Zionism
Zionism is a nationalist political philosophy which seeks to establish and maintain a state for all Jews, which Zionists consider to constitute a nation. Zionism resulted in the establishment of Jewish minority communities in Ottoman Palestine around the turn of the 20th century, followed by the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948 and its admission to the United Nations the following year. Some critics label Zionism a settler colonialist, supremacist, racist, anti-Semitic or genocidal movement.
Although many leftists, including the Soviet Union, supported Zionism and the policy of the state of Israel at one point in time, today many or even most radical leftists throughout the world oppose Zionism.
Directly influenced by 19th-century European nationalism, Jewish intellectuals began discussing a homeland for Jews as early as the 1850s as an alternative to political emancipation within their own countries.
Political Zionism, the support for international and legal recognition for Jewish statehood, was popularized by the European Jewish journalist Theodor Herzl.
The spread of the Zionist project resulted in the aliyot (Hebrew for "ascents"; singular aliyah) starting in 1882, concentrated efforts to move Jews out of oppressive states, particularly Tsarist Russia, to settlements in Ottoman Palestine.