Return to Zion

The return to Zion (Hebrew: שִׁיבָת צִיּוֹן‎, Shivat Tzion, or שבי ציון, Shavei Tzion, lit. Zion returnees) is a term that refers to the event written in the biblical books of Ezra-Nehemiah in which the Jews returned to the land of Israel from the Babylonian exile following the decree by the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great, the conqueror of the Babylonian empire in 539 BC, also known as Cyrus's Declaration.

Although the term was first coined after the destruction of the Second Temple (mentioned in the Song of Degrees Psalms 126:1), it was attributed to the event of the return of the Jews from the Babylonian exile to the land of Israel after the destruction of the first temple, following the decree of Cyrus.

The biblical meaning of "the return to Zion", Aliyah, was borrowed later from the ancient event and was adopted as the definition of all the immigrations of Jews to the land of Israel and the State of Israel in modern times. The modern Aliyah began in the midst of the 19th century, to Jaffa, of the followers of Rabbi Yehuda Bibas and Rabbi Judah Alkalai, known as the Herald of Zionism (מבשרי הציונות) pioneers of modern Zionism, and up to the rest of the Aliyot (plural of Aliyah) made after the establishment of the State of Israel.

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