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Before World War I
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| 1517 | The region named in antiquity by the Romans as "Palestine" (from the word "Philistine") is roughly the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. In 1517 it comes under the control of the Ottoman Turks, who rule until 1917. Under their rule, the land is depopulated, eroded and its resources sapped. | |
| 1881 | By this year several Jewish leaders have advocated a revival of Jewish life in Palestine in order to replenish its soil and to renew Jewish cultural and religious creativity. Some begin to encourage Jews in the Diaspora to rejoin those Jews who have been living in Palestine for centuries. | |
| 1882 | As a result of Russian pogroms, 7000 Jews go to Palestine with the permission of the Sultan. This is the first wave or aliyah of immigration. | |
| 1895 | The population in Palestine is 500,000. Jews are 47,000 |
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| Theodor Herzl argues for "a congress of Jewish notables to discuss migration to a sovereign Jewish state." The movement to re-establish a Jewish political state is called Zionism. Herzl is most warmly received by eastern European Jews. | ||
| 1897 | The first Zionist Congress opens in Basel. With Herzl as president, it plans to seek a Jewish homeland in Palestine. A flag & national anthem Hatikvah ("The Hope") adopted. | |
| 1902 | The Sultan will not permit Jewish settlement as a corporate group in Palestine. It appears he had merely been using Herzl and the prospect of a Jewish loan to obtain better interest terms on his debt to French creditors. | |
| 1903 | The British Office of Colonial Affairs tells Herzl that Uganda might be a good site for a Jewish homeland. He presents the proposal to the sixth Zionist Congress. When the idea barely passes, eastern European Jews walk out. Herzl dies of a heart attack the next year at the age of forty-four. | |
| 1904 | A second aliyah of 40,000 Russian Jews begins to arrive in Palestine. Among them, in 1906, is David Ben-Gurion. With funds from the Jewish National Fund they buy land on the east side of the Jordan. This wave of immigration lasts a decade. | |
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