The Return to Zion

Plot

A great beginners guide to the return to the Land of Israel by the Jewish people and the miraculous re-establishment of a Jewish state on the soil of the ancient Jewish homeland.
That the Jews should return o their ancient land, after being for the most part but not totally (because there was always a Jewish presence in the Land of Israel) separated from the land is amazing enough. That this should take place after the greatest catastrophe ever suffered by a people and that they should defeat those who wished to prevent the re-establishment of Israel, against such overwhelming military odds, is recognized by Jew and gentile alike as a heaven sent miracle. The book is entitled the 'THE RETURN TO ZION' rather than 'Zionism' because the return to the Land of Israel began not with the modern rebirth of the Zionist ideology int he 19th century but with the very expulsion of the Jews from Israel by the Romans.

This guide introduces the reader to Zion in Jewish liturgy and the Jewish remembrance of Zion and the detruction throughoutt he millenia.
It covers the many aliyahs to Eretz Yisrael by Jews through the ages, such as the aliyah of Nachmanides, the Spanish Bible exegete and Talmud commentator in 1267, the Chassidic aliyah of 1777 and many other return to the Land of Jews through the ages.
It also traces the founding of Zionism and the revival of the Zionist ideology by such luminaries Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai and Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, Moses Hess, Leo Pinsker and Theodor Herzl, the early pioneering groups such as BILU and Hovevei Zion, and the great struggle to resettle Eretz Yisrael.
It takes us through the struggles against Arab aggression and the betrayal by the British government, the pogroms and the Holocaust, and the various Aliyahs back to the holy Land, including the Fifth Aliyah of Jews in the 1930s fleeing from Nazi Germany.
It concludes with the declaration of Israel's independence and the re-establishment of the Jewish Commonwealth.