Pre-State Israel: Under Ottoman Rule (1517 - 1917)

Pre-State Israel:
Under Ottoman Rule

(1517 - 1917)

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Pre-State Israel: Table of Contents | British Mandate | Partition Plan

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Following the Ottoman conquest in 1517, the Land was divided into four districts and attached administratively to the province of Damascus and ruled from Istanbul. At the outset of the Ottoman era, an estimated 1,000 Jewish families lived in the country, mainly in Jerusalem, Nablus (Shechem), Hebron, Gaza, Safad (Tzfat) and the villages of Galilee. The community was comprised of descendants of Jews who had never left the Land as well as immigrants from North Africa and Europe.

Orderly government, until the death (1566) of Sultan Suleiman the Magificent, brought improvements and stimulated Jewish immigration. Some newcomers settled inJerusalem, but the majority went to Safad where, by mid-16th century, the Jewish population had risen to about 10,000, and the town had become a thriving textile center as well as the focus of intense intellectual activity. During this period, the study of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) flourished, and contemporary clarifications of Jewish law, as codified in the Shulhan Arukh, spread throughout the Diaspora from the study houses in Safad.

With a gradual decline in the quality of Ottoman rule, the country was brought to a state of widespread neglect. By the end of the 18th century, much of the land was owned by absentee landlords and leased to impoverished tenant farmers, and taxation was as crippling as it was capricious. The great forests of Galilee and the Carmel mountain range were denuded of trees; swamp and desert encroached on agricultural land.

The 19th century saw medieval backwardness gradually give way to the first signs of progress, with various Western powers jockeyed for position, often through missionary activities. British, French and American scholars launched studies of biblical geography and archeology; Britain, France, Russia, Austria and the United States opened consulates in Jerusalem. Steamships began to ply regular routes between the Land and Europe; postal and telegraphic connections were installed; the first road was built connecting Jerusalem and Jaffa. The Land's rebirth as a crossroads for commerce of three continents was accelerated by the opening of the Suez Canal.

Consequently, the condition of the country's Jews slowly improved, and their numbers increased substantially. By mid-century, overcrowded conditions within the walled city of Jerusalemmotivated the Jews to build the first neighborhood outside the walls (1860) and, in the next quarter century, to add seven more, forming the nucleus of the New City. By 1880, Jerusalem had an overall Jewish majority. Land for farming was purchased throughout the country; new rural settlements were set up; and the Hebrew language, long restricted to liturgy and literature, was revived. The stage was being set for the founding of the Zionist movement.

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Sources: Israeli Foreign Ministry

Establishment of Israel:
"A Few Humble Coins and the Making of Israel"

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Establishment of Israel: Table of Contents | Declaring Independence | International Recognition

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The creation of Israel in May of 1948 and its survival afterwards depended in large part on theTruman Administration’s willingness to recognize and support the Jewish state. In the few weeks before independence, President Truman’s commitment wavered. Without the efforts of American Jewish leaders such as Dewey D. Stone and Frank Goldman — and the unlikely efforts of Eddie Jacobson — it is not clear whether Truman would have kept America’s weight behind Israeli statehood.

On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to divide Palestine so that a Jewish national homeland could be created from one of its parts. As Abba Eban observes, "No sooner had the partition resolution been adopted than attempts were made to thwart it." The surrounding Arab states threatened to make war on any Jewish political entity. The British, who had administered Palestine before partition, took a hands-off policy toward Arab attacks on Jewish settlers.

Most significantly, the American government, which had been championing partition, began to have second thoughts. The outbreak of fighting between Jews and Arabs in Palestine after the partition vote gave the State Department, which had never been enthusiastic about creating a Jewish state, an excuse to ask the United Nations to delay partition and place Palestine under a temporary trusteeship. Partition and the creation of a Jewish homeland might be put on hold.

In contrast to the State Department, President Harry Truman had strongly favored partition. In 1945, soon after Truman took office, European Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann convinced him of the justice of creating a homeland for Jewish Holocaust survivors. Truman considered many American-born Zionists excessively strident critics of Administration policy, however, and in the early months of 1948, while reevaluating American policy, Truman refused to meet with any American Zionist leaders — even with Weizmann, a man he admired. The Administration’s positive attitude toward the creation of the State of Israel seemed on the verge of changing.

On March 12, 1948, Dewey D. Stone of Brockton, MA, spent the day in New York City with his close friend and mentor Weizmann, who was troubled by Truman’s refusal to meet. Stone was a leading American Zionist who would become chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, United Israel Appeal and the Jewish Agency. On that night, Stone returned to Boston to attend a B’nai B’rith dinner at the Parker House Hotel at which he and Frank Goldman, national president of B’nai B’rith, were being honored. Stone confided Weizmann’s distress to Goldman regarding Truman’s refusal to meet. Goldman replied that, by coincidence, he had just visited Kansas City, where he presented a B’nai B’rith award to Eddie Jacobson, who was none other than Harry Truman’s former partner in a clothing store. Goldman offered to call Jacobson to urge him to intervene with Truman. Stone and Goldman borrowed a handful of coins from others at the dinner, went to the hotel lobby and phoned Jacobson.

When Goldman put Stone on the phone, the New Englander quickly surmised that Jacobson knew little of the issues and, however close they might be personally, would have a hard time making a political or moral case to the President. Stone invited Jacobson to meet him in New York as soon as possible. The two men met for breakfast, Stone briefed Jacobson on the issues, then brought him to Weizmann’s apartment where, according to Eban, "like so many people of all stations and many countries before him, [Jacobson] fell immediately under Weizmann’s spell. After a few hours he left Weizmann’s apartment, intellectually and emotionally prepared to exercise an influence on Truman."

Jacobson hopped a train for Washington and, according to Eban, walked in unannounced on his old friend, the President of the United States. Truman was happy to see Jacobson, but reluctant to be pressured about the Zionist issue. Stymied, Jacobson pointed to the bust of Andrew Jackson in the Oval Office and told Truman, "Weizmann was a national leader cast in the same mould and temperament as the great Tennessee President whom Truman revered." Truman laughed, made an off-color remark and told Jacobson to make an appointment for Weizmann to see him.

On March 18, 1948, the two leaders met in Washington. Truman promised Weizmann to continue to work on behalf of the establishment of Israel. He also vowed that, when the British Mandate expired on May 14, 1948, he would recognize the state immediately. Moments after midnight on May 14, as the British withdrew, Weizmann declared the creation of Israel. True to his word, Truman immediately extended recognition on behalf of the United States. "It was evident," Eban concludes, "that Dewey Stone together with Frank Goldman and with the aid of a few humble coins had been able to make a deep impact on the central issues affecting Jewish destiny." One might add that Eddie Jacobson’s plain talk to his friend, Harry Truman, helped prevent a change in American policy toward Israel and, possibly, the course of modern Jewish history.

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Sources: American Jewish Historical Society

Israel Government & Politics:
Establishment of the State

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Government & Politics: Table of Contents | The Basic Laws | The Knesset

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Reference

• Background & Overview

Declaration of Independence

• Text of the Declaration
• Invitation to the Signing of the Declaration
• Signatories to the Declaration
• Analysis of the Declaration

International Recognition

• List of Countries to Recognize Israel
• U.S. State Department on the Creation of Israel
• U.S. Grants De-Facto Recognition (May 14, 1948)
• Letter from Provisional Government to the U.S. (May 15, 1948)
• United States Grants De-Jure Recognition (Jan. 31, 1949)