Original Zionist Texts
While the idea of a connection between the Jewish people and the land that is now established as Israel is ancient, and can be found in the Torah, the political ideology of Zionism was born in the later 19th century. Zionism is "a Jewish nationalist movement that has had as its goal the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jews" (Encyclopedia Britannica 1). This movement was established in 1897 by Theodor Herzl, an Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer, who is now famously known as the father of modern political Zionism.