British Mandate

The British Mandate over the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel) began after World War I, when British civil administration replaced military rule in 1920, and was formally approved by the League of Nations in 1922. Britain was responsible for administering the land while also recognizing the goal of a Jewish national home through the Balfour Declaration, whose text was written into the Mandate. During this period Jewish immigration increased, Hebrew became a living everyday language, cities such as Tel Aviv and agricultural settlements such as the kibbutzim grew, and the institutions of the future State of Israel were built: the Histadrut and the Haganah (1920), the Hebrew University (1925) and the Jewish Agency (1929). However, the Mandate period was also marked by Arab–Jewish violence, from the riots of 1920–1921 and the Hebron massacre of 1929 to the Arab Revolt of 1936–1939, by British restrictions on Jewish immigration culminating in the White Paper of 1939, and by rising tensions over the future of the land.