A moshava was a form of agricultural Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel region, established by the members of the Old Yishuv beginning in the late 1870s and during the first two waves of Jewish Zionist immigration – the First and Second Aliyah.

The First Aliyah, also known as the agriculture Aliyah, was a major wave of Jewish immigration (aliyah) to Ottoman Palestine between 1881 and 1903. Jews who migrated in this wave came mostly from Eastern Europe and from Yemen, stimulated by pogroms and violence against the Jewish communities in those areas. An estimated 25,000 Jews immigrated. Many of the European Jewish immigrants during the late 19th-early 20th century period gave up after a few months and went back to their country of origin, often suffering from hunger and disease.