HOBHEBHÈ ŞIJJŌN («Friends of Zion»). - Followers of the Hebrew pro-Palestine movement that preceded by two decades the political Zionism of Theodor Herzl. The aim of Hibbath Şijjön was the colonization of Palestine.
The first beginnings date from 1840; in the journal Orient an anonymous writer postulated the return to Palestine, and in Vienna the future bibliographer Moses Steinschneider presented to Adolphe Crémieux a project for the founding of a colony in Palestine. The head of Orthodoxy, R. Zëbhi Kalischer, founded in 1860 an association similar in tendency to that founded by Steinschneider 20 years earlier. In 1862 Moses Hess took up the subject again in his book Rome and Jerusalem, considering the cultural factor. In 1868 Charles Netter examined, on behalf of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, the possibility of having a Jewish agricultural school and colony established in Palestine. In 1873 R. 'Aqibā' Jōšēph Schlesinger saw in the return to Palestine the only means of salvation for the dispersed Jews. Negotiations were begun with the Turkish government for the concession of lands in Palestine and Syria. Through the work of Netter, the agricultural school Miqwēh Jīšrā'ēl ("Hope of Israel") arose in 1870 near Jaffa. The year 1881 brought with it the massacre of the Jews, the pogroms, in Russia. Jewish men of letters, among them David Gordon, Smolenskin, Lilienblum, Rabinowicz, raised the cry "To Palestine!" In various Russian and Romanian cities and in Vienna, pro-Palestine societies arose. University youth participated with enthusiasm. Requests were made to the Turkish and English governments, but with negative results: the Alliance thought of channeling its emigrants toward America. But the H. S. founded in 1882 in Judea the first colony, which they named Ri'šōn lē-Şijjön. They rebuilt the colony Petah ṛwōgh, which had been destroyed, and founded two new ones. In July 1882, 13 students of the "Bitu" arrived at Jaffa; the chief rabbi of France, Zādhōq Kahn, informed Rabbi Samuel Mohilewer that Baron Edmond de Rothschild was willing to transplant a group of Jewish peasants from Russia to Palestine. Leo Pinsker published (1882) his Autoemancipation: the solution of the grave Jewish problem could only be national-territorial, in Palestine "as far as possible." The first conference at which representatives of various European countries took part was held at Katowice (Nov. 1884), but it did not succeed in harmonizing the various tendencies. In Palestine there meanwhile existed 9 colonies.
At the conferences of Druskininkai the pro-Palestine followers assumed the name of H. S. in place of that of "Memory of Moses" (Montefiore). In 1890 the journalist Zederbaum requested and obtained from the Russian government authorization to officially constitute a society for the colonization of Palestine. The delegates of 26 Russian cities gathered in 1890 at Odessa and founded the "Society to Aid Jewish Peasants and Artisans in Palestine and Syria." Other colonies arose. Israel Belkind founded at Jaffa the first school in which instruction was given in Hebrew. Following the persecutions of 1891, other emigrants arrived in Palestine. But a Turkish decree forbade immigration and the purchase of land in Palestine.
On 21 Dec. 1891 Leo Pinsker died, the strongest representative of the H. S. In 1889 the writer 'Abad hā-ʿām (= 'Āšēr Ginsberg, 1856-1927) founded the association Bēnē Mōšēh ("Sons of Moses") and proclaimed the spiritual and national rebirth of Judaism as a precondition for Palestinian colonization. The "poetic" H. S. ranged themselves around Lilienblum. Meanwhile the number of colonies rose to 19; in the cities, particularly in Jerusalem and Jaffa, the Jewish population kept increasing. In the villages the first attempts were made for the development of orange groves, in the cities for the development of industry.
The new head of the H. S., Ussischkin, opposed the project of colonizing Uganda with Jewish emigrants. Under his direction (elected in 1906, he held the post until 1918, the year in which he moved to Palestine) three new workers' colonies arose. The H. S. were one with Zionism.
In 1920 the Bolsheviks conquered Odessa and put an end to the committee of the H. S. (v. SIONISMO).
Bibliography3 works
Eugenio Zolli