Aliyah and Love of Zion ( Ahavat Zion ) throughout the centuries.

Bar Kochba Revolt Message from Shimon, leader of the rebellion, to one of his officers, Yeshua Ben Galgula. ( Israel Museum, The Shrine of the Book ) In 132, a last attempt is made by the Jewish people to forcibly free themselves from the persecutions of Roman rule in the Land of Israel. A dismal failure, the revolt results in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews, further expulsions and emigrations. Although the Jews remain a majority in the Land until the sixth century, they lose control of many of their cities.

Foreign Reigns Part of the mosaic floor of the Synagogue at Ein Gedi; 6th century ( Israel Museum, The Shrine of the Book ) From the third to the eleventh centuries, the Land of Israel is jockeyed back and forth between the great empires of the day: Byzantine, Sassanian and Arab. In the 11th century, arrivals to Israel included Solomon ben Judah of Morocco who became head of the Academy in Jerusalem and Ramleh; and the Nasi Daniel ben Azariah, a scion of the exilarchs of Babylon. Hastening Redemption According to tradition, in 1140 Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi makes aliyah, believing that passive yearning must give way to action. My Heart Is In the East My heart is in the east, and I in the uttermost west--  How can I find savour in food? How shall it be sweet to me? How shall I render my vows and my bonds, while yet Zion lieth beneath the fetter of Edom, and I in Arab chains? A light thing would it seem to me to leave all the good things of Spain -- Seeing how precious in mine eyes to behold the dust of the desolate sanctuary. By Yehuda HaLevi (c. 1139) Convention of Rabbis Seal of the Rabbi Moshe Ben Nachman, Ramban, 1194-1270; ( Israel Museum ) During the 13th century, a belief in redemption prompts Jews from many lands to make aliyah. During what was known as the "aliyah of 300 rabbis," great  Jewish scholars from Ashkenaz, the East and Spain make their way to Israel in the first part of the century. Acco becomes a center of study. In 1267, the great Jewish Talmudist Nahmanides settled in Jerusalem. The messianic Jerusalem, seen by a 14th century Italian illuminator. (London, British Library, MS.-from Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, by Therese and Mendel Metzger.) Slow but Steady Mamlukan rule in the 14th century allows a flourishing of Jewish culture and the Jewish communities are reinforced with a steady stream of immigrants, including many of the great scholars of the day. From Spain to Safed In 1492, after a century of persecution, Spain’s Jewish community is expelled. Thousands of families made their home in Israel, many in Safed and its surroundings. Jews from Poland, Lithuania, as well as Central Europe join the movement towards Safed and Jerusalem. The prospering of Safed’s Jewish community was matched by its spiritual flowering. It soon became one of the great learning centers of the Jewish world. Rabbis Berab, Karo and Alkabetz are just a few of the famous scholars who immigrate to Israel. Leading to Zion Upheavals in the Jewish world, and growing messianism prompts many immigrants from all walks of life to Israel, particularly from Spain, Italy and North Africa. A pilgrim’s 1598 rendition of Kivrei Tzadikim (the graves of holy men) - among them Saul’s wall in the Gilboa, and the graves of Rabbi Akiva in Tiberias and of Joseph in Nablus. (Cecil Roth Collection, Toronto) In 1625, the prospering Jewish community of Jerusalem is almost completely dispersed by new local rulers. Most escaped to Safed. Mystics Dozens of leading rabbinic sages and their families come to Palestine in the years before 1648. Most of them were kabbalists of the school of Rabbis Cordoveo and Luria. Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz, who had served as chief rabbi in Dubno and Frankfurt, saw his own aliyah as a necessary step toward redemption. Drawing: Color ink drawing of Rabbi Isaac Luria Ari, by Nicholas Stavroulakis ( www.yvelia.com/ cultshop/items/cards ) Settling in Tiberias and Jerusalem Messianic expectations preceding the year 1740 spark a mass immigration to Palestine lasting many years. Rabbi Judah Hasid and 1500 followers settle in Jerusalem. Thousands of other immigrants, including spiritual leaders like Rabbis ben Atar, Luzzatto (Ramchal) and Abulafia,from all over the diaspora settle primarily in Tiberias and Jerusalem. Stalwart Commitment The Jerusalem Hotel was built by the son of Menachem Mendel Kamenitz, who made aliyah from Lithuania in 1833. Messianic fervor again spreads throughout traditional Jewry and inspires a large movement of aliyah. Over the first decades of the 1800s, tens of thousands of Jews arrive in Palestine, radically changing the demography of the Jewish community. By the time the first Zionist immigrants arrive, the land of Israel is already host to its largest and most vibrant Jewish community in centuries. Among the olim of this period are the disciples of the Vilna Gaon, who had tried unsuccessfully to reach Israel in the end of the 18th century. Disease, an earthquake and anti-semitic violence take a heavy toll on Jewish lives, but most of the Jews remain in Israel. Precursors of Zionism and Hibbat Zion (Lovers of Zion)   The end of the first third of the 19th century marks the emergence of the precursors of Zionism, and in the 1860s and ’70s, Hibbat Zion groups with more secular beliefs and practical plans to settle in the Land, all eventually leading to the formation of the political movement of Zionism, led by Theodore Herzl. Second Wave 1904-1914: Young socialists, primarily from Russia, establish kibbutzim and the first Jewish labor parties. They are inspired by the ideals of creating a Jewish workers commonwealth in the Land of Israel. These young pioneers are active in the emergent Jewish self-defense groups and lay the foundation for a new Hebrew press and literature. Third Wave 1919-1923: Partially a continuation of the Second Aliyah which had been curtailed by the First World War, these pioneers are for the most part graduates of the well-established Zionist youth movements in Eastern Europe. They establish many kibbutzim and moshavim, strengthening the foundations of Jewish agriculture and industry. They found the national labor federation - Histadrut, which will be the basis for the pre-state’s health, welfare, industrial, agricultural, and educational infrastructure. Fourth Wave 1924-1928: An economic crisis in Poland and severe limitations on immigration to the US prompts a large aliyah of the middle class. Many settle in Tel Aviv, setting up shops, restaurants and small industries. During this period, socialist pioneers continue to arrive, establishing new agricultural settlements and reinforcing the existing ones. Fifth Wave 1929-1939: The arrival of over a quarter of a million immigrants changes the character of the Yishuv. Hitler’s rise to power prompts many German and Austrian Jews to make aliyah. Most settle in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem. A large proportion are professionals, academics and artists. Twenty percent of that number settled on kibbutzim and moshavim. Illegal Immigration From 1882, there are strict quotas on the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel. In 1934, the first organized efforts at clandestine immigration by sea are attempted. Between 1934-1948, while Jews are trapped in Europe, some 115,000 illegal immigrants are brought into the country in defiance of British restrictions, while another 51,000 are interned in Cyprus by British Authorities, and enter only after the War of Independence.   Mass Aliyah 1948-1951: The floodgates open. Within four months, 100,000 Jews stream into the new State. By 1951, the population doubles to 1.4 million. The newcomers find homes in towns, agricultural settlements, existing homes and transit camps. The entire Jewish population mobilizes to absorb their brethren. The State Matures 1952-1967:Aliyah continues in smaller waves as another half a million Jews are absorbed from the entire Jewish world. During the mid 50s, large numbers arrive from North Africa, Poland and Hungary.In the early 60s more arrive from North Africa and Romania. Ulpanim are expanded and the establishment of permanent housing projects and development towns are launched around the country. Between the Wars 1967-1973: In the period of the euphoria following the Six Day War and before the depression after the Yom Kippur War when Israel realized the limits of its military might, there is a large increase in idealist immigrants from Western counries. In addition, easing of restrictions in the USSR and Poland brings over 100,000 Jews. Ethiopian Airlift In 1984 and in 1990, the Jewish Agency and the State of Israel arrange spectacular airlifts to bring the remaining Jewish community of Ethiopia to Israel. The Fall of the Iron Curtain The fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 prompts an unprecedented wave of immigration to Israel. Within a decade, over a million immigrants arrive from the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Israel prospers. "I am one member of one people confronting these closing decades of the twentieth century. Whether it knows it or not, my people is now engaged in an attempt to create for itself a third civilization. I feel myself part of that venture. I think of Sumer and its rushing rivers, Egypt and its rising Nile, Canaan and it terraced hills and fertility cults, Greece and Rome, Islam and Christianity, Jerusalem, Babylon, Cordova, Toledo, the Rhine Valley, the Ukraine, Vilna, Odessa, Kishinev. What will Jewry make of itself for the next thousand years? It is not difficult for Jews to remember the historical traumas of their past: the Crusades, the persecutions at the time of the Black Death, the Inquisition, the expulsion from Spain, the degrading ghetto centuries, the Chmielnicki rebellion, the Russian pogroms, the massacres during the First World War, and finally the Holocaust in which the European branch of Jewry perished-the core, the very heart of both the sacred and the secular in Jewish life, the branch that produced the great Talmudists with whom I once studied, as well as Sigmund Freud, Franz Kafka, Martin Buber, Henri Bergson, Marcel Proust, Albert Einstein. In some future time, eyes will gaze upon us as we have gazed in this book upon worlds of the past. They will say of us either that we used our new freedom-the freedom we sought but were never granted in Europe-to vanish as a people, or that we took advantage of the secret opportunity concealed within the persistent but hidden trauma we are now experiencing-a Jewry and Judaism decisively changed by its confrontation with modern paganism-to reeducate ourselves, rebuild our core from the treasures of our past, fuse it with the best in secularism, and create a new philosophy, a new literature, a new world of Jewish art, a new community, and take seriously the meaning of the word emancipation-a release from the authority of the father in order to become adults in our own right." Chaim Potok, Tel Aviv (from "Wanderings")

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