- The modern term Zionism
was originally intended
a political movement so that Jewish people
had a place to defend themselves if there
was ever an enemy that
would come up against them.
I think the biggest thing is that,
that needs to be understood about Zionism
is that it's a term. It's a modern term
that's used to describe
the Jewish people's right
to live in Israel,
'cause I think there's a lot of people
that think they don't
deserve to live there.
That's not their land.
They don't deserve to be there,
and that's why Zionism can often be used
as almost like a curse word,
like these colonialists are
coming in and taking over.
Where really, that term, Zionism,
I think it has a positive connotation
because it's defining this belief
that they actually have a
right to protect themselves,
to self-determination
because that term, that remember, Zionism,
is a modern term.
It's a little more than 100 years old,
and it's modern because, remember, I said,
it was a political term,
and the reason it was political is because
Europe, during that time,
there was a rise of
anti-Jewish sentiment going on,
and many Jewish people were
looking around and saying,
"Who's gonna protect us?"
You know, if we're French
and the French people don't like us,
then the French people
aren't gonna protect us,
even though we're French.
If the Germans, you
know, we're German Jews,
but if Germans don't like Jews,
then how are we gonna be protected?
How are we gonna defend ourselves?
And so they, that's when these men,
these Jewish men got together
and created this concept of
Zionism in a modern sense,
in a political sense that we need a place,
that where our people, the
Jewish people, can live,
so that we don't have to
ask countries to defend us.
We can defend ourselves.
We can make our own destiny,
and really that's the modern
sense of what Zionism is,
and then coupled with the
biblical idea as well,
that goes back to the Bible
that God would actually
do something miraculous.
He would restore them to their land.
So there's a beautiful picture
of what God was doing in the Bible,
and at the same time, a political movement
that was working hand in
hand as the Jewish people
were returning to the land of Israel.
(bright music)
