Talk:First Aliyah

What was the Ottoman standing and reaction?
As the land was then part of the Ottoman Empire, it is necessary to cite the standing and reaction of the Empire to the First Aliyah as well as to all matters related to mass migrations to Palestine during the rule of the Ottoman Empire. It is important to know the instances of acceptance and resistance to the event by the Ottomans, as well as how they dealt with it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikieditjust (talk • contribs) 06:11, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Perfectly good, sourced material, summararily revoked
Someone has revoked the following edit for no good reason whatsoever - it's sourced and provides an essential 'balance' to this article.


 * Israeli historian Benny Morris found evidence that their motives may not have been quite what is often suggested - at he writes that "...... For decades the Zionists tried to camouflage their real aspirations, for fear of angering the authorities and the Arabs. They were, however, certain of their aims and of the means needed to achieve them. Internal correspondence amongst the olim from the very beginning of the Zionist enterprise leaves little room for doubt". In his book, Morris excerpts three letters written in 1882 by these first arrivals, one of which speaks of "conquer the land .... buy, buy, buy", the other two of taking it by force.


 * I've removed your editorializing that "their motives may not have been quite what is often suggested " - because that is not what the subsequent quote says. I also the generic sentence ("for decades the Zionists tried to camouflage their real aspirations...") because it does not mention the First Aliya at all. I left intact the reference to the letters which are actually quoted, and th einformation that many of these immigrants subsequently left. Isarig 01:11, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * All the historical evidence we have from the people taking part in the First Aliyah was removed, piece by piece (and this has been done repeatedly). One is left wondering what part of Wikipedia intent or policy is being followed in this article. Where does it say we cannot have the words of the participants, or the commentary of historians? PalestineRemembered 09:00, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Morris says "they were certain of their aims"

 * I have edited this article with an extended version of the earlier material.


 * 1) There could be an objection of "undue weight". I believe this material can only be properly understood if the reader sees at least a portion of each of the 4 sections. I have included it "all", but the total is still only 358 words (including elipses and references and formatting). Some of this could be removed without danger to the meaning, but I trust other editors will enter into discussion before editing.
 * 2) I wanted to add "According to the Jewish Virtual Library, nearly half the settlers did not stay in Palestine." but I am mindful of proceeding cautiously.
 * 3) I had an objection that "the source doesn't refer directly to them being First Aliyah immigrants". I trust other editors will consider this minor (if not trivial). The Biluim themselves spoke of "to make Aliyah", but not "First Aliyah", just as nobody spoke of Queen Elizabeth the First in 1600. I'm sure we all agree that the inclusion of historical material is essential for NPOV. I'm sure other editors will be pleased to work in a cooperative fashion and add material (and statements from historians) that is/are just as significant about the declared intention of individuals or groups amongst these first immigrants.
 * 4) There is a small danger that I've linked to the wrong "Peretz Smolenskin in Vienna". There is such a person (a novelist), an early Israeli nationalist in the exact right time-frame, but the article on him in WP says that he lived in Odessa.
 * 5) I am happy to provide a scan of the pages of the book, along with a picture of myself holding the book (as I did over Zionist political violence), but I'm not aware of a policy or guideline suggesting this is necessary or desireable in order to edit. PalestineRemembered 09:18, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I still object to the edit.
 * 1. You have written a whole paragraph but have not addressed the undue weight concerns. The whole section you added is indeed undue weight and has little to do with the First Aliyah anyway. You may have better luck trying to add it into the main Aliyah article (and maybe not).
 * 2. Yes, you shouldn't add this, because that would be adding material into an article to make a point (WP:POINT) and push your own POV. Verifiable information from reliable sources is necessary to create a good article, but such information alone doesn't necessarily make a good article. Undue weight, WP:POINT and POV can apply to well-sourced articles just as much as unsourced ones.
 * 3. Maybe no one called it First Aliyah then, but the sources you provided are not from the 19th century and should therefore refer to the First Aliyah, otherwise it's generic info. Again, try in the article Aliyah.
 * 4. No comment
 * 5. I don't think people are disputing that the information you provided comes from the sources you provided. However, this has nothing to do with POV, WP:POINT and undue weight, which are (at least my) main concerns.
 * -- Ynhockey (Talk) 09:38, 23 May 2007 (UTC)


 * PR, you put in a reference to "Be'eri", but the reference is incomplete. It's in a multiple reference form, but there are no other references to this work and the bibliographic details have been omitted. Please add them.
 * Peretz Smolenskin was indeed from Odessa; but he settled in Vienna in 1868, and spent the rest of his life there (Arthur Hertzberg, The Zionist Idea, p 142) RolandR 22:56, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Ynhockey - as I wrote on PR's page in more detail, I basically agree with the undue weight objection, but I disagreed that half the settlers left is inappropriate or controversial. The same was true of Italians going to the USA at that time. (there's always  a lot of people going back in such unforced migrations)  I don't see how that factoid is anti-Italian or inappropriate so I think that making too much of it here is also unwise.John Z 19:03, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

First Aliyah
Hello- On the page the First Aliyah, I added “Only a small minority of the 6,000 remained in Ottoman Palestine.[7] This accounted for only about 2% of the emigrants who went to Palestine[7] A large majority of the Jewish emigration movement came from Russia, Romania, and Galicia.[7] The pogroms that took place in Russia and Romania during 1881-1882 caused massive emigration of Jews.[7] During the time of the programs, Jews were mistreated and, as a result, left Romania and Russia.[7] The First Aliyah[4] occurred from 1881-1903 and did not go as planned as Zionists ran out of funds.[7] The Rothschild organization rescued the Zionist movement as the Rothschild organization funded Zionists through purchasing large settlements and created new settlements as well. At the closure of the first Aliya, the Jews had purchased 350,000 dunams of land. Thus, the First Aliyah was considered a success through the eyes of some Zionists since Zionists were able to migrate and thrive economically in Palestine. Other Zionists may say the First Aliyah was not a success because it many Zionists did not stay and Zionists ran out of funds necessary to complete the moement before looking for money through another source. Immigration of the Jews to Palestine took place from 1882-1904 but Jewish immigration continued thereafter.”. This information will give the page more credibility and provides correct and reliable facts about the First Aliyah. Andrewhoward5416 (talk) 22:01, 1 November 2016 (UTC)Andrew Howard

I am just briefly added a little bid of information that could make this even more credible and provides useful facts and information about the First Aliyah with regards of Zionism. "The Jewish people lived as a minority in numerous countries throughout the world, among many different ruling nations and under different regimes. Competing ideologies within the Zionist movement had to cooperate with each other. The difficulties of achieving National Sovereignty for Jews in a country where they were at first a tiny minority made even the most extreme "political" Zionists regard such sovereignty as an ultimate goal which had to be approached by stages. This specific view opened up the way for other Zionists, concentrating on nationalist cultural or social and economic aims, to enlist general immediate support for their objectives. In fact, this position caused not only Zionism but all modern Jewish ideologies to assume a distinctly different character from comparable movements among other peoples." I just added extra information and some of the important aspects of Zionism. Zionism and the First Aliyah go together hand in hand so I thought it would be beneficial to bring in he Zionism aspect of the First Aliyah. Kassielarsen42 (talk) 17:46, 4 November 2016 (UTC)Kassie Larsen Zionism and the Creation of a New Society

First Aliyah changes
I suggest the following edits to the first Aliyah page, Under "The Immigrants" section

-In the settlements, women very rarely did field work. They typically avoided work in the fields. Women tended to be more committed to child care and house work. Women felt that they could not possibly take themselves away from their regular duties for work in the field.

-Even while being committed to housework and childcare, women still received intense pressure from their husbands to assist in the field. Very few women opted to do both house work and field work.

-There was a very noticeable difference between Eastern European women among the Jewish immigrants of the First Aliyah and the German Christian Templar women who had immigrated to Eretz-Israel 10 years earlier. Templar households were more self supporting. Avoiding Arab resources.

Sources: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4467472?seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents, The Transformation of the Role of Women in the First Aliyah, 1882-1903, pages 65,66 MitchHynes5555 (talk) 21:26, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on First Aliyah. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090623204122/http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/concepts/aliyah3.html to http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/concepts/aliyah3.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 09:46, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Why the article refrains from using the name of the land as Palestine ?
At the beginning of the first Aliyah Jewish immigrants were going to Palestine which was under ottoman rule. The article keeps referring to it as the land of Israel and that is simply not true. It might have been what Jews called it among themselves but it was called Palestine 197.56.103.75 (talk) 16:19, 7 December 2023 (UTC)


 * I have translated most part from hebrew wikipedia which refer to the land as the land of Israel since this is how most of the jewish community refered to the land at the time. You could most definitly call it Ottman Palestine or Ottman ruled Palestine. GvTara (talk) 21:12, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure it is true that most of the Jewish community at the time called it that. Most of them did not speak Hebrew, and the literature they produced in English and German nearly always called it Palestine. I don't know about Polish and Russian. Zerotalk 22:55, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I would be more than happy to research more on this matter. I am aware that, starting from the second Aliya, the Jewish Zionist community has referred to the land as the Land of Israel. This is evident from the fact that the Palestinian coins of that time featured a Hebrew script of א"י, an abbreviation for 'The Land of Israel.' Since the first Aliya predates this period, it is possible that you are correct. I will explore additional sources to check myself. GvTara (talk) 23:33, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, but even in the mandate period many Zionist institutions had "Palestine" in their name. Back to the first aliya, I searched the Russian newspapers at Historical Jewish Press for 1880-1889. The word Палестина (Palestine) appeared 135 times, often prominently as in article titles. Three possible spellings for "Land of Israel", Эрец Исраэль, Эрец Израиля and Земля Израиля didn't appear at all, but perhaps there was a different spelling. Zerotalk 00:25, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I believe they call it both. for example, I did a little rsearch about Eliezer Ben Yehuda a while a go and he reffers to the land as Eretz Israel at his letters. Also in the published paper "HaZvi" Also written by Ben Yehuda he reffers to the land as Eretz Israel. you can see an example here: here in the right upper corner it said: "The price of every paper in Eretz Israel is..", and had many other instances when it reffered to the land as Israel. This is a research that have a few quotation of those instances.
 * Also, in the Focșani Zionist Congress "the Society for the Support of Jewish Farmers and Artisans in Syria and the Land of Israel" was established - source
 * So Overall think both are right, the land was called by many name: Israel, Palestine, Zion. GvTara (talk) 11:50, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm sure the name Eretz Israel was often used, as it has a long history. However, I don't think Hebrew translations of texts originally in another language are good evidence, because the translator can change them. Even today, works translated between English and Hebrew often translate "Palestine" into "Eretz Israel" and vice-versa. Zerotalk 09:49, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
 * All the documents of Ben Yehuda including HaZvi paper were published originally in Hebrew at the time, so it was referred as "Eretz Israel" in those documents GvTara (talk) 18:56, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 8 January 2024
Dear editor, I simply moved a few sentences up or down to make the text flow better. I also added better connectors between sentences. There was no change in content.--HeloPait (talk) 17:09, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

The First Aliyah (Hebrew: העלייה הראשונה, romanized: HaAliyah HaRishona), also known as the agriculture Aliyah, was a major wave of Jewish immigration (aliyah) to Ottoman Syria between 1881 and 1903.[1][2] Jews who migrated in this wave came mostly from Eastern Europe and from Yemen, stimulated by pogroms and violence against the Jewish communities in those areas[3][4][5], but also from different countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia. An estimated 25,000[6] Jews immigrated. During the first Aliyah, agricultural settlements called Moshava were established. The immigrants engaged in various professions, including agriculture, trade, and commerce.[citation needed] Many of the European Jewish immigrants during the late 19th-early 20th century period gave up after a few months and went back to their country of origin, often suffering from hunger and disease.[7] At the beginning of the period, the Jewish population in the Ottoman Palestine was around 26,000. By the end of this period, the Jewish population in the land had grown to approximately 55,000.[8] Because there had been a wave of immigration to Ottoman Syria starting in the mid-19th century (between 1840 and 1880, the Jewish population rose from 9,000 to 23,000),[9] use of the term "First Aliyah" is controversial.[10] However, nearly all of the Jews from Eastern Europe before that time came from traditional Jewish families who were not inspired by modern Zionist ideology, but rather by traditional ideas of the holiness of the land combined with practical / economic considerations.[9] The first Aliyah represents the beginning of organized Zionism in the Land of Israel which is how it differs from earlier immigration.[11] HeloPait (talk) 17:09, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Shadow311 (talk) 20:17, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Incorrect term
At a certain point it says "Agricultural settlements called Moshava", but it should be the plural "Moshavot" The ultimate editorxyzyazz (talk) 13:39, 16 June 2024 (UTC)