Hovevei Zion

Hovevei Zion (Hebrew: חובבי ציון‎, lit. [Those who are] Lovers of Zion), also known as Hibbat Zion (Hebrew: חיבת ציון‎), refers to organizations that are now considered the forerunners and foundation-builders of modern Zionism.

Many of these first groups were established in Eastern European countries in the early 1880s with the aim to promote Jewish immigration to Palestine, and advance Jewish settlement there, particularly agricultural. Most of them stayed away from politics.

Background

Since the first centuries of the Common Era most Jews have lived outside the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel, known also as Palestine), although there has been a constant presence of Jews. According to the Bible and Judaism, Eretz Israel is a land promised to the Jews by God. The Diaspora began in 586 BCE 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 the first Jewish residential settlement and almshouse outside of the old walled city of Jerusalem in 1860, which is known today 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).

Zion

Zion (Hebrew: צִיּוֹן‎ Ṣiyyôn), also transliterated Sion, Sayon, Syon, Tzion or Tsion, is a place name often used as a synonym for Jerusalem. The word is first found in 2 Samuel 5:7 which dates from c.630–540 BCE according to modern scholarship. It commonly referred to a specific mountain near Jerusalem (Mount Zion), on which stood a Jebusite fortress of the same name that was conquered by David and was named the City of David. The term Tzion came to designate the area of Jerusalem where the fortress stood, and later became a metonym for Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, the city of Jerusalem and "the World to Come", the Jewish understanding of the hereafter.

In Kabbalah the more esoteric reference is made to Tzion being the spiritual point from which reality emerges, located in the Holy of Holies of the First, Second and Third Temple.

Etymology

The etymology of the word Zion (ṣiyôn) is uncertain. Mentioned in the Bible in the Book of Samuel (2 Samuel 5:7) as the name of the Jebusite fortress conquered by King David, its origin likely predates the Israelites. If Semitic, it may be derived from the Hebrew root ṣiyyôn ("castle") or the Hebrew ṣiyya ("dry land," Jeremiah 51:43). A non-Semitic relationship to the Hurrian word šeya ("river" or "brook") has also been suggested.

Zion (The Matrix)

Zion is a fictional city in The Matrix films. It is the last human city on the planet Earth after a cataclysmic nuclear war between mankind and sentient machines, which resulted in artificial lifeforms dominating the world.

History

Following the United Nations attack upon the newly established machine civilization of Zero One, a global nuclear war between both factions began for control of the Earth. After several desperate plans to halt the seemingly never-ending waves of robot-soldiers, the human leaders realized that the Machines had a good chance of winning. The human leaders began the construction of an entirely underground city, called Zion, that was built for the purpose of preserving the human species. When the war ended in the Machines' favour, the remnants of humanity were left struggling to survive on the cold, dangerous, and desolate surface. It was quickly becoming uninhabitable due to the cloud created by Operation Dark Storm. The Machines captured or killed almost all humans with the exception of the inhabitants of the unfinished Zion. The captured survivors were imprisoned and put into the newly constructed bio-electric towers with their minds placed in the Matrix to keep them docile. Twenty-three prisoners were freed by a mysterious Matrix-controlling figure referred to as "The One" and led to the unfinished Zion where they worked to complete it. After making the city operational and regaining technological usage from geothermal energy from the Earth's core, the One taught the humans to continue building and maintaining a war effort, and to fight inside and outside the Matrix. After the One's death, the humans learned to survive on their own and began waging a partial-guerrilla war from Zion against the Machines, and at the same time trying to free the Matrix's population from their virtual "prison".

List of The Dead Zone episodes

The following is a list of episodes from the USA Network original series The Dead Zone. The series debuted on June 16, 2002.

Series overview

Episodes

Season 1: 2002

Season 2: 2003

Season 3: 2004

Season 4: 2005

Season 5: 2006

Season 6: 2007

References