Zionist youth movement

A Zionist youth movement is an organization formed for Jewish children and adolescents for educational, social, and ideological development, including a belief in Jewish nationalism as represented in the State of Israel. Youth leaders in modern youth movements use informal education approaches to educate toward the movement's ideological goals.

Most Zionist youth movements were established in Eastern Europe in the early twentieth century, desiring the national revival of the Jewish people in their own homeland, and soon formed an active and integral part of the Zionist movement. All emphasised aliyah (emigration to the Land of Israel) and community, with many also focussing on a return to nature.

Blau-Weiss is considered to have been the first Zionist youth movement, established in Germany in 1912, and were inspired by the culture of outings and hikes prevalent in the German youth movement. Adopting an official Zionist platform in 1922, the movement stressed an agricultural way of life, leading many of its members to the Kibbutz movement in Mandatory Palestine.

With the upsurge in European nationalism and anti-Semitism, pogroms in Eastern Europe and the barring of Jewish members from German youth groups incubated the Zionist national consciousness of the Jewish youth, appealing to their idealism.

Youth movements played a considerable role in politics, Jewish education, community organisation and Zionism, particularly between the two world wars. Within Europe, they were the nucleus of the Jewish resistance movements in the ghettos and camps of the Holocaust. They also led the escape (Beriha) from Europe following the war, particularly to Palestine, where most surviving members settled.

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