Lovers of Zion

The Lovers of Zion, also Hovevei Zion (Hebrew: חובבי ציון) or Hibbat Zion (Hebrew: חיבת ציון, lit. 'Love of Zion'), were a variety of proto-Zionist organizations founded in 1881 in response to the anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire and were officially constituted as a group at a conference led by Leon Pinsker in 1884.^[1]^[2]

The organizations are now considered the forerunners and foundation-builders of modern Zionism. Many of the first groups were established in Eastern European countries in the early 1880s with the aim to promote Jewish immigration to Palestine, and advance Jewish settlement there, particularly agricultural. Most of them stayed away from politics.

^ Klier, J. (2002). "New Politics for Old: A Reassessment of the Traditional Jewish Political Leadership in 1881–1882" (PDF). Jewish Studies at the Central European University. 2.
^ Penslar, Derek Jonathan (1991). Zionism and Technocracy: The Engineering of Jewish Settlement in Palestine, 1870-1918. Indiana University Press. pp. 20–. ISBN 0-253-34290-2. Hovevei Zion, the name attached to an informal network of Jewish nationalist societies that sprang up in the wake of the 1881 pogroms and which was officially constituted in 1884

[1] Klier, J. (2002). "New Politics for Old: A Reassessment of the Traditional Jewish Political Leadership in 1881–1882" (PDF). Jewish Studies at the Central European University. 2.

[Penslar1991-2] Penslar, Derek Jonathan (1991). Zionism and Technocracy: The Engineering of Jewish Settlement in Palestine, 1870-1918. Indiana University Press. pp. 20–. ISBN 0-253-34290-2. Hovevei Zion, the name attached to an informal network of Jewish nationalist societies that sprang up in the wake of the 1881 pogroms and which was officially constituted in 1884

[1]

[2]