Saturday, August 15, 2015

Pre-State Israel: The British Palestine Mandate (1922 - 1948) --- Immigration to Israel


Pre-State Israel:
The British Palestine Mandate

(1922 - 1948)

Pre-State Israel: Table of Contents | Balfour Declaration | Partition Plan

Reference

Living Under the Mandate

Commissions & Reports

War & Fighting

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British Palestine Mandate:
History & Overview

(1922 - 1948)

Palestine Mandate: Table of Contents | Timeline of British Rule | The Yishuv

The Mandate system was instituted by the League of Nations in the early 20th century to administer non-self-governing territories. The mandatory power, appointed by an international body, was to consider the mandated territory a temporary trust and to see to the well-being and advancement of its population.
In July 1922, the League of Nations entrusted Great Britain with the Mandate for Palestine. Recognizing "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine," Great Britain was called upon to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine-Eretz Israel (Land of Israel). Shortly afterwards, in September 1922, the League of Nations and Great Britain decided that the provisions for setting up a Jewish national home would not apply to the area east of the Jordan River, which constituted three-fourths of the territory included in the Mandate and which eventually became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
The British Mandate authorities granted the Jewish and Arab communities the right to run their internal affairs; thus the yishuv established the Elected Assembly and the National Council. The economy expanded, a Hebrew education network was organized and cultural life flourished.
The Mandatory government did not succeed in maintaining the letter and spirit of the Mandate. Under Arab pressure, it withdrew from its commitment, especially with respect to immigration and land acquisition. The White Papers of 1930and 1939 restricted immigration and acquisition of land by Jews. Later, immigration was limited by the 1930 and 1939 White Papers, and land acquisition by Jews was severely restricted by the 1940 Land Transfer Regulations.
After the UN General Assembly adopted the resolution to partition Palestine on November 29, 1947, Britain announced the termination of its Mandate over Palestine, to take effect on May 15, 1948. On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was proclaimed.
Sources: Israeli Foreign Ministry

Israel:
Immigration to Israel

Israel: Table of Contents | Population Statistics | Business & Economy

Reference

Immigration Statistics

IDF Rescue Operations

Immigration Waves (1880-1939)

Illegal Immigration Period (1939-1948)

Immigration to Israel:
Introduction & Overview

Immigration: Table of Contents | Law of Return | Immigration Statistics

Following their expulsion and after the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in 70 CE, the majority of the Jews were dispersed throughout the world. The Jewish national idea, however, was never abandoned, nor was the longing to return to their homeland.
Throughout the centuries, Jews have maintained a presence in the Land, in greater or lesser numbers; uninterrupted contact with Jews abroad has enriched the cultural, spiritual and intellectual life of both communities.
Zionism, the political movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland, founded in the late 19th century, derives its name from word "Zion," the traditional synonym for Jerusalem and the Land of Israel. In response to continued oppression and persecution of Jews in eastern Europe and disillusionment with emancipation in Western Europe, and inspired by Zionist ideology, Jews immigrated to Palestine toward the end of the nineteenth century. This was the first of the modern waves of aliyah (literally "going up") that were to transform the face of the country.
On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was proclaimed.
The Proclamation of the Establishment of the State of Israel stated: "The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and the ingathering of the exiles; it will foster the development of the country for all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice, and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex . . . ."
This was followed in 1950 by the Law of Return, which granted every Jew the automatic right toimmigrate to Israel and become a citizen of the state. With the gates wide open after statehood was declared, a wave of mass immigration brought 687,000 Jews to Israel's shores. By 1951, the number of immigrants more than doubled the Jewish population of the country in 1948. The immigrants included survivors of the Holocaust from displaced persons' camps in Germany,Austria and Italy; a majority of the Jewish communities of Bulgaria and Poland, one third of the Jews of Romania, and nearly all of the Jewish communities of Libya, Yemen and Iraq.
The immigrants encountered many adjustment difficulties. The fledgling state had just emerged from the bruising war of independence, was in grievous economic condition, and found it difficult to provide hundreds of thousands of immigrants with housing and jobs. Much effort was devoted toward absorbing the immigrants: ma'abarot — camps of tin shacks and tents — and later permanent dwellings were erected; employment opportunities were created; the Hebrew languagewas taught; and the educational system was expanded and adjusted to meet the needs of children from many different backgrounds.
Additional mass immigration took place in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when immigrants arrived from the newly independent countries of North Africa, Morocco and Tunisia. A large number of immigrants also arrived during these years from Poland, Hungary and Egypt.
2014 saw a large spike in immigration to Israel, with a 32% increase in general immigration over 2013's numbers.  As opposed to 2013's number of 16,968 immigrants making Aliyah to Israel, in 2014 approximately 26,500 individuals made Aliyah.  Immigration from the Ukraine increased more than 190% due to the ongoing civil war and social unrest, and for the first time in history immigration from France surpassed immigration from every other country. Looking forward, Israeli officials expect over 10,000 French individuals to make Aliyah in 2015. During 2014 more people immigrated to Israel from free countries rather than from countries in distress, which demonstrates Israel's attractiveness as a place to live and do business.  Aliyah from Western Europe in general is up 88% over the previous year's data, and Aliyah from the former Soviet Union is up 50%. 

Immigration from Western Countries

While mass immigrations to Israel have mostly been from countries of distress, immigration of individuals from the free world has also continued throughout the years. Most of these persons are motivated by idealism. This aliyah gained strength after the Six­Day War, with the awakening feelings of Jewish identity among Diaspora Jewry.

Immigration from the Soviet Union & former Soviet Union

From 1948 to 1967, the relations between Jews in the Soviet Union and the State of Israel were limited. Following the Six­Day War, Jewish consciousness among Soviet Jews was awakened, and increasing numbers sought aliyah. As an atmosphere of detente began to pervade international relations in the early 1970s, the Soviet Union permitted significant number of Jews to immigrate to Israel. At the end of the decade, a quarter of a million Jews had left the Soviet Union; 140,000 immigrated to Israel.
Soviet Jews were permitted to leave the Soviet Union in unprecedented numbers in the late 1980s, with President Gorbachev's bid to liberalize the country. The collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991 facilitated this process. After 190,000 olim reached Israel in 1990 and 150,000 in 1991, the stabilization of conditions in the former Soviet Union and adjustment difficulties in Israel caused immigration to level off at approximately 70,000 per year. From 1989 to the end of 2003, more than 950,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union had made their home in Israel.

Immigration from Ethiopia

The last decade has witnessed the aliyah of the ancient Jewish community of Ethiopia. In 1984, some 7,000 Ethiopian Jews walked hundreds of miles to Sudan, where a secret effort known as Operation Moses brought them to Israel. Another 15,000 arrived in a dramatic airlift, Operation Solomon, in May 1991. Within thirty hours, forty­one flights from Addis Ababa carried almost all the remaining community to Israel.


Immigration to Israel:
The First Aliyah

(1882 - 1903)

Immigration: Table of Contents | Law of Return | Immigration Statistics

The First Aliyah followed pogroms in Russia in 1881-1882, with most of the olim (immigrants) coming from Eastern Europe; a small number also arrived from Yemen. Members of Hibbat Zionand Bilu, two early Zionist movements that were the mainstays of the First Aliyah, defined their goal as "the political, national, and spiritual resurrection of the Jewish people in Palestine."
Though they were inexperienced idealists, most chose agricultural settlement as their way of life and founded moshavot — farmholders' villages based on the principle of private property. Three early villages of this type were Rishon Lezion, Rosh Pina, and Zikhron Ya'akov.
The First Aliyah settlers encountered many difficulties, including an inclement climate, disease, crippling Turkish taxation and Arab opposition. They required assistance and received scanty aid from Hibbat Zion, and more substantial aid from Baron Edmond de Rothschild. He provided themoshavot with his patronage and the settlers with economic assistance, thereby averting the collapse of the settlement enterprise. The Yemenite olim, most of whom settled in Jerusalem, were first employed as construction workers and later in the citrus plantations of the moshavot.
In all, nearly 35,000 Jews came to Palestine during the First Aliyah. Almost half of them left the country within several years of their arrival, some 15,000 established new rural settlements, and the rest moved to the towns.

See Also: Second Aliyah | Third Aliyah | Fourth Aliyah | Fifth Aliyah | Aliyah Bet



Immigration to Israel:
Aliyah Bet

(1939 - 1948)

Immigration: Table of Contents | Law of Return | Immigration Statistics

During World War II, the aliyah (immigration) effort focused on rescuing Jews from Nazi­occupied Europe. Some olim entered the country on visas issued under the "White Paper" quota; the majority came as illegal immigrants. This immigration, called Aliyah Bet, arrived by land and by sea, from Europe and the Middle East, in contravention of the Mandatory Government's orders.

Photo couresty of NARA
The loss of contact with European countries, the hazards of maritime travel under wartime conditions, and the difficulty in obtaining vessels for transport of illegal immigrants placed severe constraints on Aliyah Bet. Several boatloads of immigrants who managed to reach Palestine were sent back by British authorities upholding the quota system. Many lost their lives at sea or in the Nazi inferno in Europe. Overland, 1,350 Syrian Jews were escorted to Palestine in an intricate and audacious operation.
During the years 1944-1948, the Jews in Eastern Europe sought to leave that continent by any means. Emissaries from the yishuv, Jewish partisans and Zionist youth movements cooperated in establishing the Beriha (escape) organization, which helped nearly 200,000 Jews leave Europe. The majority settled in Palestine.
From the end of World War II until the establishment of Israel (1945-1948), illegal immigration was the major method of immigration, because the British, by setting the quota at a mere 18,000 per year, virtually terminated the option of legal immigration. Sixty­six illegal immigration sailings were organized during these years, but only a few managed to penetrate the British blockade and bring their passengers ashore. In 1947, 4500 immigrants on the Exodus were sent back to Europe by the Mandatory government. The British stopped the vessels carrying immigrants at sea, and interned the captured immigrants in camps in Cyprus; most of these persons only arrived in Israel after the establishment of the state. Approximately 80,000 illegal immigrants reached Palestine during 1945-48.
In total, it is estimated that between 1939 and 1948 approximately 110,000 Jewish immigrants had particpated in Aliyah Bet by sailing to the territory of the British Mandate.
The number of immigrants during the entire Mandate period, legal and illegal alike, was approximately 480,000, close to 90% of them from Europe. The population of the yishuv expanded to 650,000 by the time statehood was proclaimed.


Pre-State Israel:
Stockade and Watchtower

Pre-State Israel: Table of Contents | Jewish Immigration | Partition Plans


Between 1936 and 1947, when the Jewish National Fund sought to both establish "facts on the ground" and settle land it purchased in Mandatory Palestine far from other Jewish populations, a major concern was vulnerability to Arab attacks. In response, Jews established the strategy of erecting "Stockade and Watchtower" settlements (also called "Wall and Tower" or Chomah V'Migdal in Hebrew) using an old Ottoman rule which prohibited the demolition of roved structures on landowners property.
To build such settlements, convoys of hundreds of volunteers carrying prefabricated dwellings and fortifications set out for the new location during the middle of the night. Before morning, the entire settlement construction - including a surrounding double wall filled with earth and stones, searchlights, and a central watchtower - would be completed.
All told, 118 settlements including 52 new kibbutzim, spanning the Jordan Valley and the Galileeregions, were erected in this manner.
A museum and model of the first Stockade and Watchtower can be found at Tel Amal near the city of Bet She'an.
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1 comment:

  1. UnknownAugust 15, 2015 at 11:36 PM

    A heavenly maiden with an orb of gold
    Sits by the Mediterranean Sea
    She gazes at the sailors and ships
    That pass by for eternity
    Who are you? fair maiden, they ask
    What is your pedigree
    I am a Jew, she answers, and that's my destiny
    I am called Israel born of steel and fire
    I have gathered my children from many lands afar
    From East and West and South and North
    They came in multitude
    And they have made me what I am
    In everlasting gratitude
    I am their mother and they are my children
    That's how we both feel
    Israel (my name) is a reality
    That adversity could not kill.

    ReplyDelete

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