Yishuv

Yishuv (Hebrew: ישוב, literally "settlement") or the full term הישוב היהודי בארץ ישראל Hayishuv Hayehudi b'Eretz Yisrael ("The Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel") is the term used in the Zionist movement before the establishment of the State of Israel, referring to the body of Jewish residents in Palestine. The residents and new settlers were referred to collectively as "the Yishuv." The term came into use in the 1880s, when there were about 25,000 Jews living in Palestine, and continued to be used until 1948, by which time there were about 700,000 Jews in Palestine.

A distinction is sometimes drawn between the Old Yishuv and the New Yishuv.

The Old Yishuv refers to all the Jews living in Palestine before the aliyah of 1882 by the Zionist movement. The Old Yishuv people were Orthodox Jews living mainly in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias and Hebron. Smaller communities were in Jaffa, Haifa, Peki'in, Acre, Nablus, Shfaram and until 1779 also in Gaza. A large part of the Old Yishuv concentrated his time in Torah studies and received donations from Jews in the Diaspora.

The New Yishuv refers to those who went out of the Old City walls of Jerusalem in the 1860s, the establishment of Petah Tikva and the First Aliyah of 1882 followed by the founding of settlements until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

See also