COMMON MYTHS & FACTS #11

The chronological proximity of the Holocaust and Israel’s establishment has led many people to assume that the two events are connected and that Israel was created because of the Holocaust. Contrary to this popular belief, however, a Jewish state would probably have emerged in the land of “Palestine,” sooner or later, with or without the Holocaust.

The First Zionist Congress took place in 1897, 36 years before the Nazi party came to power in Germany.

The Jewish peoples’ hopes and aspirations to return to Zion are thousands of years old, but the modern day return of the Jewish people to Israel started nearly 40 years before WWII as Jews from across the Middle East, Europe and North America started moving to Israel.

​The rise of Zionism is responsible for massive Jewish immigration into Israel. About 35,000 Jews relocated to the area between 1882 and 1903. Another 40,000 made their way to the homeland between 1904 and 1914.

In the years before and during World War II, thousands of European Jews fled to “Palestine,” or to other regions to escape hostility. After the Holocaust ended, Zionist leaders actively promoted the idea of an independent Jewish nation.