The Gates to Zion




Due to a variety of historical, political and socio-economic conditions that prevailed at the end of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th centuries, Odessa played a prominent role in the formation and consolidation of the Zionist movement. In 1892, the organizational center of Bilu (the Hebrew acronym of "House of Jacob, come let us go up"), the Russian Zionist youth movement, moved to Odessa. From late 1884, the Hovevei Zion movement ("Lovers of Zion") was also based in Odessa. The first legal Zionist organization in Russia, the Odessa Palestine Committee, was created in Odessa; literary works that popularized the ideas of Zionism were published here, and many prominent Zionist figures lived and worked in the city. The main flow of Russian immigrants to Eretz Israel was channeled through Odessa, which led to the city being known as "The Gates to Zion."

Odessa Palestine Committee (12, Nechipurenko Lane) The Odessa Palestine Committee, officially called the Society for the Support of Jewish Farmers and Artisans in Syria and Palestine, was created as a result of the efforts of A. Tsederbaum in April 1890. It was the first philo-Palestine organization in pre-revolutionary Russia and collected funds to promote Jewish farming settlements in Eretz Israel, supported cultural and educational organizations there, published books and magazines and made the first payment to the fund for the purchase of land for a Jewish university in Jerusalem. Leon Pinsker, Abraham Gruenberg and Menahem Ussishkin all served as chairmen of the society, while the prominent writer, publicist and philosopher, Asher Hirsh Ginsberg, known under the pseudonym of Ahad Ha'Am, was among those who signed the charter of the society. At the end of 1919, the Society organized the immigration of 650 Jews to Eretz Israel, among them several famous men and women of letters, teachers and doctors. This was the last such act of the Odessa Palestine Committee, for with the establishment of Soviet rule in Odessa, the activities of the society, and of all other Zionist organizations, were prohibited. The House of the Odessa Palestine Committee (12, Nechipurenko Lane)

Lev Pinsker (40, Rishelevskaya St.) Leon Semyonovich Pinsker (1821-1891), public activist and first chairman of the Odessa Palestine Committee, was born in Tamoshpol in Ukraine, but grew up in Odessa after his father, Simha Pinsker, a teacher and archeologist, moved to the city. He graduated from the law faculty of Odessa's Richelevsky Lyceum (the first Jew to do so) and the medical faculty of Moscow University. Pinsker served in military hospitals during the Crimean War of 1854, was involved in the creation of the first Jewish magazine in Russian, Rassvet ("Dawn"), and in the organization of Jewish charitable societies. He was one of the organizers of the Katowitz Convention of 1884, where he formulated the idea of a philo-Palestine movement. Lev Pinsker However, Pinsker is best known in as the author of "Auto-Emancipation," a pamphlet that was first published in German in Berlin in 1882, and in which he wrote, "In order to free ourselves from being permanent wanderers, we need our own country of refuge," concluding with the cry, "Help yourselves and God will help you!" 40, Rishelevskaya St.

Ahad Ha'Am (11, Vera Inber Street) 11, Vera Inber St. Ahad Ha'Am ("One of the people") was the nom-de-plume of Asher Hirsh Ginsberg (1856-1927). Jewish writer, publicist and philosopher, Ahad Ha'Am was born in the Ukrainian town of Skvira, moved to Odessa in 1878, and studied in Vienna, Berlin and Breslau for two years before returning to Odessa in 1884, where he gained fame within intellectual Jewish circles. He played an active role in Jewish public, cultural and educational life, and was a member of the committee charged with restructuring the Odessa yeshiva, served on the Jewish historic-literary commission, was one of the authors of a proclamation written by a group of Jewish writers in the wake of the bloody Kishinev pogrom of 1903 that urged the creation of Jewish self-defense groups, director of the Ahiasaf publishing house and the magazine Ha-Shiloah, and played a significant role in the creation of Odessa's famous library of the Society of Jewish Clerical Workers. Ahad Ha'Am In his literary and publicistic works, written in Odessa, Ahad Ha'Am formulated and gave expression to his belief concerning the prime importance of the intellectual and moral perfection of the Jewish people, without which, he believed, no real renaissance of Judaism was possible. The Jews, he said, must transform Eretz Israel into the spiritual center of Jewry; the spiritual values created there would nourish the entire nation and preserve its unity in the Diaspora. In 1907 Ahad Ha'Am left Odessa, settling first in London and later in Tel Aviv, where he died in 1927.

Meir Dizengoff (30, Osipova St.) 30, Osipova St. Meir Dizengoff Meir Dizengoff (1861-1936), famous Zionist activist, was born in the town of Akimovichy in present-day Moldova. He lived in Odessa from the middle 1880s, participated in the activities of the anti-government People's Will party, for which he was arrested and spent eight months in jail. Upon his release he became active in the Zionist movement. He studied chemical engineering in Paris and established a glass factory in Eretz Israel. From 1897-1905 he again lived in Odessa, where he worked in commerce and continued with his public activities. He was on good terms with Chaim Nachman Bialik, the writer Yehoshua Ravnitsky, the historian Shimon Dubnov and other prominent figures of Jewish culture, science and education. Dizengoff was a delegate to the Fifth and Sixth Zionist Congresses, and founded Geula, an association that worked to purchase plots of land in Palestine with the aim of passing them on, at some time in the future, to a revived Jewish state. In 1905, Dizengoff moved to Eretz Israel, where he was one of the founders of Ahuzat Bayit, the first Jewish neighborhood near Jaffa that was later to become Tel Aviv, and Dizengoff became the city's first mayor. One of the city's main streets is named for him, and his house, which he donated to the city, is now a museum.

Vladimir (Zeev) Jabotinsky (1, Evreyskaya St.) Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880-1940) was a writer, dramatist, publicist, and world famous Zionist leader. He was born, grew up and studied in Odessa, and it was here that he wrote and published his works. His plays were staged in the local theater, he was involved in Jewish self-defense organizations, founded a Jewish publishing house, Turgeman ("Interpreter"), was a close friend of the poet Chaim Nachman Bialik and translated his poem "In the City of Slaughter" into Russian. In Odessa, Jabotinsky became a committed Zionist, and this was to define the direction of his life, activities, creative work and life's mission. In modern Israeli history, Jabotinsky remains a prominent towering figure, remembered as an untiring fighter for national renaissance and for the creation of a Jewish state. Throughout his turbulent life, he preserved a tender, lyrical and romantic love for his native city; it was this that inspired him to write his dazzling narrative "Five." Vladimir Jabotinsky 1, Evreyskaya St. Memorial Plaque on Jabotinsky's House (1, Evreyskaya St.) Jabotinsky's Grandson on the Openning of the Memorial Plaque, 1997

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