Among the Milestones of Jews in the Process of Statization: Pogrom, Aliyah and Political Zionism (1881-1903)

The nineteenth century was a century when nationalist movements were experienced, the foundations of national states were laid, and geography was reshaped. In this period, many nations owed their struggle to survive and their success in establishing a nation-state based on race and land to diplomacy or social conflicts. While the new world order was being set within the context of the nation-state, Jews constituted one of the communities that struggled to take their place in the map and succeeded in this through diplomacy. Pogroms, Aliyahs and political Zionism are among crucial milestones in the Jews’ stages of transforming from a community into a state. These milestones are circles of an intertwined chain and are not independent of each other. In Tsarist Russia, which comprises the largest Jewish population, nationalism is focused on Jews, who are seen as enemies because of the hatred triggered by nationalist movements and economic crises. The first large scale pogrom among violence, pressure and oppression pogroms, which became systematic and constant, was experienced between the years 1881-1884. The Jews who were exiled from the geographical area that they had been living in for years as a consequence of pogroms, migrated collectively for the first time as the Aliyah (1882-1903). This was mostly being from Tsarist Russia and Eastern Europe and foremost to America and other western countries and some to Palestine. In the political environment and social chaos of the nineteenth century, this showed that Jewish minds could be oriented towards Palestine first with an extensive wave of pogroms and then the Aliyah could be experienced through Zionism. While pogroms and Aliyahs were being experienced, the diplomacy chain that Jewish leaders managed with great craftsmanship gave a new acceleration to Zionism in the nineteenth century and entered the phase of establishing a new, free Jewish state in old Palestine lands based on Zionism at all costs. Therefore, the leaders who used the years 1881-1903 not against but in favor of pogroms and Aliyah processes, which are among crucial milestones in the organization of Political Zionism, laid the foundation of the state to be established by forming the Jewish population in Palestine.