INTRODUCTION

udaism's ties to a specific land make it unique among

world religions. From the days of Abraham , Judaism

has been associated with the Land. It was not even Abraham 's native land, but one he entered at God 's command. The Land of Israel, which belonged to the people of Israel , was mentioned often in the Bible . Yet most Jews throughout our long history have lived outside the Land, in the Diaspora. This circumstance has raised the tensions that are the subject of this book.

Other religions have ties to holy sites that are places of pilgrimage, but only a few adherents ever chose to settle in them permanently. Christians established a monastery on Mount Sinai and in other locations associated with the Bible or the life of Jesus , but only a handful of monks reside at Sinai. The same is true for the followers of Islam who pilgrimage to shrines associated with Mohammed, but make no effort to settle there.

For us as Jews , God 's promise to the patriarchs combined the blessing of the people with the gift of the Land. That promise was reiterated again and again, and the“Promised Land” became the goal of the entire people as it wandered through the desert from Egypt . Our annual cycle of Torah readings has reinforced the promise; it is the dominant and underlying theme.

It was therefore natural for modern Zionism , a nationalist movement akin to many others, to awaken an interest in the Land of Israel. It was very different, however, because it was not a nationalist movement against the“overlord” and oppressor, but one that sought settlement in a distant country almost totally unknown except through biblical imagery. Zionism added the thought that we could be“like all other people” with a land we would call our own and in which we could do as we pleased.

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