Return of the Jews to Israel
A brief look at what made possible the Jewish return to their homeland.
Beginning with the Autumn 1874 planting and the Spring harvest of the winter crops in the Balkans, a number of seemingly-unrelated but rapid-fire events enabled the Jews to return to their land for the first time in about eighteen centuries. Within four years the first Jews were making Aliyah (return).
BACKGROUND EVENTS
England defended the Ottoman Empire and gained significant influence over it (1799, 1854, 1878). German power and influence rose due to victories over Austria (1866) and France (1871). Financial panic in 1873 hit Vienna in May and New York in September, beginning the Long Depression (1873 to perhaps 1896). Long drought began in Anatolia in central Turkey. In the British General Election of 1874 February 17, the Conservatives won a majority of Parliamentary seats; Disraeli subsequently again became Prime Minister (1868, 1874-1880).
PROXIMAL CAUSES
The Autumn 1874 planting in the Balkan Peninsula yielded a near-total-failure harvest in the Spring of 1875. Turks still extracted full taxes from non-Muslim tenant farmers (several times what Muslims paid), leaving many Christians with nothing to eat. Roman Catholics in Herzegovina and Bosnia rebelled against the Turks in the Summer in the “Christian uprising,” and were brutally crushed. Turkey declared bankruptcy and refused to repay loans from European countries. European sentiment turned decidedly against the Turks.
In 1876 Serbia and Montenegro supported the Christian uprising by declaring war on Turkey; the principally Eastern Orthodox Bulgarians revolted; they were all roundly defeated. British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli 1 (newly Earl of Beaconsfield), dismissed Turkish cruelty against Christians as mere rumor, accounting alliance with Turkey as essential to preserving the British Empire. (Disraeli’s rival, William E. Gladstone, popularized the cause of the Balkan Christians and eventually retook the Prime Minister’s office again in 1880.)
Russia had severe economic problems, but its influence in the Balkans was jeopardized by the crushing of the Christian uprising. After hesitation, Russia declared war on Turkey in 1877.
Early in 1878 Russia conquered as far as Adrianople. Turkey hastily agreed to the Treaty of San Stefano (March 3), granting Russia near-dominance over most of the Balkans. England and other major European powers resisted that shift of power; so a Congress of Nations was convoked in Berlin to arbitrate a new settlement, concluding with a treaty granting full independence to Herzegovina, Serbia and Romania, and allowing anyone to buy land and immigrate to Palestine (July 13). Disraeli played a prominent role in making this outcome possible. Later that year Jews immigrated and founded the first new Jewish community there, Petach Tiqvah (“Door of Hope”).2
A four-year flurry of activity in the 1870’s led circuitously to the return of the Jews to their land, and ultimately to the reestablishment of Israel (1948). “I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be plucked up out of their land which I have given them, saith Jehovah thy God” (Amos 9:15).
– Bro. James Parkinson
(1) In 1813 Isaac Disraeli had a quarrel with his synagogue and in 1817 had his children baptized as Christians. That decision made possible the political career of Benjamin Disraeli.
(2) Although the first effort was abortive due to malaria mosquitoes, today Petach Tiqvah’s population is over 100,000.