ABSTRACT
Once Jews had been granted legal rights in Western Europe, starting in the early nineteenth century, many believed they could divorce their religious identity from their ethnic one and become nationals of their countries of residence of the Mosaic faith. The mass Jewish immigration from the Russian Empire, begun in the middle of the nineteenth century and gathering momentum towards the end, fed the anxieties of Western European assimilated Jews. Zionism was the modern form of Jewish idealism and would create faith and national unity. Labour Zionism became the dominant ideology in the Yishuv, and Labour the dominant party, not least because the leaders promulgating it, former Marxist Zionists, were highly skilful politicians who set up a well-organized party machinery. The three remaining schools of secular Zionism, namely cultural-historical, mystical and Labour Zionism were secular in placing human fate in human hands.
