The Return to Jerusalem

The Return to Jerusalem: renewal of the Jewish settlement

in the Land of Israel at the beginning of the nineteenth century

By Arie Morgenstern

Hebrew

Soft cover, 626 pages, 2007

Catalogue number 496-1048

The Return to Jerusalem describes the influence of Messianic faith at the beginning of the nineteenth century upon the changing attitudes toward Jerusalem in the Jewish world and its transformation from a symbol of spiritual longings to a rapidly developing bricks and mortar home for the Jewish people, in a process that led to a Jewish majority in Jerusalem as early as 1860. The book exposes the activities of Jewish umbrella organizations founded in Eastern and Western Europe to support the renewed Jewish settlement in Israel, and examines their complex relationships with the leadership of the settlement in Israel. The Return to Jerusalem presents and analyzes archival material only recently discovered in the FSU and in Western Europe, published here for the first time.

To mark the book's publication, Morgenstern participated in a well-attended panel alongside Shalem Senior Fellow Joshua Schwartz and Hebrew University Professor Yehuda Liebes during Israel's Book Week. For event information, click here.

Click here to read the excerpt:

Arie Morgenstern is a Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center. His publications include Messianism and Settlement in the Land of Israel (Yad Ben-Zvi, 1985); Redemption Through Return: The Vilna Ga'ons Disciples in the Land of Israel, 1800-1840 (Maor, 1997); Mysticism and Messianism: From Luzzatto to the Vilna Ga'on (Maor, 1998); and Hastening Redemption: Messianism and the Resettlement of the Land of Israel (Oxford, 2006).