Zionist pilgrimages: the beginning of organized Zionist Jewish tourism to Palestine at the end of the Ottoman period

ABSTRACT This article deals with the first groups (convoys) of Jewish tourists who traveled to Eretz Israel at the end of the Ottoman period and examines them in light of the typology of pilgrimage, tourism and Zionism. The participants in the convoys felt they had a mission to become familiar with Palestine, in order for them to express their opinion regarding the chances of settling there in the future. The interest that the participants in the convoys showed in the Jewish enterprise in Palestine were also milestone in the efforts to unite the factions of Jewish Yishuv in Palestine.