As the Holocaust became close and as Nazis were discriminating against Jews in Germany, Isaac Nachman Steinberg started the Freeland League in the United States in 1935. This organization tried, but did not succeed, to start a new Jewish country by getting a large piece of land in places in Ecuador, Australia, or Suriname where not many people lived. One of the more well-known tries was the Kimberley Plan, to get land in Australia. After the State of Israel was created in 1948, Steinberg had criticized the exclusivist politics of the Zionist government and continued his attempts to create a non-nationalist Jewish settlement in some other part of the world. After Steinberg died in 1957, the Freeland League was led by Mordkhe Schaechter, who gradually changed the focus of the organization to more cultural, Yiddishist goals.