Please note: this post is specifically about the modern Zionist political movement that began in the 19th century. That said, Jews in the Middle East and North Africa have been at the very forefront of the Jewish fight for sovereignty in our ancestral homeland for over 2000 years. For a more in-depth look at that, please see my post "Zionism Before Zionism."
THE ISSUE
Anti-Zionists often claim Zionism is a European movement. While it’s certainly true that the World Zionist Organization was founded in Europe, and while it’s true that most prominent early Zionist leaders resided in Europe, Jews residing in the Middle East and North Africa were involved in Zionist political activism from the very outset.
A few things to keep in mind when considering the role that Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews played in early Zionist political activism:
- While early on the Soviet Union — and later, Nazi Germany — criminalized Zionism, Jews in Europe generally could participate freely in Zionist activism without legal, social, or economic repercussions. On the other hand, Zionism was quickly outlawed in most of the Middle East. This meant that many Jews in the Middle East and North Africa stayed away from the movement out of fear for their safety.
- The idea that Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews had no interest in Jewish sovereignty and instead were duped by “European” Jews into migrating to Israel is racist and orientalist. Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews are just as capable of critical thought as anyone else, and they had as much of an interest and stake in their political autonomy as Ashkenazi Jews did.
- The erasure of Mizrahi and Sephardic Zionist history is just another instance of the systematic erasure of the history and existence of Mizrahim and Sepharadim. You cannot adequately tell the Jewish story in its entirety while erasing the story of the Jews in the Middle East.
FIRST, WHAT DO I MEAN BY ZIONISM?
Zionism is the Jewish movement for self-determination in the Land of Israel, the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people. Today, in practical terms, Zionism is support for the existence of the State of Israel. Self-determination is the concept that peoples who share a national identity — not to be confused with nationality — have a legal right to choose their own governance, rather than being forced into living under the thumb of an empire. Self-determination is a basic tenet of international law, applicable to everyone.
In 1897, Jewish delegates from across the world met for the First Zionist Congress. There, they defined Zionism in simple terms: “Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Eretz Israel [the Land of Israel] secured under public law.” That’s it. Beyond that, people who identify as Zionist don’t necessarily agree on anything else.
MANDATE PALESTINE
While there were strong tensions between the pre-existing Jewish community in Palestine (known now as the Old Yishuv) and the newer Zionist immigrants (known as the New Yishuv), the leaders of the Old Yishuv were supportive of a sovereign, Jewish national home. For instance, Yaakov Meir spoke fluent Hebrew and encouraged the construction of new Jewish Quarters in Jerusalem. He also eagerly supported the re-establishment of an independent Jewish Israeli nation.
At the 1921 Cairo Conference, the Jewish National Council of Palestine, which represented the interests of the “Palestinian” Jews, thanked the British for supporting "the rebuilding of the Jewish National Home" (for more on how the British betrayed Zionism, see my post, “The British”) and asked that in doing so, Jews did not deprive Arabs “of their legitimate rights.” They also applauded the new Zionist immigrants for their accomplishments in the last 40 years, such as the cultivation of the land, which had undergone desertification after centuries of colonial mismanagement.
Even the most isolated and ancient Jewish community in Palestine, the Musta’arabi Jews of Peki’in, who had lived in the Galilee continuously since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, formed relationships with the Zionist movement, when, in 1922, a young Zionist activist and historian named Yitzhak Ben Zvi connected with the tiny community. Ben Zvi later became the second president of Israel.
After the 1929 antisemitic massacres, which targeted not the new Zionist immigrants but the oldest Jewish communities in Palestine, virtually all Jews in Mandatory Palestine united under the Zionist cause, with many of them joining the Jewish paramilitaries Haganah and Irgun. In 1947, a representative of the Old Yishuv, Eliahu Eliachar, testified before the United Nations, passionately arguing in favor of the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state in Palestine.
LEBANON
In the early 20th century, the Jewish community in Lebanon was widely sympathetic to the Zionist cause, so much so that the Jewish leadership in Beirut aligned themselves with the Zionist B’nai B’rith organization.
The Jewish community in Lebanon and the Yishuv in Palestine maintained constant contact. Zionist sentiment was promoted in the Lebanese Jewish education system. Some influential Lebanese Jewish Zionist figures included Joseph Azar and Joseph Farhi.
Nevertheless, the French authorities strongly discouraged Zionist activism, seeing it as a threat to their colonial rule.
The 1929 Hebron Massacre in Mandatory Palestine, however, drastically shifted the attitudes of the Lebanese Jewish community, which became afraid of openly identifying with Zionism, especially after the virulently antisemitic Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was expelled from Mandatory Palestine and began disseminating his hateful propaganda among the Lebanese Arab population.
“Before the disturbance of August 1929 the Jews...of Lebanon manifested much sympathy for the Zionist cause and worked actively for the sake of Palestine. They had established associations which collected money for Keren Kayemeth and Keren Heyesod…[After 1929, the Jews] started to fear from anything having any connection with Zionism and ceased to hold meetings and collect money,” Azar noted. “[The Jewish Communal Council in Beirut] endeavored to prevent anything having a Jewish national aspect because they feared that this might wound the feelings of the Muslims."
IRAQ
In the 1920s, the Jews of Iraq were generally sympathetic toward Zionism, though few were actively involved in the movement. In 1921, the British granted a permit to the Zionist organization in Baghdad, though the Iraqi government did not renew it the following year. Zionist activism in Iraq was tolerated until 1929, after which Zionist meetings were banned and Hebrew and Jewish history teachers from Mandatory Palestine were expelled from Iraq. In 1935, Iraq outlawed Zionism.
After the 1941 Nazi-inspired Farhud pogrom, the Jewish community in Iraq, led by Zionist activists, began organizing and forming self-defense groups. Iraqi Jewish Zionist activists established contacts with their counterparts in Mandatory Palestine, and later, in the State of Israel. In 1942, the Yishuv started sending Zionist emissaries to Iraq.
The Zionist movement in Iraq tended to appeal to the younger generation more than the older generation, though up until 1948, direct involvement with the movement was rare. Many chose not to affiliate with Zionism not for ideological reasons, but rather, because such an affiliation could wreck their social, political, and economic status.
In 1947, a representative of the Iraqi Jewish community, by the name of Mr. Sassoon, testified before the United Nations on behalf of the Zionist movement in favor of the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.
SYRIA
Syrian Jews began organizing for the Zionist cause in Damascus as early as the late 19th century. However, the movement weakened thanks to internal disputes and the French occupation of Syria, as the French authorities were hostile to Zionism, which they worried would threaten their domain over Syria.
Though Jewish community leaders in Syria often had to publicly disavow Zionism for the safety of the Jewish population, sympathy toward the Zionist cause grew among the Syrian Jews in the 1930s, especially in light of economic hardships, growing resentment of the Arab population toward the Jews, and the Zionist movement’s successes. “It was only in the mid-to-late 1930s that Zionism began to grow in Aleppo -– although not to flourish. Zionist-influenced sports and cultural activities on a small scale began then, manifested by the ‘Maccabi Football (soccer) Club’ and small Zionist discussion groups,” according to historian Joseph Sutton.
In September 1933, the head of the Committee of the World Federation of Sephardi Jews in Aleppo, Meir Nahmad, wrote to complain that the Jewish Agency had not provided immigration certificates to Aleppo’s Jews, given “Nearly everyone has the desire to travel to Palestine.” By 1936, it was reported that most of the Jewish youth in Aleppo had adopted the Zionist cause.
While many Syrian Jews were indifferent to Arab nationalist aspirations, others supported both Zionism and Arab nationalism, believing that both movements could be reconciled.
EGYPT
Though not all Egyptian Jews were initially on board with Zionism, Egypt still produced some important Zionist figures, such as Egyptian Karaite Jewish scholar Mourad Farag, who identified both as an Egyptian nationalist and as a Zionist. In 1923, Farag wrote “al-Qudsiyyat” (“Jerusalemica”), arguably the most passionate defense of Zionism in the Arabic language.
In 1926, the Cairo Jewish Council sympathetically acknowledged the establishment of a Zionist organization in Alexandria, though 15 years later, the same council wrote a letter complaining of Zionist activity. As was the case in other countries in the Middle East, as more of the Egyptian general population became hostile to Zionism, the Jewish community sought to distance itself from it more for their safety.
Zionist activity in Egypt reached its peak in the 1930s, with the establishment of the Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza‘ir youth organization. Up until 1947, Egypt and Palestine had open borders, meaning that both Jewish communities maintained strong relations. Egyptian Jews invested heavily into the Yishuv in Palestine. Some Egyptian Jews that contributed to the development of the Yishuv included Baron Felix de Menasce, head of the community in Alexandria, who had a close relationship with Chaim Weizmann, and Albert Mosseri. In 1918, de Menasce had founded the “Pro-Palestine Organization: Committee for Reform of the Land of Israel” in Alexandria. After the 1929 Hebron Massacre, de Menasce even tried to purchase the Western Wall on behalf of the Zionist movement.
YEMEN
n 1882, a mass migration of Yemenite Jews to the Land of Israel coincided with the First (modern Zionist) Aliyah. In 1982, a century later, renowned Yemenite rabbi Rabbi Yosef Qafiḥ explained his community’s views toward Zionism to the Israeli Knesset: “The concept of ‘Zionism’ has been invoked here several times. In Yemen, this concept did not exist as the name of a movement or a distinct internal group. The Diaspora throughout Yemen was there on a temporary basis...Aliyah [immigration to the Land of Israel] naturally continued in a normal, organic fashion, because everyone was a candidate; everyone waited for the right moment, for the removal of his particular barriers.”
In other words, in Yemen, there was no need for a distinct “Zionist” movement, because the concept of Zionism was embedded into the very Jewish identity of the community.
Nevertheless, once in the Land of Israel, many Yemenite Jewish women, in particular, identified strongly with the movement, particularly given the egalitarian ideals of the New Yishuv.
NORTH AFRICA
North African Jewish communities expressed interest in Zionism as early as the First Zionist Congress. On November 8, 1897, for example, the Jewish Chronicle reported, “The Jews of Morocco watch with interest the progress of the proceedings [of the Zionist Congress]. All Jews may not be in agreement with items of the Congress program, but it seems natural, from some Moroccan-Jewish points of view, that they should all sympathize with the spirit of the thing...” The first Zionist organization appeared in Morocco in 1900. After the San Remo Conference and the issuing of the Balfour Declaration, Moroccan Jewish Zionist activists sought to establish contacts with Zionist figures in Europe and Palestine.
A big obstacle for the Zionist Jews in Morocco was the hostility of the French and Spanish authorities, which often shut down Zionist organizations, as well as the hostility that the general Muslim population felt toward Zionism. Even so, by 1946, it was reported that the Moroccan Jewish community had donated 1,200,000 francs to the Jewish National Fund.
During the first several Zionist Congresses, the Tunisian Jewish community sent congratulatory telegrams. Some early Zionist figures in Tunisia included Gabriel Allouche, Jacques Shalom, Alfred Allouche, Jules Bonan, and Jacques Vehel. The first Zionist organization in Tunis, Agudat-Zion, was established in 1911. In Tunisia, the mainstream strain of Zionism at the time -- Labor Zionism -- was deeply unpopular, due to its socialist and secular tendencies, and most were drawn instead to Jabotinsky’s Revisionist Zionism. That said, some, like Albert Memmi, who later became a famous anti-imperialist writer, joined Hashomer Hatzair, the Labor Zionist youth organization.
Of all Jewish communities in North Africa, the Algerian community was the least interested in Zionism, likely because of their rapid assimilation into French society. That said, as early as 1897, a small Zionist group in Algeria endorsed the idea of Zionism.
CENTRAL ASIA
The city of Baku, Azerbaijan became a stronghold of Zionist activism even before the First Zionist Congress in 1897. In fact, the proto-Zionist organization, Hovovei Zion, translating to “Lovers of Zion,” had established a branch in Baku in 1891.
The First Zionist Congress, held in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897, saw representatives from the Azeri Mountain Jewish and the Georgian Jewish communities. The Mountain Jewish community also sent delegates to the Fourth and Sixth Zionist Congresses. Despite the fact that Zionist activities were heavily monitored by the Russian authorities, the Mountain Jewish community held various fundraising events for the Zionist cause.
At the 1919 Third Zionist Congress of the Caucasus, one of the items on the agenda was a discussion on the desire of 12,000 Mountain Jews to immediately migrate to Palestine. Zionist activity in Azerbaijan reached its peak between 1918-1920, after which the Soviets outlawed it entirely.
SO...IS ZIONISM EUROPEAN?
It would be insincere to argue that Zionism, as a political movement, did not have cultural influences from Europe. Labor Zionism, for example, was deeply influenced by the socialist movement rising in popularity in Europe in the early 20th century. But the premise of Zionism, at its core -- that Jews have a legal right to self-determine in the Land of Israel -- is not of European origin in the slightest. Modern political Zionism was a political movement rooted in over 2000 years of tradition originating from the Middle East. In fact, the term “Zionism” itself comes from the Return to Zion, an event that occurred in Jerusalem and Babylon in 539 BCE, long before there were ever any Jews in Europe.
For over 2000 years, Jews continuously tried to reassert their autonomy in Eretz Israel. These efforts were started by different Jewish sub-groups; for example, in 614, Persian Jews led a campaign for Jewish autonomy in Jerusalem, a campaign which the Jews living in the Land of Israel welcomed and eventually joined. To reiterate, the desire for Jewish sovereignty in Israel is not a European political philosophy or ideology. It’s a Jewish aspiration at its core, one that comes from the Land of Israel itself. In the world that we live in, ideological cross-pollination, so to speak, is inevitable. Many, many independence movements in the Americas and Africa found inspiration in European events and ideologies, such as the French Revolution or communism.
It’s also important to note that Jews in Europe, up until that point, were considered “foreign” to Europe. They were not considered culturally or “racially” European, and thus, any Jewish political movement wasn’t working on “behalf” of Europe, either. It’s also important not to delegitimize the historical claim that Jews have to the Land of Israel, regardless of where they spent their Diaspora experience.
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