World War II

World War II lasted from 1939 to 1945 and included the Holocaust, in which Nazi Germany and its collaborators murdered six million Jews. For the Jewish people, this was the greatest catastrophe in modern history and deeply changed Jewish identity, politics, and urgency around having a safe homeland. In the Land of Israel, the Jewish community under the British Mandate supported the Allied war effort while also struggling against British limits on Jewish immigration, especially for refugees fleeing Europe. After the war, international support for a Jewish state grew, helping lead toward the UN Partition Plan and the creation of Israel in 1948.