Political movement dedicated to the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.
The rise of the European national ideology in the second half of the 19th century paved the way for the creation of a movement that aspired to establish a Jewish state with Jerusalem as its capital, a state where the Jewish people could settle in safety and free from persecution.
During the First Zionist Congress in Basle in 1894, under the aegis of Theodor Herzl, Zionism was promoted to a political ideology. The Zionist Congress manifested itself as the representative (parliament) of the Jewish people.