Yishuv היישוב

Hebrew word for settlement, used for the organized Jewish community in the land before the state of 1948. The old Yishuv of religious families in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias and Hebron predated Zionism, and the new Yishuv grew from the First Aliyah of 1882. By 1948 it had more than 600,000 people, with its own schools, defense force and labor federation.