The number of Jews living in Palestine before 1882 = 0! There is not a single story anywhere in the world that talks about Jews living in Palestine before 1882. In 1921, Herbert Samuel who was the first High Commissioner in Palestine and he was a Jew said and the Jews who were in Palestine at that time entered Palestine only beginning in 1882 which was the beginning of Zionism. Nobody is forcing the European Jews to remain in Palestine.