Zionism is a movement that advocates the return of the Jews to their ancient homeland in Palestine (now Israel). It began in the late 19th century when Austrian Jewish journalist Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) argued that, since persistent antisemitism made it impossible for Jews to be accepted in Christian Europe, they needed a homeland of their own in Palestine.
Prior to 1914, Zionist groups settled 90,000 European Jews in Palestine. In the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the British government, then controlling Palestine, supported the idea of a Jewish homeland there, and settlement levels increased. By 1933, there were around 238,000 Jews in Palestine. With the spread of Nazi persecution of Jews across Europe, support of Zionism increased. After the war, the revelation of Nazi atrocities against the Jews prompted international support for a Jewish national homeland in Palestine, and in 1948 the state of Israel was born
