Aside from the highway of American emigration went, along a tiny parallel path, the Jewish emigration to Palestine.  The Palestinian movement which had shortly before come into being [1] attracted many enthusiasts from among the Jewish youth.  In the spring of 1882, a society of Jewish young men, consisting mostly of university students, was formed in Kharkov under the name Bilu, from the initial letters of their Hebrew motto, Bet Ya’akob leku we-nelka"O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us go.” [2] The aim of the society was to establish a model agricultural settlement in Palestine and to carry on a wide-spread propaganda for the idea of colonizing the ancient homeland of the Jews.  As a result of this propaganda, several hundred Jews in various parts of Russia joined the Bilu society.  Of these only a few dozen pioneers left for Palestine —­between June and July of 1882.

[Footnote 1:  See later, p. 268.]

[Footnote 2:  From Isa. 2.5.]

At first, the leaders of the organization attempted to enter into negotiations with the Turkish Government, with a view to obtaining from it a large tract of land for colonizing purposes, but the negotiations fell through.  The handful of pioneers were obliged to work in the agricultural settlements near Jaffa, in Mikweh Israel, a foundation of the Alliance Israelite in Paris, and in the colony Rishon le-Zion, which had been recently established by private initiative.  The youthful idealists had to endure many hardships in an unaccustomed environment and in a branch of endeavor entirely alien to them.  A considerable part of the pioneers were soon forced to give up the struggle and make way for the new settlers who were less intelligent perhaps but physically better fitted for their task.  The foundations of Palestinian colonization had been laid, though within exceedingly narrow limits, and the very idea of the national restoration of the Jewish people in Palestine was then as it was later a much greater social factor in Jewish life than the practical colonization of a country which could only absorb an insignificant number of laborers.  At those moments, when the Russian horrors made life unbearable, the eyes of many sufferers were turned Eastward, towards the tiny strip of land on the shores of the Mediterranean, where the dream of a new life upon the resuscitated ruins of gray antiquity held out the promise of fulfilment.

A contemporary writer, in surveying recent events in the Russian valley of tears, makes the following observations: 

Jewish life during the latter part of 1882 has assumed a monotonously gloomy, oppressively dull aspect True, the streets are no longer full of whirling feathers from torn bedding; the window-panes no longer crash through the streets.  The thunder and lightning which were recently filling the air and gladdening the hearts of the Greek-Orthodox people are no more.  But have the Jews actually