In the 19th century, despite the changes brought about by modernity, Jews had not been able to fully integrate into European societies, and European societies, in turn, had failed in their attempts to incorporate them. This problem, known as «the Jewish question,» was widely debated at the time within Judaism and in European Gentile society in general.

Jewish integration not only involved knowing the country’s language and living with their neighbors, but also led to their own secularization, as they sought to be part of a society based on three principles: equality of all before the law, separation of church and state, and loyalty to the country of residence. By the end of the 19th century, many viewed the Jewish people more as an ethnic and cultural group than a religious one. What secularists sought at that time was to integrate Jewish culture into European humanist education, detaching it from religion. From this secular stance emerged movements in Judaism that proposed various solutions to the Jewish question.

 One of these was the nationalist movement expressed in Zionism, which proposed the reconstruction of Jewish national life in the Land of Israel as a solution to the problems that modernity had brought to the Jewish people. Migration to a homeland was the answer to the problems of Jews in Europe. Antisemitism in Russia sparked the growth of the Zionist movement, but the underlying cause was the end of the Jewish way of life in the ghetto and the limited possibilities of integrating into European society.

Jews always dreamed that one day the Messiah would solve their problem. Three times a day, the Amidah is prayed for the reconstruction of Jerusalem, but for 18 centuries, the Jewish people did nothing practical to make it a reality, despite being constantly subjected to discrimination by Christians and Muslims, and despite the fact that modernity did not mitigate antisemitism in Europe.

The Jewish national movement began in the 1870s, first in Russia and later in Poland. Groups promoted migration to the land of Israel, such as the «Hovevey Zion.» Moses Hess, in his book «Rome and Jerusalem» (1862), argued that Jews were not a religious group but rather a national group with their own religion. Zionists criticized reformers for trying to reshape Judaism by copying Gentile religious forms.

The Zionist movement gained political strength with Theodore Herzl when he convened his first congress in 1897. Herzl had witnessed how «the Jewish question» had acquired a national dimension, not just a social and religious one. His proposal had a political focus, although there were other Zionist approaches with a cultural, religious, social, or practical action focus.

The religious response to modernity had not been sufficient to resolve the «Jewish question.» Therefore, Zionism proposed a national solution. For them, the best thing was to return home.

By: Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: The History of Zionism, by Moshe Maor and other sources.