Lovers of Zion

Samuel Pineles is the linchpin of this entire transition.

You see, prior to 1881, there was a broader cultural movement in Eastern Europe known as Hibbat Zion, which translates from Hebrew to Love of Zion.

And that was mostly just ideas, right?

The distinction between this and what comes later is massive.

On a parallel line with both varieties of the national movement, and frequently intersecting it, went the Jewish socialistic movement, tinged to a lesser or larger degree by nationalistic tendencies.

For fifteen years, the Lovers of Zion, or the Hibbat Zion movement, had been pursuing its course in Russia without showing marked progress in the direction of that universal Jewish goal which had been formulated by its champions, Lilienblum and Pinsker.

During that period, some fifteen Jewish agricultural colonies had sprung up in Palestine.

The Jewish population of the Holy Land had been increased by some twenty thousand souls, and an effort had been made to create a national model school and to revive the ancient Hebrew tongue.

At the time, Jews numbered around 25,000, or only 10% of the total population of Palestine.

Many immigrants were Jewish students and members of Chovevei Tzion, Lovers of Zion, who carried romantic, nationalist, and socialist ideals with them to the land of Zion.

However, the young Russian Jews were not religious.

Instead, they came to work the land and establish agricultural settlements.