Question

1.

Which of the following is NOT one of the reasons for the creation of the modern country of Israel?

religious connection

anti-Semitism

atheism

2.

Which of the following terms describes the movement that was trying to get the Jews back to Palestine?

Zionism

the Holocaust

Anti-Semitism

3.

What is anti-Semitism?

attempting to make a Jewish state

Hitler’s mass murders of Jews

prejudice against Jews

Answer 1

Answers:

1. atheism
2. Zionism
3. prejudice against Jews

Explanation/details:

1. Among the founders of the nation of Israel, some were very religious and some were not. Early movements of Jews to Israel were motivated by religious Zionism. "Zion" refers to the sacred site in Jerusalem where the temple had been located. The main movement of Jewish immigration to the land then known as Palestine--based on old Roman empire name for the "Philistine" region--was motivated by secular Zionism. It was a nationalist movement for the Jews to have their own state as an answer to prejudice and persecution against them (known as anti-Semitism).
2. The main Zionist movement was largely secular in nature, focused on establishing a homeland for anyone of Jewish ethnicity. Some of the early founders were socialists in their political perspective as well, and looked to found a national community of that character. Theodore Herzl is typically credited with getting the secular Zionist movement started and leading in the founding of the World Zionist Organization. Convinced that the Jews would never truly be welcomed or assimilated within the countries of Europe, Herzl argued for establishment of their own homeland somewhere. (Eventually that "somewhere" became a movement focused on going back to the ancestral land of Israel.)
3. Anti-Semitism was strong in Europe already in the Middle Ages, when Jews were accused of such things as spreading the plague by poisoning wells, or using the blood of murdered Christians to make the matzah for their Passover rituals. The term "anti-Semitism" as a description for hostile opposition to the Jewish people was first used by Wilhelm Marr in 1879 in Germany. Marr supported campaigns against Jews and began using the term "anti-Semitism" as a euphemism for what better might have been called "Jew-hating."

Answer 2

Answers to your questions:

1.- Atheism

2.- Zionism

3.- Prejudice against Jews