Bilu (movement)

Bilu (Hebrew: ביל"ו; also Palestine Pioneers) was a Jewish movement of the late 19th century, fueled predominantly by the immigration of Russian Jews, whose goal was the agricultural settlement of the Land of Israel. Its members were known as Bilu'im, and the movement sought to inspire Jews to migrate to Ottoman Palestine. The Bilu'im rejected progressive notions such as Emancipation and assimilation as viable options for Jewish survival. The movement collapsed as a result of the challenging farming conditions in Palestine and a lack of funding to sustain the settlers. Originally the movement was called Davio, an acronym of the Hebrew words from the Book of Exodus: "Speak unto the children of Israel that they will go forward." The movement's name was later changed by its founder, Israel Belkind, to "Bilu", which is an acronym based on a verse from the Book of Isaiah (2:5) "בית יעקב לכו ונלכה‎" Beit Ya'akov Lekhu Venelkha ("House of Jacob, let us go [up]"). The wave of pogroms in 1881–1884, known as "Southern Storms", in conjunction with Tsar Alexander III of Russia's antisemitic May Laws of 1882 prompted mass emigration of Jews from the Russian Empire. The Jews in Russia had originally hoped to move out of the Pale of Settlement (the territory that they were confined to by the authorities), but their hopes were dashed by a proposition from the Russian government for the Jews to move out of Russia entirely. On 6 July 1882, the first group of Bilu pioneers emigrated from Russia and arrived in Ottoman Palestine. The group consisted of fourteen university students from Kharkiv led by Israel Belkind, who was later a prominent writer and historian. The Bilu movement was powered by a group ethos amongst the explorers as opposed to the individual goals that motivated other pioneers to Ottoman Palestine. The arrival of Bilu pioneers marked the beginning of the First Aliyah. They attempted to use farming societies as a way to relieve Jewish economical and social tensions from the Pale of Settlement.