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ThroughoutJewish history, several proposals have been made for the creation of a Jewish state, occurring between the destruction ofancient Israel and the founding of the modernState of Israel. While some have come into existence, others were never implemented. The Jewish national homeland usually refers to the State of Israel[1] or theLand of Israel,[2] depending on political and religious beliefs. Jews and their supporters, as well as detractors andanti-Semites, have put forth plans for Jewish states.
In 1820, in a precursor to modernZionism,Mordecai Manuel Noah tried to found a Jewish homeland atGrand Island, New York in theNiagara River, to be called "Ararat" afterMount Ararat, the Biblical resting place ofNoah's Ark. He erected a monument at the island which read "Ararat, a City of Refuge for the Jews, founded by Mordecai M. Noah in the Month of Tishri, 5586 (September, 1825) and in the Fiftieth Year of American Independence." In hisDiscourse on the Restoration of the Jews, Noah proclaimed his faith that the Jews would return and rebuild their ancient homeland. Noah called on America to take the lead in this endeavor.[3] Some[who?] have speculated whether Noah's utopian ideas may have influencedJoseph Smith, who founded theLatter Day Saint movement in Upstate New York a few years later.
TheUganda Scheme was a plan to give a portion of theEast Africa Protectorate to theJewish people as a homeland. The offer was first made by British Colonial SecretaryJoseph Chamberlain toTheodore Herzl's Zionist group in 1903. He offered 5,000 square miles (13,000 km2) of theMau Escarpment in what is todayKenya. The offer was a response topogroms in Russia, and it was hoped the area could be a refuge from persecution for the Jewish people.
The idea was brought to theWorld Zionist Organization'sSixth Zionist Congress in 1903 inBasel. There, a fierce debate ensued. The African land was described as an "ante-chamber to the Holy Land", but other groups felt that accepting the offer would make it more difficult to establish a Jewish state inPalestine inOttoman Syria, particularly theMutasarrifate of Jerusalem. Before the vote on the matter, the Russian delegation stormed out in opposition. In the end, the motion to consider the plan passed by 295 to 177 votes.
The next year, a three-man delegation was sent to inspect the plateau. Its high elevation gave it a temperate climate, making it suitable for European settlement. However, the observers found a dangerous land filled with lions and other creatures. Moreover, it was populated by a large number ofMaasai people, who did not seem at all amenable to an influx of people coming from Europe.[tone]
After receiving this report, Congress decided in 1905 to politely decline the British offer. Some Jews, who viewed this as a mistake, formed theJewish Territorial Organization with the aim of establishing a Jewish state anywhere.[4]
On March 28, 1928, the Presidium of the General Executive Committee of theUSSR passed the decree "On the attaching forKomzet of free territory near the Amur River in the Far East for settlement of the working Jews." The decree meant that there was "a possibility of establishment of a Jewish administrative territorial unit on the territory of the named region".[5]
On August 20, 1930, the General Executive Committee of the Russian Soviet Republic (RSFSR) accepted the decree "On formation of theBirobidzhan national region in the structure of the Far Eastern Territory". The State Planning Committee considered the Birobidzhan national region as a separate economic unit. In 1932, the first scheduled figures of the region development were considered and authorized.[5]
On May 7, 1934, the Presidium accepted the decree on its transformation in the Jewish Autonomous Region within the Russian Republic. In 1938, with formation of the Khabarovsk Territory, the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR) was included in its structure.[5]
According toJoseph Stalin's national policy, each of the national groups that formed theSoviet Union would receive a territory in which to pursuecultural autonomy in a socialist framework.[6] In that sense, it was also a response to two supposed threats to the Soviet state:Judaism, which ran counter to official state policy ofatheism; andZionism, the creation of the modern State of Israel, which countered Soviet views of nationalism.Yiddish, rather thanHebrew, would be the national language, and a new socialist literature and arts would replace religion as the primary expression of culture.
Initially, there had been proposals to create a Jewish Soviet Republic inCrimea or in part of Ukraine, however these were rejected because of fears of antagonizing non-Jews in those regions.
Another important goal of the Birobidzhan project was to increase settlement in the remote Soviet Far East, especially along the vulnerable border with China.[7] In 1928, there was virtually no settlement in the area, whereas Jews had deep roots in the western half of the Soviet Union, inUkraine,Belarus and Russia proper.
The geography and climate of Birobidzhan were harsh, the landscape largelyswampland, and any new settlers would have to build their lives from scratch. Some have even claimed that Stalin was also motivated byanti-Semitism in selecting Birobidzhan; that he wanted to keep the Jews as far away from the centers of power as possible.[8]
The Birobidzhan experiment ground to a halt in the mid-1930s, during Stalin's first campaign of purges. Jewish leaders were arrested and executed, and Yiddish schools were shut down. Shortly after this,World War II brought to an abrupt end concerted efforts to bring Jews east.[citation needed]
There was a slight revival in the Birobidzhan idea after the war as a potential home for Jewishrefugees. During that time, the Jewish population of the region peaked at almost one-third of the total. But efforts in this direction ended, with thedoctors' plot, the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state, and Stalin's second wave of purges shortly before his death. Again the Jewish leadership was arrested and efforts were made to stamp out Yiddish culture—even theJudaica collection in the local library was burned. In the ensuing years, the idea of an autonomous Jewish region in the Soviet Union was all but forgotten.[citation needed]
Some scholars, such as Louis Rapoport, Jonathan Brent and Vladimir Naumov, assert that Stalin had devised a plan to deport all of the Jews of the Soviet Union to Birobidzhan much as he had internally deported other national minorities such as theCrimean Tatars andVolga Germans, forcing them to move thousands of miles from their homes. The doctors' plot may have been the first element of this plan. If so, the plan was aborted by Stalin's death on March 5, 1953.[citation needed]
Despite the little evidence to suggest that the Japanese had ever contemplated a Jewish state or a Jewish autonomous region,[9] RabbiMarvin Tokayer and Mary Swartz published a book calledThe Fugu Plan in 1979. In this partly fictionalized book, Tokayer & Swartz gave the name theFugu Plan orFugu Plot (河豚計画,Fugu keikaku) to memoranda written in the 1930sImperial Japan proposing settlingJewish refugees escapingNazi-occupied Europe in Japanese territories. Tokayer and Swartz claim that the plan, which was viewed by its proponents as risky but potentially rewarding for Japan, was namedFugu after the Japanese word for puffer-fish, a delicacy that can be fatally poisonous if incorrectly prepared.[10]
Tokayer and Swartz base their claim on statements made by CaptainKoreshige Inuzuka. They alleged that such a plan was first discussed in 1934 and then solidified in 1938, supported by notables such as Inuzuka, Ishiguro Shiro andNorihiro Yasue;[11] however, the signing of theTripartite Pact in 1941 and other events prevented its full implementation. The memorandums were not called The Fugu Plan.
Ben-Ami Shillony, a professor at theHebrew University of Jerusalem, confirms that the statements upon which Tokayer and Swartz based their claim were taken out of context and that the translation with which they worked was flawed. Shillony's view is further supported by Kiyoko Inuzuka.[12] In "The Jews and the Japanese: The Successful Outsiders", he questioned whether the Japanese ever contemplated establishing a Jewish state or a Jewish autonomous region.[13][14][15]
The Madagascar Plan was a suggested policy of theThird Reich government ofNazi Germany to forcibly relocate the Jewish population of Europe to the island ofMadagascar.[16]The evacuation of European Jewry to the island of Madagascar was not a new concept.Henry Hamilton Beamish,Arnold Leese,Lord Moyne, German scholarPaul de Lagarde and the British, French, and Polish governments had all contemplated the idea.[16] Nazi Germany seized upon it, and in May 1940, in hisReflections on the Treatment of Peoples of Alien Races in the East,Heinrich Himmler declared: "I hope that the concept of Jews will be completely extinguished through the possibility of a large emigration of all Jews to Africa or some other colony."
Although some discussion of this plan had been brought forward from 1938 by other well-known Nazi ideologues, such asJulius Streicher,Hermann Göring, andJoachim von Ribbentrop, it was not until June 1940 that the plan was actually set in motion. As victory in France was imminent, it was clear that all French colonies would soon come under German control, and the Madagascar Plan could be realized. It was also felt that a potential peace treaty with Great Britain would put the British navy at Germany's disposal for use in the evacuation.
WithAdolf Hitler's approval,Adolf Eichmann released a memorandum on August 15, 1940, calling for the resettlement of a million Jews per year for four years, with the island governed as a police state under theSS. The plan was postponed after the Germans failed to defeat the British in theBattle of Britain later in 1940. In 1942, the so-called "Territorial Solution to theJewish question"[17] was abandoned in favour of the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question".
The Italian government during theFascist period proposed offering to resolve the "Jewish problem" in Europe and in Palestine by resettling Jews into a Jewish self-governing territory within the northwest territory ofItalian East Africa that would place them among theBeta Israel Jewish community already living in Italian East Africa. Jews from Europe and Palestine would be resettled to the north-west Ethiopian districts ofGojjam andBegemder, along with the Beta Israel community.[18][19] The proposed Jewish self-governing territory was to be within theItalian Empire. The Fascist regime at the time showed racialist attitudes towards the Beta Israel Jews of Ethiopia since they are racially black and the Fascist regime deemed whites to be superior to blacks; and racial laws enacted in Italy also applied to the Beta Israel Jews in Italian East Africa that forbade intimate relationships between blacks and whites. Mussolini's plan was never implemented.
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The list below contains both historical moments of Jewish self-governance as well as other proposals for Jewish self-governance.[note 1]
Following the creation of the State of Israel, the goal of establishing a Jewish state was achieved. However, since then, there have been some proposals for a second Jewish state, in addition to Israel:
According to Ickes's diaries, President Roosevelt wanted to move 10,000 settlers to Alaska each year for five years, but only 10 percent would be Jewish "to avoid the undoubted criticism" the program would receive if it brought too many Jews into the country. With Ickes's support, Interior Undersecretary Harold Slattery wrote a formal proposal titled "The Problem of Alaskan Development," which became known as the Slattery Report. It emphasized economic-development benefits rather than humanitarian relief: The Jewish refugees, Ickes reasoned, would "open up opportunities in the industrial and professional fields now closed to the Jews in Germany."
