Bilu
Bilu ( Hebrew : ביל״ו) is a Hebrew acronym after Isa 2,5 EU : "House Jacob, go, let's go!" - " B eit J a'akov L ekhu V e-nelkha ". It describes a group of Jewish idealists who wanted to settle in Eretz Israel in order to found a Jewish home there.
The wave of pogroms in Russia from 1881 to 1884 and the anti-Semitic " May Laws " of 1882, which were passed under Tsar Alexander III. caused the mass emigration of Russian Jews. More than two million Jews fled between 1881 and 1920, the majority of which went to the United States . But some decided to emigrate to Israel; this was later referred to as the first alija .
The first group of Biluim was formed in 1882 by 14 former university students from Kharkov and arrived in July in Palestine, which was then still a province of the Ottoman Empire . In the same month they founded Rishon leTzion ("First to Zion ") as an agricultural cooperative in the purchased areas of the Arab village of Eyun Kara. However, there was not enough fresh water there and within a few months most of them, threatened by hunger, had to leave the cooperative.
They turned to Baron Edmond James de Rothschild for help, and he provided them with funds to start a wine industry in Palestine. In 1886 the construction of the Rischon-Le-Zion winery began, from which the Carmel wineries that still exist today later developed.
With the help of Rothschild, the Biluim also founded Zichron Jaakov . In 1884 land in Gedera was offered to eight members of the group .
There is also the Moschavim Kfar Bilu south of Tel Aviv (founded in 1933 on the 50th anniversary of the Bilu movement) and Talme Bilu in the northern Negev (founded in 1953 on the 70th anniversary).
Individual evidence
- ↑ For further information: Scheel, Wolfgang: Lexicon of biblical local names in modern Israel, 3rd edition, Hammerbrücke 2003 ( ISBN 3-933750-32-6 ), p. 80 and p. 129f.