Second Aliyah

Between 1904 and 1914 some 35,000 to 40,000 Jews, mostly from the Russian Empire, came to Ottoman Eretz Israel. Many were young socialists shaken by the Kishinev pogrom and the failed revolution of 1905. Many later left, but those who stayed included David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Berl Katznelson, Yosef Trumpeldor and A. D. Gordon. They insisted on "Hebrew labor", Jews working the land themselves. They founded the Hapoel Hatzair and Poale Zion parties and spoke Hebrew in daily life.

In 1910 a small group founded Degania on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee, the first kvutza and the "mother of the kibbutzim". The same years saw the Herzliya Gymnasium (1905), the founding of Tel Aviv (1909), and the guards' organization Hashomer (1909). The leaders of this generation went on to found the Histadrut, the Haganah and the main institutions of the State of Israel.