
Israel and Jewish community after World
War II essay
Until the mid-1900's, when Israel became a state, it was inhabited mostly by Arabs. Israel became a state in
1948, but the movement to create a Jewish homeland, called Zionism, started in the 1890's. One of the trailblazers on this subject was Chaim Weizmann, a Russian-born chemist and Zionist leader, who in 1949 became the first president of modern Israel. Weizmann was a key factor in getting the Balfour Declaration signed by the British. The Balfour Declaration was a letter issued in 1917, during World
War I, by foreign secretary and British statesman Arthur James Balfour. The letter expressed Britain's approval of Zionism and also that the British government would make the" best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." As an indirect result of the Balfour Declaration, Israel was established as "an independent state" in
1948.(1) 1. Arthur Hertzberg, "Israel and American Jewry," Commentary (August 1967), 69.