Fulfilled Prophecies

Immigration to Israel: The First Aliyah (1882 - 1903)

Aliyah is the term for Jewish immigration to, or "return" to, the Land of Israel. In Hebrew, aliyah literally means "ascent" or "going up," and refers to moving to Israel, traditionally toward Jerusalem, considered a spiritually higher place.

Most of the olim (immigrants) during this period came from Eastern Europe; a small number also arrived from Yemen. Members of Hibbat Zion and Bilu, two early Zionist movements that were the mainstays of the First Aliyah, defined their goal as "the political, national, and spiritual resurrection of the Jewish people in Palestine."

In all, nearly 35,000 Jews came to Palestine during the First Aliyah.

Since the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 A.D., the Jewish People wandered the globe in exile, speaking the local languages of every place they inhabited. Hebrew was reserved for special occasions – prayer, religious study and blessings – and was no longer the language of the common Jew.

In the late 19th century, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, made it his goal to turn Hebrew into the everyday language of the Land of Israel. He encountered resistance from all sides – the ultra-Orthodox said Hebrew was a holy language reserved for holy purposes only, the secular said there is no need to speak an out-dated language and others were just plain skeptical.

In order to create new words for the modern world, words from the Bible, the Talmud and rabbinical literature were adapted. A classic example is the word "electricity," in Hebrew "hashmal," derived from the Hebrew word for amber (chashmal – a shining substance) from Ezekiel 1:4 "the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire."

Finally, in 1921, the British government recognized three official languages for Mandatory Palestine: English, Arabic and Hebrew.

National Hebrew Day falls every year on the 21st day of the Hebrew month of Tevet, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda's birthday.

Thanks to efforts by US Secretary of State George Shultz and others, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev eventually opened the borders and allowed all Jews to leave the USSR. Between 1989 and 2006, an estimated 1.6 million Jews and their relatives and spouses emigrated from the former Soviet Union, about 979,000 or 61 percent of them returned to Israel.