Old Yishuv

The Old Yishuv were the Jewish communities of southern Ottoman Syria in the Ottoman Empire,^[6] up to the onset of Zionist aliyah and the consolidation of the New Yishuv by the end of World War I in 1918 and the establishment of the British Mandate for Palestine. The Old Yishuv had continuously resided in Palestine and was largely made up of ultra-Orthodox Jews dependent on external donations (Halukka) for living, as opposed to the later Zionist aliyah and the New Yishuv, who were more socialist-leaning and secular, emphasizing labor and self-sufficiency.^{[citation needed]}

The Old Yishuv developed after a period of severe decline in Jewish communities of the Southern Levant during the early Middle Ages, and was composed of three clusters. The oldest group consisted of the Ladino-speaking Sephardic Jewish communities in Galilee and the Judeo-Arabic speaking Musta'arabi Jews who settled in Eretz Yisrael in the Ottoman and late Mamluk period. A second group was composed of Ashkenazi and Hasidic Jews who had emigrated from Europe in the 18th and early 19th centuries. A third wave was constituted by Yishuv members who arrived in the late 19th century.^[7] The Old Yishuv was thus generally divided into two independent communities – the Sephardi Jews (including Musta'arabim), mainly constituting the remains of Jewish communities of Galilee and the Four Holy Cities of Judaism, which had flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries; and the Ashkenazi Jews, whose immigration from Europe was primarily since the 18th century.^[8]

The Old Yishuv term was coined by members of the 'New Yishuv' in the late 19th century to distinguish themselves from the economically dependent and generally earlier Jewish communities, who mainly resided in the four holy cities, and unlike the New Yishuv, had not embraced land ownership and agriculture. Apart from the Old Yishuv centres in the four holy cities of Judaism, namely Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias and Safed, smaller communities also existed in Jaffa, Haifa, Peki'in, Acre, Nablus and Shfaram. Petah Tikva, although established in 1878 by the Old Yishuv, nevertheless was also supported by the arriving Zionists. Rishon LeZion, the first settlement founded by the Hovevei Zion in 1882, could be considered the true beginning of the New Yishuv.^[9]

Beginning of modern Aliyah (New Yishuv)

The Ottoman government was not supportive of the new settlers from the First and Second Aliyah, as the Ottoman government officially restricted Jewish immigration. The Yishuv relied on money from abroad to support their settlements.

In 1908, the Zionist Organization founded the Palestine Office [he], under Arthur Ruppin, for land acquisition, agricultural settlement and training,^[10] and later for urban expansion. The first Hebrew high schools were opened in Palestine as well as the Technion, the first institution for higher learning. Hashomer, a Zionist self-defence group, was created to protect the Jewish settlements. Labor organizations were created along with health and cultural services, all later coordinated by the Jewish National Council. By 1914, the old Yishuv was a minority, and the New Yishuv began to express itself and its Zionist goals.

The First Aliyah was the very beginning of the creation of the New Yishuv. More than 25,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine. The immigrants were inspired by the notion of creating a national home for Jews. Most of the Jewish immigrants came from Russia, escaping the pogroms, while some arrived from Yemen. Many of the immigrants were affiliated with Hovevei Zion. Hovevei Zion purchased land from Arabs and other Ottoman subjects and created various settlements such as Yesud HaMa'ala, Rosh Pinna, Gedera, Rishon LeZion, Nes Tziona and Rechovot. These agricultural settlements were supported by philanthropists from abroad, chiefly Edmond James de Rothschild. and Alphonse James de Rothschild.^[11]

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda also immigrated during the first Aliyah. Ben-Yehuda took it upon himself to revive the Hebrew language, and along with Nissim Bechar started a school for teaching Hebrew, later on founding the first Hebrew newspaper.

During the Second Aliyah, between 1903 and 1914, there were 35,000 new immigrants, primarily from the Russian Empire.

During World War I, the conditions for the Jews in the Ottoman Empire worsened. All those Jews who were of an enemy nationality were exiled and others were drafted into the Ottoman army. Many of those exiled fled to Egypt and the United States. Those who remained in the Ottoman ruled Palestine faced hard economic times. There was disagreement whether to support the British or the Turks. A clandestine group, Nili, was established to pass information to the British in the hope of defeating the Ottomans and ending their rule over Palestine. The purpose and members of the Nili were discovered. All involved were executed by the Ottomans except its founder, Aaron Aaronsohn, who escaped to Egypt. During World War I, the Jewish population in Palestine diminished by a third due to deportations, immigration, economic trouble and disease. In 1915, the British Army recruited Yishuv Jews who had been exiled to Egypt into the Zion Mule Corps, which provided logistical support during the Gallipoli campaign. Subsequently, the British established the Jewish Legion, which participated in the British conquest of Ottoman Syria (including Palestine), leading to the Turkish surrender. The Jewish Legion's soldiers were predominantly diaspora Jews, but after British forces entered Palestine, a battalion of local Jews was recruited, which carried out support roles and guarded prisoners.

Paramilitary forces

See Bar-Giora, Hamagen, Hanoter, and Hashomer.

Parliamentary representation and self-government

A department of the World Zionist Organization became the Jewish Agency for Palestine, and later the Jewish Agency for Israel. The agency and representative bodies were setup to enable self government.^[20] The Assembly of Representatives was the elected parliamentary assembly of the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine. It was established on 19 April 1920,^[21] and functioned until 13 February 1949, the day before the first Knesset, elected on 25 January, was sworn in. The Assembly met once a year to elect the executive body, the Jewish National Council,^[22] which was responsible for education, local government, welfare, security and defense.^[23] It also voted on the budgets proposed by the Jewish National Council and the Rabbinical Council.^[22] The Jewish National Council (ועד לאומי Va'ad Le'umi) was also known as the General Council of the Jewish Community of Palestine.^[24]

Yishuv governing institutions were recognized by the British government and created a quasi state as well as a structure of self-governing institutions that legitimately represented the Jewish population.^[19][25] It was "recognized as a public body for the purpose of advising and cooperating with the Administration of Palestine", and it was entitled to diplomatic representation in the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission in Geneva, as well as in London and elsewhere.^[19] These were given quasi-official diplomatic status by Britain and the League of Nations, giving the Yishuv's governing bodies international legitimacy.^[19]: 45

Paramilitary forces

The most notable Jewish paramilitaries in the British Mandate of Palestine were the Haganah, the Irgun and Lehi. In October 1945, during the Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine, those organizations joined to form the Jewish Resistance Movement. It was established by the Jewish Agency and activated for some ten months, until August, 1946.^[26] The alliance coordinated acts of sabotage and attacks against British authorities.

Women's rights

Many women who immigrated to Israel came out of national Zionist motives; they wanted the same rights as men and wanted to rebuild their land.^[27] In 1919 the first nationwide women's party in the New Yishuv (the Union of Hebrew Women for Equal Rights in Eretz Israel) was created, and Rosa Welt-Straus, who had immigrated there that year, was appointed its leader, as which she continued until her death.^{[28][29][30][31]} The constituent assembly was voted upon in 1920, and 14 women were elected out of the three hundred and fourteen delegates.^[32] As well as the increase in the number of women filling public positions, the rate of women participating in the labor force increased steadily during the British mandate period in the Yishuv. With that being said, the employment opportunities at the beginning of the mandate period were very limited and women were mainly restricted to typical female occupations because the only other option would be to work in construction, which only pioneer women committed to as part of their feminist-nationalist outlook because those roles were considered inappropriate for women.^[33] Women were consistently more unemployed when compared to their male counterparts, regardless of cyclical fluctuations. The wages for working women were consistently lower than the wages of their male counterparts, and throughout the Yishuv period, the average wage for women were 50 to 70 percent of male's wage.

Not only were non-religious women fighting for equality, but so were religious women. Female religious Zionists were faced with double the amount of barriers of non-religious female Zionists because they were rejected from religious society because of their gender and they were rejected from secular society because of their religiosity.^[27] In 1926, the haredim, who preferred not to face the possibility of a plebiscite, left the Yishuv's Assembly of Representatives. That year, an official declaration was made (ratified by the mandate government in 1927) confirming "equal rights to women in all aspects of life in the yishuv – civil, political, and economic".^[34] In 1935, the establishment of the national organization of religious pioneer women emerged. Its main goal was to improve the material status and spiritual welfare of the religious women workers and gain admittance to the Ha-Po'el ha-Mizrachi. This organization grew from eight-hundred members in 1935 to six-thousand members in 1948.^[35] Women gained rights with the establishment of the religious kibbutz movement by participating in Torah studies with men and by taking part in the activities that the kibbutz offered.^[35]

History

There were Arab riots throughout 1920–21 in opposition to the Balfour Declaration. The Arabs tried to show the British the instability of Palestine and that a Jewish homeland was ungovernable.^{[citation needed]} Riots increased in 1929 after the fourth Aliyah – 133 Jews were killed by Arab mobs during the 1929 Palestine riots. Arabs claimed that Jewish immigration and land purchases were displacing them and taking their jobs away. These riots were also instigated by false rumours that the Jews were planning on building a synagogue near the Western Wall.^{[citation needed]} These riots led to the evacuation of Hebron's indigenous – largely non-Zionist – Jewish population. The Sursock Purchases led to the eviction of around nine thousands Palestinian Arab tenant farmers. They became a focus of the Shaw Commission search for causes of the riots. The 1936 Arab general strike against British colonial rule and its support for Zionism led to the Peel Commission, which recommended the partition of Palestine, leading to the peasant-led 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine also known as the Palestinian Revolt.^[36][37]

Evacuations and expulsions of Jews under the British Mandate

The 1920 Nabi Musa riots left four Arabs and five Jews killed, with 216 Jews and 23 Arabs wounded. The majority of the victims were members of the old Yishuv. About 300 Jews from the Old City were evacuated following the riots.^[41]

During the Jaffa riots in 1921, thousands of Jewish residents of Jaffa fled for Tel Aviv and were temporarily housed in tent camps on the beach. Tel Aviv, which had previously been lobbying for independent status, became a separate city due in part to the riots. However Tel Aviv was still dependent on Jaffa, which supplied it with food and services, and was the place of employment for most residents of the new city.^[42]

Following the 1929 Palestine riots, which left 133 Jews dead,^[43][44] the Jewish community members of Gaza and Hebron were ordered to evacuate by the British forces, in fear of their security.

During the Arab revolt of 1936–1939, the Jewish residents of Akko were ousted from the city by local Arab residents. The same fate was forced on the ancient Jewish community of Peki'in.