Napoleon’s invasion of the Middle East and Palestine marks the beginning of the modern era in the region. The aim of this book is to trace the developments that led to the making of a new and separate geographical-political entity in the Middle East known as Eretz Israel, and to the establishment of the State of Israel within its boundaries. Thus, the time frame of this study spans from Napoleon’s invasion of Eretz Israel/Palestine in 1799 to 1948-1949, the years in which Israel was established. 'Eretz Israel' as the formal term for a separate geographical territory in the modern era first appeared in the early translations into Hebrew of the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, while in the original document the country was referred to as 'Palestine'. During the period of Ottoman rule the territory that would in time be called Eretz Israel/Palestine was not a separate political unit. For hundreds of years it was known as Terra Sancta, the Holy Land, or Palestine, a historical name stemming from that of the Roman province of Palaestina. Among Jews, the most widespread name during the first eight decades of the nineteenth century was 'Eretz Hakodesh' (the Holy Land). Use of 'Eretz Israel' increased only after the beginning of Zionist Aliyot. Had the Zionist movement not arisen, it is doubtful whether the development to which this study is devoted would have occurred at all. The motivating force behind that process is without doubt the Jewish Zionist element. That explains why Jews are the major protagonists in this book. Based on many written sources, it focuses on the major developments and events during a 150-year period that culminated in the establishment of Israel. Click here for the English edition, published by De Gruyter in collaboration with Magnes Press

It is commonly accepted that the initial Jewish resettlement of the Holy Land in the late nineteenth century laid the foundations of the State of Israel. But what were the key elements of that process, and who implemented it? What did the new enterprise look like, and what was its significance? These important yet often poorly understood issues are reconstructed and analyzed in this unique study. Ran Aaronsohn provides fresh insight into the role played by Baron Edmond de Rothschild through his many and diverse agents ("the administration") in the Jewish settlement movement and places the endeavor in global perspective by comparing it to the phenomenon of colonization throughout the world. The author draws upon a wide array of sources – including primary archival material from Israel and France – and illustrates his narrative with maps and historical photos to create a richly detailed picture of a crucial period in Jewish history.

Jerusalem, the city holy to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, has been the subject of numerous volumes of history, chronicles, biblical exegeses and itinerates. Many of these books included maps and views of Jerusalem, their number growing continuously with the development of the printing press. This is a first attempt to collect and present a large number of maps of Jerusalem along with a general discussion on their characteristics, history and content. Israel Studies in Historical Geography Series

The photographs, fragile mirrors to the past, testify to a moment when a nascent society set in motion utopian ideas that were to lead towards institutions of contemporary Israeli society. They project an assortment of old Yishuv and new Zionist lifestyles, village society, the beginnings of the Kibbutz, labor battalions, the guarding of settlements, development of agriculture and land reclamation, construction of roads, the growth of new cities, immigration and community welfare. The book is divided into general introductory chapters, concluding with the biographies and works of ten photographers dating from the turn of the twentieth century to 1993 when a new wave of immigration was to change the prevailing aesthetic Israel Studies in Historical Geography Series

Since 1901 the Jewish National Fund was the organ of the World Zionist Organization for the purchase of lands in Palestine and settling it with Jewish people. While working towards this goal, the JNF was faced with a multitude of issues to address: designing the land and settlement policy, deciding where to purchase lands, which types of farming and economy to enhance, which types of settlements to develop, which socio-economic sectors of the Jewish people to assist, how to develop national geographic and economic systems, how to secure as wide as possible borders for the anticipated Jewish autonomy, and how to create a Jewish demographic majority in Palestine. This book presents the first deep and detailed research conducted on the subject. In a lively and exciting way it relates the process of decision-making, planning, and carrying out of the policies and enterprises of the JNF in the years prior to World War I, all this against the background of the considerations in Palestine and developments in the Zionist world.

Jewish settlement patterns in Palestine are of interest because of their cooperative forms, the Kibbutz and the Moshav. However, the Jews preferred a different type of pioneer settlement: the Moshavah. For over 30 years the early settlers chose the Moshavah as the type of settlement most suited to lead them to their basic goal: creating a Jewish village, and structuring a "new" Jew – a farmer who would live on his land and so lay the cornerstone of a renewed "national home". The cultural landscape of the Moshavah, its planning its design and development, constitute the subject of this book, which studies the ideological aspirations of Jewish pioneers in Palestine and illustrates the link between ideology and landscape in their settlement patterns.

This study describes the contribution of the British Administration to the development of Palestine between 1917-1929. It deals with the relation between a new modern government and changes in the landscape. The special character of the British Administration in Palestine helped to create a new state in the Middle East, a modern state with a geographic “iconography” that reflected British taste and input. This view differs from other works on the British in Palestine which deal mainly with the political history of the area rather than its historical geography.

This work reveals the role, contribution and modus operandi of Zionist private enterprise in the Jewish rural and urban settlement of Palestine between the start of the century and the outbreak of the First World War. The book demonstrates that the role of private enterprise was extensive both in terms of land purchases and in terms of settlement activities. The author recapitulates these efforts, categorizes these activities as unique and identifies the underlying rationale of "national capitalism". The private investors and companies employed economic-commercial means to secure national-Zionist objectives. They were willing to be content with limited profits and received in compensation the emotional gains accruing from their contribution to building the Land of Israel.

This volume outlines the general frameworks of the Middle Eastern entrepreneur class, the Sephardi elite and political developments in the Ottoman Empire and Palestine. It traces each generation of the Amzalak family, from Joseph Amzalak's arrival to their exodus as a result of World War I, highlighting the family's more prominent members. This family biography may be viewed as a vignette of the social and economic processes in Palestine and the Middle East in the nineteenth century.

This is the first collection of articles in English dealing with a broad selection of current research in historical geography being carried out in Israel. A dynamic core of historical geographers has developed in Israel over the past two decades. By integrating the methods of spatial study and field work with historical and archaeological primary sources, a better understanding of major process in the Holy Land is emerging. The volume is divided into four parts, highlighting historical periods and central themes. The first section provides a background on the changing borders of the Holy Land and the study of Eretz Israel in ancient periods. The second deals with the 19th century under Ottoman rule, emphasizing the transportation infrastructure, entrepreneurship, agriculture and settlement. The third focuses on the Bedouin community, the Arab village and Jewish agricultural settlement in the 20th century. The last part considers institutional and governmental activities in the settlement process including urban social planning and the use of aerial photographs from the turn of the century until the establishment of the state of Israel.

Yehoshua Ben-Arieh has written a significant number of books and articles dealing with the Historical Geography of Israel and of Jerusalem in modern times. The Rediscovery of the Holy Land in the 19th Century deals with the main historical sources of the western travelers, explorers and scholars who made their way to the Holy Land in the 19th Century. Includes woodcuts and maps