A. Within the history of the Jewish people are pervasive themes of exile, wandering and return. The biblical record, from the Adam and Eve story through the period of Egyptian slavery, the exodus and the Babylonian captivity, depicts the Jewish people as perpetually in motion towards the homeland given to them by God. And, like Ulysses, the Jewish people return to their homeland, to find it in disarray.
The modern call for a Jewish homeland springs from the Jewish people's deeply rooted connection to Israel. Their history as a civilization begins there, and, throughout 18 centuries of exile, the Jewish people continued to trickle in to the Holy Land in hopes that the future of their people as well as the past would be in Israel. Jews did not begin to emigrate in large numbers to Israel, however, until the late 1800s. The beginnings of Jewish emigration to Israel is generally attributed to the emergence of a virulent anti-Semitism in both Eastern and Western Europe. France and Germany proved to be fertile ground for racist theorizing, and Russia began its pogroms in 1881. By the turn of the century, the Jews were suffering persecution at the hands of Christians and Muslims throughout the world. This increased pressure from the Jews' adopted homes, combined with an internal longing for Israel, created the conditions for Zionism.
Zionism is a call for Jews to establish and maintain a Jewish homeland in Israel. The benefits of a homeland include the freedom to worship without being tainted with "outsider" status, the freedom to own land and enter partnerships, freedom from pressures to convert, and freedom from violent religious persecution. It also allows for religious education, enabling parents to preserve the Jewish faith instead of sending their children to schools within the cultures they have adapted to. In short, a homeland allows Jews to preserve and strengthen their cultural identity in ways that are not possible without...