuv and those who did not.

Brief History of the Yishuv

Over the years from the founding of Mikveh Israel in 1870 and Petah Tikva in 1878 until the Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948, the Jewish population in the Land of Israel grew from about 26,000 people ("Old Yishuv") to about 650,000 people. During those years the Yishuv developed in every aspect: settlement movements established cities and colonies and created unique forms of settlement such as the kibbutz and the workers' moshav; simultaneously, land and swamps were acquired that became fields and orchards, prosperous agriculture developed, and modern industry emerged.

The Yishuv adopted the Hebrew language, common to all communities, as the language of instruction in most educational systems, institutions of higher learning, research, and science at an international level were established, and a widely circulated Hebrew press developed. Cultural life flourished in literature, art, theater, and music.

The Yishuv established quasi-governmental institutions, political parties were founded, elections were held, and even a Hebrew magistrates' court was established.

The Yishuv learned to defend itself and military organizations and underground groups were established, fighting against attacks by the Arabs of the country. The longest of these, called the 1936–1939 Disturbances, lasted three bloody years. The Haganah organization, the largest military organization in the Yishuv, provided the Yishuv with six infantry brigades and four elite battalions of the Palmach even before the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

During the period of the Yishuv, the country passed from hostile Ottoman rule in Palestine to British Mandate for Palestine, whose attitude toward the Yishuv changed from time to time according to the personalities of the various High Commissioners and the events of the time. With the restrictions on Jewish immigration imposed in the 1939 White Paper, the leadership of the Yishuv organized the Aliyah Bet movement that brought about 80,000 immigrants to the country despite the British, until the establishment of the state.

During the Holocaust, the Yishuv, which then numbered less than 500,000 people, sent about 30,000 volunteers for service in the British Army and also 32 Yishuv paratroopers (including three women: Hannah Szenes, Haviva Reik, and Sara Braverman), who went on dangerous missions behind the lines of the Nazi enemy in an attempt to join partisan units and their Jewish brethren in Europe. Twelve of them were captured on their missions and seven were executed.

With the decision of the UN General Assembly on the date known as "29 November" 1947, an attack was launched on the cities of the Yishuv and its transportation routes by the Arabs of the Land of Israel, aided by the Arab Liberation Army, and the Yishuv stood for its life. As the date of the declaration of the state approached, the leadership of the Yishuv faced a fateful decision: whether to declare independence on the date set by the UN General Assembly resolution, or to postpone the declaration due to the danger of invasion by the regular armies of the Arab states, which were equipped with artillery, armor, and aircraft. Opinions in the Yishuv leadership were divided, and even the U.S. Secretary of Defense favored postponement. Nevertheless, on 14 May 1948, on a Friday afternoon, in the first Hebrew city Tel Aviv, David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the state. The chapter of the Yishuv ended and the period of the State of Israel began, which opened with the morning of 15 May 1948, with the invasion of five Arab armies into the territory of the newly established state.

Ottoman Period

File:Jews in Jerusalem 1895.jpg

Members of the Old Yishuv in characteristic dress, from east and west, 1895

File:PikiWiki Israel 5628 Synagogue.jpg

Founders' Square in the Rishon LeZion colony founded in 1882, on a postcard from the 1920s

The Ottoman period in Palestine began in 1517 and ended with World War I.

The Old Yishuv

"The Old Yishuv" היישוב הישן is the term for the traditional, long-established Jewish community in the Land of Israel that existed for generations before the First Aliyah. The term was coined in the late 19th century and appeared in literature and the press. Most members of the "Old Yishuv" lived in the Four Holy Cities: Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, and Hebron, as well as in settlements such as Peki'in, Kafr Yasif, Acre, Nablus, Shefa-Amr, and Gaza. During the 19th century they also settled in Jaffa and Haifa. A significant portion of the Old Yishuv engaged in Torah study and prayer and were supported by halukka funds, donations from Jews in the Diaspora for those living in the Land of Israel.

Aliyahs in the Late Ottoman Period

First Aliyah (1881–1903)

The first wave of immigration, which was also motivated by Zionist reasons. The immigrants came from Eastern Europe and also from Yemen. Most were traditional religious families who hoped to improve their economic situation, find rest and inheritance, and continue their previous way of life. Some were organized under Hovevei Zion and the Bilu movement. Most were aged 30–40 with families from small towns. During the First Aliyah the veteran colonies Rishon LeZion, Zichron Ya'akov, Gdera, and Rehovot were founded, and organizational, social, and cultural development took place in Jewish centers in the cities Jerusalem, Jaffa, and Haifa. In the colonies founded, a class of farmers emerged based on Hebrew labor and Hebrew guarding. The colonies received aid, but also patronage and control from Baron Edmond James de Rothschild and his officials.

Second Aliyah (1904–1914)

The wave of Aliyah that followed the First Aliyah, in which mainly Eastern European Jews and Yemenite Jews immigrated to the Land of Israel. About 30,000 immigrants settled in the country, and at its end the Jewish population was estimated at 85,000. Demographically, this immigration was largely a continuation of the First Aliyah. The immigrant population consisted mainly of traditional religious families who hoped to improve their economic situation, find rest and inheritance, and continue their previous way of life. Most were not organized and did not have a consolidated ideology. About a quarter of the immigrants were children up to age 15, and a similar proportion were over 50. About 63% of the immigrants were men. A small minority of about two thousand people were imbued with socialist-national and Zionist ideology. This ideological core, despite its small size, had a great influence on the Yishuv in the Land of Israel. From this socialist-labor minority came the leadership of the Yishuv and of the State of Israel in its early days. This wave of immigration stopped with the outbreak of World War I.

During World War I

The Jewish Yishuv during World War I suffered greatly from shortages, expulsions, disease, and mortality. On 28 March 1917, Jamal Pasha ordered the expulsion of the residents of Jaffa and Tel Aviv. The Jewish residents of Tel Aviv were exiled to the southern and northern colonies. About 5,000 people were expelled and lived in distress as refugees until the British conquest of the country.

The military governor Jamal Pasha was a Turkish military man and statesman who was part of the Young Turks movement. From 1913 he was one of the three rulers who jointly governed Turkey and was appointed military governor of Syria, of which the Land of Israel was then a part. At the beginning of his rule he showed some sympathy toward the Jews of the country due to their education and professional skills, but during World War I he changed his attitude toward the New Yishuv and began repressive measures and persecution against it. He imposed harsh decrees on the Yishuv, forced conscription into the Ottoman Army, the obligation of Ottomanization – acceptance of Ottoman citizenship, abolition of the "Capitulations" – privileges of foreign Jewish citizens, executions, and expulsions from the country. The peak was the Tel Aviv expulsion in the winter of 1917. Most of the Ottoman authorities' attacks were directed against members of the First and Second Aliyah, i.e., mainly the new immigrants. The Old Yishuv was not affected by the Turkish calamity at that time. The conscription obligation also did not apply to the Jews of the Old Yishuv but to the New, such as Tel Aviv alone.

Some leaders of the Zionist movement advocated a declaration of identification with Turkey and Germany; but ultimately a neutral position was decided. Leaders Chaim Weizmann and Ze'ev Jabotinsky advocated support for the Allies. Weizmann worked to gain British support for Zionist goals in the Land of Israel, an effort that led to the Balfour Declaration. Joseph Trumpeldor and Jabotinsky worked to establish the Jewish Legion in Egypt and Britain. Under the leadership of Aaron Aaronsohn, the NILI intelligence network was established, which assisted the British war effort through espionage and brought money by ship to the Jews of the country. The members of the Yishuv eagerly awaited the arrival of the British. The British were received by the Yishuv as liberators, but it was not long before the hopes placed by the Yishuv in them and their British Mandate were disappointed.

British Mandate Period

The Sykes–Picot Agreement, signed in 1916 between Britain and France, determined the division of the Ottoman Empire's inheritance in the Middle East, in anticipation of its expected defeat in World War I. According to the agreement, the Land of Israel was intended to be divided into areas under direct British control: eastern Transjordan, the Negev, and the Haifa enclave. The Upper Galilee was intended for French control, while the rest of the country would be under international rule. The Jews and Arabs rejected the agreement and in practice it was not implemented, and instead came the British Mandate for Palestine granted to Britain by the League of Nations.

The San Remo Conference, the conference of the victorious powers in World War I held on 24 April 1920 in the Italian resort town of San Remo, discussed the state of the world after the end of the war and decided, among other things, that Britain would be granted a mandate over the Land of Israel. The mandate was later officially granted by the League of Nations.

The attitude of the British Mandate authorities toward the Yishuv and the Zionist movement during its 30 years of existence was influenced by many factors: changes of government in Britain, different prime ministers and foreign ministers at any given time, the international situation, Britain's position at different stages of World War II, and the situation in the triangle of British-Jewish-Arab relations. A decisive weight was the personalities of the seven High Commissioners who served in the country.

During the Mandate period, the British government established several commissions of inquiry on Palestine to examine the Jewish-Arab problem in the area and submit recommendations for implementation to the British government.

The White Papers

• First White Paper (1922). Published by Winston Churchill, who was then the British Colonial Secretary, and in it Britain's statement of intentions regarding the Land of Israel after the 1921 Palestine riots. It was declared that Britain continued to support the Balfour Declaration regarding a Jewish national home in the Land of Israel, but only in part of the country and with a limitation on Jewish immigration. Transjordan was separated from the Land of Israel and given to the rule of Emir Abdullah (later Abdullah I of Jordan).
• Second White Paper (1930). Known as the Passfield White Paper, after the Colonial Secretary at the time, Lord Passfield (Sidney Webb), who published it. This White Paper came to state the British government's position on the Land of Israel according to the conclusions of the Shaw Commission and the Simpson Report, which was a supplementary report to its conclusions, regarding British policy in the Land of Israel after the 1921 riots. The paper constituted a further hardening of British policy toward the Yishuv, almost completely restricting land sales to Jews and determining that Jewish immigration would not only be according to the economic absorptive capacity of the country, but would also be tied to the unemployment situation of the Arabs of the country. The report completely retreated from the Balfour Declaration and determined that a Jewish-Arab legislative council should be established for the country as a whole. The report aroused strong opposition in the Zionist leadership and even in political circles in Britain. The British entered into negotiations with representatives of the Jewish Agency and it was decided to cancel the Second White Paper. British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald announced this in an official letter to Chaim Weizmann.
• Round Table Conference: After the failure of the Woodhead Commission to find a solution to the Palestine problem, the British convened a Round Table Conference in 1939 at St. James's Palace in London. The conference invited the heads of the Zionist movement and representatives of the Arabs of the Land of Israel and the Arab states. The Jewish delegation was led by Dr. Chaim Weizmann and included David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Sharett (then Shertok). The Arab delegation was led by the Grand Mufti if Jerusalem Hajj Amin al-Husseini. Each session of the conference was held twice in the same hall, first with the Arabs and second with the Jews, due to the Arabs' refusal to sit next to the Jews. The conference failed because both sides could not, despite British mediation efforts, reach any agreement. Before the conference was convened, the British announced that if no agreement was reached, Britain would publish its own plan, and indeed on 17 May 1939 Britain published the 1939 White Paper, the most severe of all its predecessors.
• Third White Paper (1939). This White Paper was published after the failure of the Round Table Conference and in light of the continuation of the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Mandatory Palestine. The White Paper declared that the Land of Israel would not be partitioned and destined it for the future of one state for both peoples, Jewish and Arab. The immediate and practical policy set in it imposed a heavy restriction on Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel and reduced it to a quota of 75,000 people for the next five years. Jewish land purchases were restricted and in practice, after the Land Transfer Regulations were published in 1940 following the White Paper, land purchases from Arabs became impossible. The paper aroused anger and protest in the Yishuv and the Zionist movement and the struggle against the British rule began, which ultimately ended with the UN General Assembly decision on 29 November 1947 and the establishment of the State of Israel.

Aliyahs during the British Mandate Period

Third Aliyah (1919–1923)

A Zionist, socialist, and pioneering wave from Russia, Poland, and Romania as well as from the rest of the Jewish diaspora. It began with the end of World War I. Many of the immigrants turned to manual labor in road construction within the framework of "public works". They established pioneering frameworks such as the Gedud HaAvoda and Gedud Shomriya. They developed the urban Yishuv in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa, and established the kibbutzim Beit Alfa, Ein Harod, Tel Yosef, and Merhavia kibbutz and the workers' moshavim Nahalal and Kfar Yehezkel. During the Third Aliyah the Histadrut (General Federation of Hebrew Workers in the Land of Israel) was founded.

Fourth Aliyah (1924–1929)

Many of the immigrants came from Eastern Europe, from the Soviet UnionTemplate:Note, Poland, Romania, and Lithuania, and from Asian countries, for example Yemen and Iraq. Most were middle-class families who immigrated due to antisemitism, nationalism (historical and religious connection), and economic decrees such as the Grabski decrees in Poland. The immigrants brought capital with them and caused the development of trade and industry in the Yishuv and also cultural prosperity. Most settled in the cities Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem and caused a great increase in their Jewish population. In 1927 the Fourth Aliyah fell into an economic crisis resulting from the economic difficulties of Polish Jewry, which was the main source of immigration that brought immigrants without capital and means.

Fifth Aliyah (1929–1939)

Immigration that began after the 1929 Palestine riots and became mass immigration from 1932 onward, during the stages of Adolf Hitler's rise to power and after it. This was an immigration that for the first time included a large percentage of immigrants from Germany and among them many young people who immigrated within the framework of Youth Aliyah. The Fifth Aliyah was an immigration of the middle class and included professionals such as doctors, architects, lawyers, as well as merchants and industrialists. This immigration brought economic prosperity to the Yishuv, a great momentum in the cultural development of the Yishuv, and great progress in medicine and academia. With the outbreak of the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Mandatory Palestine in 1936, the flow of immigrants weakened but strengthened again in 1938 and 1939. With the beginning of British restrictions on immigration, the Aliyah Bet movement also began. The Fifth Aliyah stopped with the outbreak of World War II.

Youth Aliyah

A framework for the immigration of young people to the Land of Israel. Founded in 1932, with the worsening of the situation of German Jews during Hitler's rise to power. Within this framework thousands of young people immigrated to the Land of Israel before World War II, during it, and during the Aliyah Bet period, and were absorbed in Youth Aliyah institutions. Youth Aliyah continues to exist even in the period of the state.

During World War II

During the Holocaust, the Yishuv, which then numbered about 500,000 people, sent about 30,000 volunteers for service in the British Army and also 32 Yishuv paratroopers (including three women: Hannah Szenes, Haviva Reik, and Sara Braverman), who went on dangerous missions behind the lines of the Nazi enemy in an attempt to join partisan units and their Jewish brethren in Europe. Twelve of them were captured on their missions and seven were executed.

For half a year from the spring of 1942 until 3 November 1942, the Yishuv experienced two hundred days of fear, in which it faced the danger of invasion by the Nazi army, which advanced from North Africa eastward toward the Suez Canal, at a time when reports had already reached the country about the extermination of European Jews. The leadership of the Haganah organization prepared the "Masada on the Carmel" plan, to concentrate all members of the Yishuv on Mount Carmel and its surroundings, for desperate defense against the invader, with all the connotations known for the name Masada. The danger passed with the British victory in the Second Battle of El Alamein.

The Struggle against British Rule

Siege of Givat Haim

With the end of World War II, the Aliyah Bet movement to the country increased. The Mandate authorities tried to stop the immigrant ships. On the night of 23 November 1945, Palmach forces blew up radar stations along the country's coasts that monitored the movement of ships. Among others, the police station in Givat Olga was damaged. The next day the British imposed a siege on Kibbutz Givat Haim with army, police, and paratrooper forces, in order to break into it and locate the perpetrators of the action in Givat Olga. A march of thousands of volunteers moved toward the kibbutz. In the clash with the British force, eight of the marchers were killed and forty-two were wounded.

Black Sabbath

On Saturday 29 June 1946, following actions of the Jewish Resistance Movement, the Mandate authorities carried out a series of repressive actions against the Yishuv, imposed curfews on cities and kibbutzim, conducted searches for weapons and security activists in homes and public institutions, and among others uncovered a large weapons cache in Kibbutz Yagur. Many Yishuv leaders were arrested, including Moshe Sharett (then Shertok), Yitzhak Gruenbaum, David Remez, and Dov Yosef. In total, more than 2,700 people were arrested and imprisoned in detention camps in Latrun and Rafah.

King David Hotel bombing

An attack carried out by the Irgun against the British Mandate in the Land of Israel on 22 July 1946. After calling up the Brits to evacuate, giving them time to, which they ignored, the Irgun's bomb blew up the southern wing of the King David Hotel, which housed the military headquarters of the British Mandate and in which Mandate administration officials were staying. In the explosion about ninety people were killed, most of them Arabs and British, as well as about 15 Jews. About 45 people were injured.

Olei HaGardom

Nine Irgun fighters and three Lehi fighters who were tried and sentenced to death by hanging. Eight of them were sentenced by British military courts and two by an Egyptian military court. Ten of the condemned were executed by hanging and two took their own lives before their execution date.

Toward the Declaration of the State

In 1947, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine was established. On 31 August 1947, the committee submitted its UN Partition Plan to the UN, according to which the British Mandate would end and the country would be divided into two states, Jewish and Arab, which would maintain economic cooperation between them, while Jerusalem would be an international zone. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly decided by a vote of 33 countries in favor against 13 and 10 abstentions to accept the Partition Plan and the end of the British Mandate on the Land of Israel on 15 May 1948. Thus the foundation was laid for the establishment of the State of Israel.

The Yishuv in the War of Independence

With the UN General Assembly decision on the date known as "29 November" 1947, an attack was launched on the cities of the Yishuv and its transportation routes by the Arabs of the Land of Israel, aided by the Arab Liberation Army, and the Yishuv stood for its life. As the date of the declaration of independence approached, the leadership of the Yishuv faced a fateful decision: whether to declare independence on the date set by the UN General Assembly resolution, or to postpone the declaration due to the danger of invasion by the regular armies of the Arab states, which were equipped with artillery, armor, and aircraft. Opinions in the Yishuv leadership were divided, and even the U.S. Secretary of Defense favored postponement.

On 14 May 1948, on a Friday afternoon, in Dizengoff House in Tel Aviv, David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the state. The chapter of the Yishuv ended and the period of the State of Israel began, which opened with the morning of 15 May 1948 with the invasion of five Arab armies into the territory of the newly established state.

Sources

• H. Merhavia (ed.), Zionism, Treasure of Political Documents, introduction: David Ben-Gurion, Achiasaf Publishing, 1943

Belles-lettres and guidance

• Mordechai Naor, Book of the Century – Pictorial History of the Land of Israel in the Twentieth Century, Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense Publishing and Am Oved, 1998.
• Robert Sharshevsky et al., One Hundred Years and Twenty More – Pictorial History of the Land of Israel from the Mid-19th Century, 1–3, Tel Aviv: Maariv Publishing, 1968.
• Yigal Lossin, Pillar of Fire, Shkmona Publishing, 1982.
• Mordechai Naor and Dan Giladi, Land of Israel in the Twentieth Century. From Yishuv to State, 1900–1950, Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense Publishing, 1990

Studies

• Amir Ben-Porat, Where Are Those Bourgeois? History of the Israeli Bourgeoisie, Sifriat Ashkolot, Levi Eshkol Institute and Magnes Press, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1999.
• Ben-Zion Gat, The Jewish Yishuv in the Land of Israel in the years 1840–1881 (doctoral dissertation), submitted in 1948, Jerusalem: Association of Friends of the Hebrew Gymnasium, 1963.
• Alex Bein, History of Zionist Settlement, Tel Aviv: Masada Publishing, 1942, 1970.
• Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, From Yishuv to State: Jews of the Land of Israel in the British Mandate Period as a Political Community, Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1986.
• Anita Shapira, Sword of the Dove – Zionism and Power 1881–1948, Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1992.
• Aviva Halamish, From National Home to State on the Way: The Jewish Yishuv in the Land of Israel between the World Wars, Tel Aviv: Open University, 2004
• Graciela Trachtenberg, Between Nationalism and Art: The Establishment of the Israeli Art Field in the Yishuv Period and the Early Years of the State, Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2005.
• Moshe Lissak (ed.), History of the Jewish Yishuv in the Land of Israel Since the First Aliyah (six volumes on the Yishuv out of seven volumes of the series):
  • Moshe Lissak, Israel Kolatt, and Gabriel Cohen (eds.), The Ottoman Period: Part A; Moshe Lissak, Israel Kolatt (eds.), The Ottoman Period: Part B, Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Bialik Institute, Jerusalem
  • Zohar Shavit (ed. and main author), The Construction of Hebrew Culture in the Land of Israel, Part A, Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Bialik Institute, Jerusalem, 1998.
  • Moshe Lissak (ed.), The British Mandate: Part A; Moshe Lissak, Anita Shapira, and Gabriel Cohen (eds.), The British Mandate: Part B; Moshe Lissak (ed.), The British Mandate: Part C, Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Bialik Institute, Jerusalem, 1989–2009
• Moshe Lissak and Dan Horowitz, "Political Mobilization and Institution Building in the Jewish Yishuv during the Mandate Period", in: ibid. and Emanuel Gutmann (eds.), The Israeli Political System, Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1977, pp. 51–60
• Tom Segev, Days of Anemones – The Land of Israel during the British Mandate, Keter Publishing, Jerusalem, 1999

External links

• Archives of Yishuv institutions and organizations in the catalog of the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem
• Hebrew Culture in the 1930s: Primary Sources and Teaching Resources, on the education site of the National Library of Israel
• Produce of the Land and Building the National Home: Primary Sources and Teaching Resources, on the education site of the National Library of Israel

Websites

• On the Yishuv, in the book Trends in Israeli Society, on the Kotar website