Thread by @Delafina777

<wry>

Organized Christian Zionism started with Luther and Calvin in the 1500s. When Jews wouldn't convert to their brands of Christianity, they were like "send them back to Israel so they can die in the End Times."

Organized Jewish Zionism didn't get off the ground until 1700s.

https://twitter.com/ToriGlass/status/1417909818229084160

The Puritans, who were awful in every possible way, were super-into this idea, btw.

But yeah, the footnotes to the Geneva Bible (1560s-1570s) were pushing the idea of the End Times as centered on Palestine and that the Jews needed to be sent back there for it to happen.

Other churches that were big proponents of it included the Moravians, the Methodists, and the British Baptists.

Now, to be fair, just as there are current Christian Zionists who think that Jews would be safer and happier in a Jewish state, and aren't necessarily focused on the idea of us all dying or converting in the End Times, there were early Christian Zionists who were sympathetic.

But this was all still predicated on the idea that Jews didn't really belong in Christian lands, that ethnostates were a good and natural thing, and so on.

It takes as a given the idea that Jews will never *belong* to Western societies.

In contrast, there was certainly religiously-motivated Zionism among Jews (I mean, the idea that we're living in exile from our home and will someday go back is a tenet of Jewish culture since the Babylonian exile).

But that desire was largely *passive.*

For most Jewish communities, it was like yeah, SOMEDAY we'll hit the messianic age and go back to Israel, much like someday there will be world peace. But not with plans to figure out how to do it anywhere in the foreseeable future.

There obviously have been various rabbis and other figures in Jewish history who have thought the messianic age was imminent at various times. The Vilna Gaon (1700s) actually convinced a wave of followers to emigrate to Palestine in response to it supposedly happening in 5600.

But you don't really see it take off until the 1800s with Moses Hess and others, arguing that since Europeans are never going to stop murdering Jews, everyone should go settle in Palestine.

At the same time, you start to see support for the idea of resettling Jews in Palestine among upper-class British gentiles, primarily as a way to extend the reach of the British Empire.

Anyway, the point I'm making is that the idea of the Jews returning to Israel has been, for Jews, sort of a vague "yeah someday that'll happen" thing for most of Jewish history.

The first people to be like "we need to actually MAKE it happen" were Christians.

And that drive didn't come from any love for the Jewish people. It was largely about "let's get them out of here so we don't have to live with them" or "let's get them there to spark Jesus's return so they can all die or convert."

While I am anti-Zionist, I at least *understand* the driver of early Jewish Zionism, which was "they won't stop killing us so maybe we just leave."

Christian Zionism predates it, and has been colonial and antisemitic from the get-go.