Jewish political movements
From the time of the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans to the foundation of Israel, the Jewish people had no sovereign territory and were largely denied equal rights in the lands in which they lived.
Thus, until the emancipation of the Jews in the 19th century, almost all Jewish political struggles were internal, and dealt primarily with either religious issues or local community concerns.
The rabbinate was the highest aim of many Jewish boys, and the study of the Torah (first five books of the Bible) and the Talmud was the means of obtaining that coveted position, or one of many other important communal distinctions.
Mendelssohn's extraordinary success as a popular philosopher and man of letters revealed hitherto unsuspected possibilities of integration and acceptance of Jews among non-Jews.
Despite these movements, only France, Britain, and the Netherlands had granted the Jews in their countries equal rights with gentiles after the French Revolution in 1796.
[citation needed] During the early stages of Jewish emancipation movements, Jews were simply part of the general effort to achieve freedom and rights that drove popular uprisings like the Revolutions of 1848.
[citation needed] Frustration with the slow pace of Jewish acceptance into European society, and a revolutionary utopianism, led to a growing interest in proto-socialist and communist movements, especially as early socialist leaders, like Saint-Simon, preached the emancipation of the Jews.
Moses Hess played a role in introducing Karl Marx (who was descended from a long line of rabbis) and Friedrich Engels to historical materialism.
Others like Rabbi Zvi Kalischer viewed a return to the Jewish homeland as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy through natural means.
Starting with the state-sponsored massive anti-Jewish pogroms following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, through the bloody pogroms of 1903 to 1906 who left thousands of Jews dead and many more wounded, continuing with the Dreyfus Affair in France in 1894, Jews were profoundly shocked to see the continuing extent of antisemitism from Russia to France, a country which they thought of as the home of enlightenment and liberty.
The movement was to achieve momentum under the leadership of an Austrian-Jewish journalist, Theodor Herzl, who published his pamphlet Der Judenstaat ("The Jewish State") in 1896.
[citation needed] In the 20th century, Jews in Europe and the Americas traditionally tended towards the political left, and played key roles in the birth of the labor movement as well as socialism.
[citation needed] Daniel J. Elazar connects this pluralist tendency to the fact that Jews are not expected to proselytize, and argues that whereas Christianity and Islam anticipate a single world-state, Judaism does not.
[1] This lack of a universalizing religion is combined with the fact that most Jews live as minorities in their countries, and that no central Jewish religious authority has existed for over 2,000 years.
Every major American city has its local "Jewish Federation", and many have sophisticated community centers and provide services, mainly health care-related.
The shift appears to reflect an alignment with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition government and its views on Israel's security.
