B"H

Authentic historical insight to Zionism

Messianism and Zionism.

Zionism is a new word for a very old and thing, so far as it merely expresses the longing of the Jewish people for Zion. Since the destruction of the Second Temple by Titus, since the dispersion of the Jews throughout the world, this ancient people has not ceased to long fervently for a return to the lost land of their fathers nor to entertain for it a determined hope. This longing of the Jews for Zion, this hope for Zion, was the concrete, I may say the geographical, aspect of their Messianic faith, which formed itself into an essential part of their religion. Messianism and Zionism were actually identical concepts for almost two thousand years, and it would be difficult, without subtlety and sophistry, to separate the prayers in the Jewish liturgy for the appearance of the promised Messiah from those for the not less promised return to the historic home. These prayers were meant literally by all Jews until a few generations ago, just as they are meant to-day by plain believing Jews. Jews had no other thought but that they were a people which had lost its hereditary land as a punishment for its own sin, condemned to live as strangers in foreign countries, and whose grievous sufferings, will cease only when the Nation will again be gathered together on the sanctified soil of the Holy Land.

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