Why is this night different than all other nights? Jerusalem was the focus of longing for Diaspora Jews who were forced from their land and the Temple of their God. Psalm 137 is the lament of the Babylonian Jews who wept by the rivers of Babylon and declared, How could we sing a song of the Lord in a foreign land? If I forget you Jerusalem, let my right hand wither. May my tongue cleave to my palate if I remember you not, if I do not place Jerusalem ahead of my joy The Growth of the Ottoman Empire Theodor Herzl Popularized Zionism in the 1890s as pogroms raged in Russia and France was torn by the Dreyfus Affair Palestine is our ever-memorable historic home. The Maccabees will rise again. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil and die peacefully in our own homes. The Jewish State, 1896. Alexander III Russian Tsar from 1881 to 1894 His father, Alexander II, was assassinated in St. Petersburg by bomb-throwing anarchists. One of Alexander IIIs senior ministers is quoted as saying the goal of the pogroms was to see one- third of the Jews convert, one-third to die and one-third to flee the country. The Pale of Settlement Territory within the borders of czarist Russia wherein the residence of Jews was legally authorized. The Pale covered an area of about 1 million sq. km. (386,100 sq. mi.) from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. According to the census of 1897, 4,899,300 Jews lived there, forming 94% of the total Jewish population of Russia and c. 11.6% of the general population of this area. The incessant anti-Jewish decrees and the waves of pogroms, especially during the years 188184 and 1903 06, resulted in a constant stream of Jewish emigration from the Pale of Settlement to Western Europe and the United States. World War I, the disintegration of the Russian Empire, the Revolution, and the civil war in Russia, destroyed the foundations of this Jewish world, which was finally annihilated in the Holocaust. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is the most notorious and widely distributed anti-semitic publication of modern times. Its lies about Jews, which have been repeatedly discredited, continue to circulate today, especially on the Internet. The individuals and groups who have used the Protocols are all linked by a common purpose: to spread hatred of Jews. The Kishinev Pogrom of 1903 continued for three days, resulting in 47 Jews dead, 92 severely wounded, and 500 suffering minor injuries. In addition, several hundred houses and many businesses were plundered and destroyed. President Teddy Roosevelts administration deplored the violence and presented the government of Tsar Nicholas II with a petition on behalf of the American people urging the Tsar to improve treatment of Russias Jewish population. Immigrants were processed at Ellis Island from 1892 to It was the entry point for 12 million immigrants. This includes nearly three million Jews who came to America from Eastern Europe between 1880 and the outbreak of World War 1. Liberty Island is in the foreground, Ellis Island in the background. Emma Lazarus was born into a Sephardic Jewish family in New York City in She awoke to the plight of Eastern European (Ashkenazi) Jews, in the 1880s as pogroms led millions of Jews to flee Russia. She was a forerunner of the Zionist movement and argued for the creation of a Jewish Homeland. She penned a sonnet, The New Colossus in Lines from this work were inscribed on the bronze plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty. The plaque was placed in Ms. Lazarus died in 1887 at the age of 38. The Contraction of the Ottoman Empire from 1807 to 1924 The Voyage of the St. Louis 937 Jews left Hamburg, Germany in May, 1939 for Cuba. They were denied entry. The USA refused entry as well. The ship returned to Europe. Britain, France, the Netherlands and Belgium took the refugees. 532 were trapped when W.Europe was conquered. 254 of these people died before wars end. From September 1, 1941 on Jews were compelled to wear, in public, a large yellow star of David inscribed in black with the word Jude. Branding Jews publicly furthered their humiliation. Wearing such a visible target among a hostile populace caused Jews to feel acute insecurity. Jews, especially children, suffered increased verbal and physical assaults. A Jewish woman recalled, Wearing the yellow star was a form of torture. Every day when I went out in the street I had to struggle to maintain my composure. Goldhagen, Hitlers Willing Executioners, page 138 Hundreds of thousands of Jews were crowded into the Warsaw Ghetto. The ghetto was enclosed by a 10 brick wall topped with barbed wire. Food was inadequate. Disease raged. Periodically Jews were packed into railroad boxcars and transported to death camps. Hitler called Reinhard Heydrich the man with an iron heart. He created shooting squads, participated in planning for Kristallnacht and was assassinated in Prague in May, Heinrich Himmler headed the SS. He was second only to Hitler and played a lead role in the Final Solution. He committed suicide in May, 1945 while in British custody. The Warsaw Ghetto Jewish Victims Holocaust Source: U.S Holocaust Museum Treblinka 925,000 Belzec 435,000 Chelmno 172,000 Sobibor 167,000 Auschwitz 2,000,000 Shooting Squads in USSR 1.3 million Shooting Squads in Poland 220,000 Deaths in Ghettos 800,000 David Ben-Gurion is the primary founder of modern Israel. He was born in Poland in He served as Israels first Prime Minister and created its armed forces. He was adamant about the need to develop nuclear weapons. He also airlifted Jews from Arab countries, developed irrigation and concluded a reparations treaty with West Germany that brought 3 billion Deutsche Marks to Israel between 1952 and 1966, money vital to establishing the economy of Israel. He retired in 1970 and died three years later. de/pages/un%20general%20assembly%20resolution %20181.aspx On November 29, 1947 the Partition of Palestine was approved with 33 votes in favor, 13 against and ten abstentions and one absent. The vote was accepted by the Jews in Palestine but rejected by the Arabs in Palestine and the Arab states. The Arab state of Palestine is grey. Jerusalem is white. It was established as an international city that was to be administered by the United Nations. The Jewish state is the light brown territory. UN Resolution 181 Adolf Eichmann was a main architect of the Holocaust. He was charged with organizing the deportation of Jews from ghettos to death camps. At the end of the war he lived in Austria for 5 years and moved to Argentina in He was discovered by Israeli intelligence and abducted in He is shown here, on trial in Jerusalem. He was found guilty of crimes against humanity and hanged in June, 1962. The Hall of Remembrance is an imposing structure, with walls made of basalt boulders brought from the area surrounding the Sea of Galilee, and an angular roof that gives it a tent-like shape. Engraved on the mosaic floor are the names of 22 of the most infamous Nazi murder sites, symbolic of the hundreds of extermination and concentration camps, transit camps and killing sites that existed throughout Europe. The Eternal Flame, burning from a base fashioned like a broken bronze goblet, continuously illuminates the Hall, its smoke exiting the building through an opening at the highest point of the ceiling. Before it stands a stone crypt containing the ashes of Holocaust victims, brought to Israel from the extermination camps.