Second Aliyah

The Second Aliyah was arguably the most important and influential aliyah. It took place between 1904 and 1914, during which approximately 40,000 Jews immigrated into Ottoman Palestine, mostly from Russia and Poland, some from Yemen.

The prime cause for the aliyah was mounting antisemitism in Russia and pogroms in the Pale of Settlement, notably the Kishinev Pogrom and the Pogroms that attended the 1905 Russian Revolution.

Although the aliyah contributed to Jewish settlement in Palestine in many ways, many see it as a failure, as nearly half of the immigrants left Palestine by the time World War I started.

Settlement

The Second Aliyah immigrants were primarily idealists, inspired by the revolutionary ideals then sweeping the Russian Empire who sought to create a communal agricultural settlement system in Palestine. They thus founded the kibbutz movement. The first kibbutz, Degania, was founded in 1909.

Those among the immigrants who preferred to settle in cities, created Ahuzat Bayit near Jaffa, which was later renamed to Tel Aviv.

Culture

The Second Aliyah is largely credited with the Revival of the Hebrew language and establishing it as the standard language for Jews in Israel. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda contributed to the creation of the first modern Hebrew dictionary. Although he was an immigrant of the First Aliyah, his work mostly bore fruit during the second.

The Second Aliyah also established the first Hebrew high school in Israel, the Herzliya Hebrew High School, Tel Aviv.

Defense

The Second Aliyah created the security organization, HaShomer, which became the precedent for future Jewish defense organizations such as the Haganah.

Further reading

• Ben-Gurion, David, From Class to Nation: Reflections on the Vocation and Mission of the Labor Movement (Hebrew), Am Oved (1976)