Background
Since the first centuries AD most Jews have lived outside Land of Israel (Eretz Israel, known also as Palestine by non-Jews), although there has been a constant presence of Jews. According to Judaism, Eretz Israel is a land promised to the Jews by God according to the Bible. The Diaspora began in 586 BC during the Babylonian occupation of Israel.
In 1850, Palestine had about 350,000 inhabitants. Roughly 85% were Muslims, 11% were Christians and 4% Jews.
In 1854, Judah Touro bequeathed money to fund Jewish residential settlement in Palestine. Sir Moses Montefiore was appointed executor of his will, and used the funds for a variety of projects, including building in 1860 the first Jewish residential settlement and almshouse outside of the old walled city of Jerusalem - today known as Mishkenot Sha'ananim. Laurence Oliphant failed in a like attempt to bring to Palestine the Jewish proletariat of Poland, Lithuania, Romania, and the Turkish Empire (1879 and 1882).
In the Russian Empire, waves of pogroms of 1881-1884 (some allegedly state-sponsored), as well as the and anti-Semitic May Laws of 1882 introduced by Tsar Alexander III of Russia, deeply affected Jewish communities. More than 2 million Jews fled Russia between 1880 and 1920. The vast majority of them emigrated to the United States, but some decided to make aliyah.
Read more about this topic: Hovevei Zion
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—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)