by Dr.EUGENE SOCKUT
Prior to 1874, most of the Jews living in Palestine were native born. A few traced their ancestry back to the Jewish-Roman Wars of 70 A.D., which resulted in the destruction of the Second Jewish Commonwealth, and changed the “land of milk and honey”into a desolate, eroded place—land not to be independent again until the birth of modern Israel in 1948.
During the 1870s, Jews began retruning to the Holy Land, driven by their belief that the rebirth of an independent Jewish nation promised by the prophet Isaiah was at hand. Though many Jews had hone to the Holy Land throughout the exile, the first successful mass movement began at this time. This phenomenon was called Zionism, a rebirth of Zion, the Land of Israel. A gathering in of the scttered Jewish people was its goal.
The small arms of these early Zionists were representative of the period, consisting mainly of black powder muzzle-loading and cartridge guns of mixed origin, but chiefly European.Because of incessant Bedouin Arab attacks, the pioneers constructed defense walls around their settlements which resembled the stockades of the early American pioneers. Like the early American settlers, they found it necessary to train themselves in the use of small arms. This led to the development of a defense force called Shomrim (watchmen), whose duty was to guard the settlement’s livestock and rields. In the historical exhibition of the Hagana Museum in Tel-Aviv, there can be seen, along with ancient muzzleloaders, a “shilalee,” hand carved by an old rabbi tired of being set upon by Arab ruffians as he went to prayers.
