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99-447: The land had been used as a Ma'abara Nativa which was abandoned as a religious settlement and educational center in 1962 by Poalei Agudat Yisrael , in partnership with the municipality of Nahal Sorek. It was named after the former Minister of Postal Services , Binyamin Mintz , who had died the previous year. For many years, the community was a center of higher Jewish learning, based around

198-494: A demographic profile of the ma'abarot: "The Holocaust survivor population was usually older and contained fewer children. On the other hand, the Jews from developing countries in Asia and Africa tended to have a large number of children but a smaller elderly population. The European immigrants were generally better educated. Neither group however, resembled the profile of pre‑state immigration:

297-485: A different approach: "I don't accept this pampering [approach] with respect to people not living in tents. We are spoiling them. People can live for years in tents. Anyone who doesn't want to live in them needn't bother coming here." By the end of 1951, there were 227,000 people, close to one-sixth of Israel's population, living in 123 or 125 ma'abarot. By the following year, 172,500 were registered as living in 111 canvas tents, and another 38,544 in provisory wooden shacks,

396-495: A fundamental component of Zionism . It is enshrined in Israel's Law of Return , which accords any Jew (deemed as such by halakha and/or Israeli secular law ) and eligible non-Jews (a child and a grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew), the legal right to assisted immigration and settlement in Israel, as well as Israeli citizenship. Someone who "makes aliyah "

495-464: A new suburb of Jaffa established in 1909, eventually grew to become the city of Tel Aviv . During this period, some of the underpinnings of an independent nation-state arose: Hebrew , the ancient national language, was revived as a spoken language; newspapers and literature written in Hebrew were published; political parties and workers organizations were established. The First World War effectively ended

594-548: A price of $ 2,500 and later at $ 3,300 per head." A mass emigration was politically undesirable for the Soviet regime. The only acceptable ground was family reunification, and a formal petition ("вызов", vyzov ) from a relative from abroad was required for the processing to begin. Often, the result was a formal refusal . The risks to apply for an exit visa compounded because the entire family had to quit their jobs, which in turn would make them vulnerable to charges of social parasitism ,

693-661: A right to Israeli citizenship, aliyah (returning to Israel) has both a secular and a religious significance. The first modern period of immigration to receive a number in common speech was the Third Aliyah, which in the World War ;I period was referred to as the successor to the First and Second Aliyot from Babylonia in the Biblical period. Reference to earlier modern periods as the First and Second Aliyot appeared first in 1919 and took

792-460: A satirical film about the Ma'abarot called Sallah Shabbati (1964). The film was nominated for an Academy Award and is regarded as an Israeli classic. Aliyah#Early statehood (1948–1960) Aliyah ( US : / ˌ æ l i ˈ ɑː / , UK : / ˌ ɑː -/ ; Hebrew : עֲלִיָּה ʿălīyyā , lit.   ' ascent ' ) is the immigration of Jews from the diaspora to, historically,

891-738: A shared building containing a synagogue . Yad Binyamin is located 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) from the Re'em Junction on Highway 3 , and one kilometer from the intersection of Highway 6 and Highway 7 . In September 2018, Israel Railways opened the nearby Kiryat Malachi-Yoav station, connecting the area to the Nahariyah–Beersheba line . A number of Egged bus routes provide transport links to Jerusalem, Ashkelon , and other cities. Ma%27abarot Ma'abarot ( Hebrew : מַעְבָּרוֹת ) were immigrant and refugee absorption camps established in Israel in

990-575: A sign of approaching redemption and contributed greatly to the messianic spirit of the time. Aliyah was also spurred during this period by the resurgence of messianic fervor among the Jews of France , Italy , the Germanic states , Poland , Russia , and North Africa . The belief in the imminent coming of the Jewish Messiah , the ingathering of the exiles and the re-establishment of the kingdom of Israel encouraged many who had few other options to make

1089-552: A significant population influx, particularly of Jews from Arab countries. Dr. Roy Kozlovsky notes that the prior existence of the One Million Plan suggests that "the concept of the ma'abara was in fact the precondition for, not the effect of, mass immigration". An important part of the One Million Plan Planning Committee's plans and recommendations were implemented following the creation of Israel; as well as

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1188-430: A significantly lower percentage of the post‑1948 immigrants were in the primary wage earning group (only 50.4% in the 15–45 age group as compared to 66.8% in earlier immigration waves) and consequently fewer could participate in the work force of the new state. The newer immigrants had less education: 16% of those aged 15 and above had completed secondary education as compared to 34% among the earlier settlers." Over time,

1287-497: A small economy and scant foreign currency reserves, could provide for the immigrants, a strict regime of rationing was put in place. Measures were enacted to ensure that all Israeli citizens had access to adequate food, housing, and clothing. Austerity was very restrictive until 1953; the previous year, Israel had signed a reparations agreement with West Germany , in which the West German government would pay Israel as compensation for

1386-448: A while to catch on. The pronounced persecution of Russian Jews between 1881 and 1910 led to a large wave of emigration. Since only a small portion of East European Jews had adopted Zionism by then, between 1881 and 1914 only 30–40,000 emigrants went to Ottoman Palestine, while over one and a half million Russian Jews and 300,000 from Austria-Hungary reached Northern America. Between 1882 and 1903, approximately 35,000 Jews immigrated to

1485-481: Is a Hebrew word meaning "fondness for Zion." They were also called Hovevei Tsiyon or "enthusiasts for Zion" by the members of the groups themselves. While these groups expressed interest and "fondness" for Palestine, they were not strong enough in number to encompass an entire mass movement as would appear later on in other waves of migration. The majority, belonging to the Hovevei Zion and Bilu movements, came from

1584-455: Is as important as all the other mitzvot put together. There are many mitzvot such as shmita , the sabbatical year for farming, which can only be performed in Israel. For generations of religious Jews, aliyah was associated with the coming of the Jewish Messiah . Jews prayed for their Messiah to come, who was to redeem the "Land of Israel" ( Eretz Yisrael , commonly known in English as

1683-611: Is called an oleh (m.; pl. olim ) or olah (f.; pl. olot ). Many religious Jews espouse aliyah as a return to the Promised Land , and regard it as the fulfillment of God 's biblical promise to the descendants of the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham , Isaac , and Jacob . Nachmanides (the Ramban) includes making aliyah in his enumeration of the 613 commandments . Sifre says that the mitzvah (commandment) of living in Eretz Yisrael

1782-526: Is characterized as the Pre-Modern Aliyah . Since the birth of Zionism in the late 19th century, the advocates of aliyah have striven to facilitate the settlement of Jewish refugees in Ottoman Palestine , Mandatory Palestine , and the sovereign State of Israel. The periodization of historical waves of Aliyah was first published after the 1917 Balfour Declaration , which created expectations of

1881-580: The Sha'ar Ha'aliya (Immigration Gate) camp, where they underwent health checkups before dispersal, while a smaller number were housed in immigrant housing consisting of wooden huts built along the lines of military barracks, and known as batei olim . In March 1950, Levi Eshkol , head of the Jewish Agency Settlement Department, responded to the pressure on the Agency's budget due to the size of

1980-586: The Bauhaus style (the White City of Tel Aviv has the highest concentration of International Style architecture in the world with a strong element of Bauhaus) and founded the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra. With the completion of the port at Haifa and its oil refineries , significant industry was added to the predominantly agricultural economy. The Jewish population reached 450,000 by 1940. At

2079-655: The Bricha of the Holocaust survivors ; the aliyah from elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa as well as the aliyah from Western and Communist countries following the Six-Day War with the 1968 Polish political crisis , as well as the aliyah from post-Soviet states in the 1990s. Today, most aliyah consists of voluntary migration for ideological, economic, or family reunification purposes. Because Jewish lineage can provide

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2178-589: The Byzantine Empire in 1453 and the expulsion of Jews from Spain (1492) and Portugal (1498), many Jews made their way to the Holy Land. Some Ukrainian Jewish refugees fleeing the pogroms of the Khmelnytsky Uprising of the mid-17th century also settled in the Holy Land. Then the immigration in the 18th and early 19th centuries of thousands of followers of various Kabbalist and Hassidic rabbis, as well as

2277-669: The First Aliyah and the Second Aliyah to Ottoman Palestine, followed by the Third , Fourth , and Fifth Aliyah to Mandatory Palestine. Following Ruppin and Jacob Lestschinsky before him, Gurevich's use of the term Aliyah emphasized the ideological element of the immigration, despite the fact that such a motivation was not representative of the immigrants as a whole. Subsequently, named periods include Aliyah Bet (immigration done in spite of restrictive Mandatory law) between 1934 and 1948 and

2376-746: The Histadrut (General Labor Federation); an elected assembly; national council; and the Haganah , the forerunner of the Israel Defense Forces . Between 1924 and 1929, 82,000 Jews arrived, many as a result of increasing anti-Semitism in Poland and throughout Europe. The vast majority of Jewish immigrants arrived from Europe mostly from Poland, the Soviet Union , Romania, and Lithuania, but about 12% came from Asia, mostly Yemen and Iraq. The immigration quotas of

2475-588: The Holocaust , due to Israel's taking in a large number of Holocaust survivors. The resulting influx of foreign capital boosted the Israeli economy and allowed for the relaxing of most restrictions. The remaining austerity measures were gradually phased out throughout the following years. When new immigrants arrived in Israel, they were sprayed with DDT , underwent a medical examination, were inoculated against diseases, and were given food. The earliest immigrants received desirable homes in established urban areas, but most of

2574-751: The Mount of Olives . Kurdish Jews settled in Jerusalem starting around 1895. Between 1904 and 1914, 35–40,000 Jews immigrated to Ottoman Palestine. The vast majority came from the Russian Empire , in particular from the Pale of Settlement in Eastern Europe. Jews from other countries in Eastern Europe such as Romania and Bulgaria also joined. Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe was largely due to pogroms and outbreaks of anti-Semitism there. However, Mountain Jews from

2673-609: The Ottoman Palestine , joining the pre-existing Jewish population which in 1880 numbered 20,000-25,000. The Jews immigrating arrived in groups that had been assembled, or recruited. Most of these groups had been arranged in the areas of Romania and Russia in the 1880s. The migration of Jews from Russia correlates with the end of the Russian pogroms, with about 3 percent of Jews emigrating from Europe to Palestine. The groups who arrived in Palestine around this time were called Hibbat Tsiyon , which

2772-552: The Russian Empire with a smaller number arriving from Yemen . Many established agricultural communities. Among the towns that these individuals established are Petah Tikva (already in 1878), Rishon LeZion , Rosh Pinna , and Zikhron Ya'akov . In 1882 the Yemenite Jews settled in the Arab village of Silwan located south-east of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem on the slopes of

2871-543: The United States kept Jews out. This group contained many middle-class families that moved to the growing towns, establishing small businesses, and light industry. Of these approximately 23,000 left the country. Between 1929 and 1939, with the rise of Nazism in Germany , a new wave of 250,000 immigrants arrived; the majority of these, 174,000, arrived between 1933 and 1936, after which increasing restrictions on immigration by

2970-471: The olim will be dispersed all over the country and a wide sector of the population will shoulder the burden of their care.' Eshkol's proposal aimed to make immigrants independent of the Agency, provide them with housing and jobs, and position them so that they could be integrated into the pre-existing economy by residential contiguity with Israel's towns and villages. The first ma'abara, in Kesalon , built atop

3069-415: The region of Palestine ) from gentile rule and return world Jewry to the land under a Halachic theocracy . In Zionist discourse, the term aliyah (plural aliyot ) includes both voluntary immigration for ideological, emotional, or practical reasons and, on the other hand, mass flight of persecuted populations of Jews. The vast majority of Israeli Jews today trace their family's recent roots to outside

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3168-518: The yeshiva . Following the disengagement plan , around 200 families from Gush Katif moved into temporary pre-fabricated housing in Yad Binyamin. Some later moved to a new village named Ganei Tal after the former settlement by the same name. Many other families have moved to Netzer Hazani . The community has a neighborhood, called Ahuzat Yonatan , that is for people ages 55 and older. The neighborhood has approximately 160 apartments as well as

3267-486: The 1930s and 1940s, Zionist historians began to divide the next periods of immigration to Palestine into different phases, in a form which "created and presumed the unique traits of aliyah and the Zionist enterprise". The currently accepted five-wave periodization was first published in Hebrew by sociologist David Gurevich in his 1944 work The Jewish Population of Palestine: Immigration, Demographic Structure and Natural Growth :

3366-618: The 1950s, constituting one of the largest public projects planned by the state to implement its sociospatial and housing policies. The ma'abarot were meant to provide accommodation for the large influx of Jewish refugees and new Jewish immigrants ( olim ) arriving to the newly independent State of Israel, replacing the less habitable immigrant camps or tent cities. In 1951 there were 127 Ma'abarot housing 250,000 Jews, of which 75% were Mizrahi Jews ; 58% of Mizrahi Jews who had immigrated up to that point had been sent to Ma'abarot, compared to 18% of European Jews. The ma'abarot began to empty by

3465-519: The British Mandate, and illegal immigration escalated rapidly as many Holocaust survivors joined the aliyah. After Aliyah Bet, the process of numbering or naming individual aliyot ceased, but immigration did not. A major wave of Jewish immigration, mainly from post-Holocaust Europe and the Arab and Muslim world took place from 1948 to 1951. In three and a half years, the Jewish population of Israel, which

3564-558: The British made immigration clandestine and illegal, called Aliyah Bet . The Fifth Aliyah was again driven almost entirely from Europe, mostly from Central Europe (particularly from Poland , Germany , Austria , and Czechoslovakia ), but also from Greece . Some Jewish immigrants also came from other countries such as Turkey , Iran , and Yemen . The Fifth Aliyah contained large numbers of professionals, doctors, lawyers, and professors, from Germany. Refugee architects and musicians introduced

3663-495: The Caucasus and Jews from other countries including Yemen, Iran , and Argentina also arrived at this time. The Eastern European Jewish immigrants of this period, greatly influenced by socialist ideals, established the first kibbutz , Degania Alef , in 1909 and formed self-defense organizations, such as Hashomer , to counter increasing Arab hostility and to help Jews to protect their communities from Arab marauders. Ahuzat Bayit,

3762-565: The French port of Sète aboard President Warfield (renamed Exodus ). The British turned them back to France from Haifa, and forced them ashore in Hamburg. Despite British efforts to curb the illegal immigration, during the 14 years of its operation, 110,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine. In 1945 reports of the Holocaust with its 6 million Jewish killed, caused many Jews in Palestine to turn openly against

3861-471: The Jewish Agency under which 50,000 German Jews and $ 100 million worth of their assets would be moved to Palestine. The British government limited Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine with quotas, and following the rise of Nazism to power in Germany , illegal immigration to Mandatory Palestine commenced. The illegal immigration was known as Aliyah Bet ("secondary immigration"), or Ha'apalah , and

3960-648: The Jewish exiles living in Babylon to their home city of Jerusalem in 459 BC. Even those Jews who did not end up returning gave their children names like Yashuv-Tzadik and Yaeliyahu which testified to their desire to return. Jews returned to the Land of Israel throughout the Second Temple period . Herod the Great also encouraged aliyah and often gave key posts, such as the position of High Priest , to returnees. In late antiquity,

4059-506: The Jewish year 5600, Christian year 1840, a movement documented in Arie Morgenstern's Hastening Redemption . There were also those who like the British mystic Laurence Oliphant tried to lease Northern Palestine to settle the Jews there (1879). Jewish immigration to Palestine began in earnest following the 1839 Tanzimat reforms; between 1840 and 1880, the Jewish population of Palestine rose from 9,000 to 23,000. In Zionist history,

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4158-462: The Jews (both of which were regarded as "co-nationals"), their price was "calculated". Ceaușescu, happy with these policies, even declared that " oil , Germans, and Jews are our most important export commodities". Israeli government paid to facilitate aliyah, and around 235,000 people emigrated from Romania to Israel under this agreement. When Romania was under control of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej , he received 10 million dollars per year, and only he had

4257-470: The Land of Israel as an ascent, both geographically and metaphysically. In one opinion, the geographical sense preceded the metaphorical one, as most Jews going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem , which is situated at approximately 750 meters (2,500 feet) above sea level, had to climb to a higher geographic elevation . The reason is that many Jews in early rabbinic times used to live either in Egypt's Nile Delta and on

4356-550: The Middle East increased. Health problems, particularly evident among Mizrachi, aroused considerable concern among Israeli authorities who worried about the risks of contagion. 20% of the North African Jewish immigrants vetted at Marseilles required long and intensive hospitalization and trachoma rates reached 70%. Of the 5,000 Yemenite Jews trapped for years in the Geula transit camp near Aden, 80% had symptoms of malaria. Given

4455-649: The United States (especially in New York City and Los Angeles ). The first major wave of aliyah from Ethiopia took place in the mid-1970s. The massive airlift known as Operation Moses began to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel on November 18, 1984, and ended on January 5, 1985. During those six weeks, some 6,500–8,000 Ethiopian Jews were flown from Sudan to Israel. An estimated 2,000–4,000 Jews died en route to Sudan or in Sudanese refugee camps. In 1991 Operation Solomon

4554-435: The access to the money transferred to the secret account. Israel also bought Romanian goods and invested into Romania's economy. After his death, Ceauşescu practically sold the Jews to Israel, and received between 4,000 and 6,000$ per person. Israel could have transferred nearly 60 million dollars for the aliyah. Another estimation is higher - according to Radu Ioanid , "Ceausescu sold 40,577 Jews to Israel for $ 112,498,800, at

4653-491: The beginning of the immigration wave, most of the immigrants to reach Israel were Holocaust survivors from Europe, including many from displaced persons camps in Germany , Austria , and Italy , and from British detention camps on Cyprus . Large sections of shattered Jewish communities throughout Europe, such as those from Poland and Romania also immigrated to Israel, with some communities, such as those from Bulgaria and Yugoslavia , being almost entirely transferred. At

4752-458: The camps received a ration card, an identity card, a mattress, a pair of blankets, and $ 21 to $ 36 in cash. They settled either in established cities and towns, or in kibbutzim and moshavim . Many others stayed in the Ma'abarot as they were gradually turned into permanent cities and towns, which became known as development towns , or were absorbed as neighborhoods of the towns they were attached to, and

4851-524: The choice in itself to bring to Israel so many thousands of immigrants, following the idea of the "One Million Plan" unveiled by Ben Gurion in 1944". The first influx of Jews after the 1948 establishment of Israel was mainly composed of Holocaust survivors from displaced-persons camps in Germany, Austria, and Italy, and British detention camps in Cyprus. In the coming years, the number of Jews from North Africa and

4950-515: The core of the Old Yishuv in Jerusalem. This was part of a larger movement of thousands of Jews from countries as widely spaced as Persia and Morocco, Yemen and Russia, who moved to Palestine beginning in the first decade of the nineteenth century – and in even larger numbers after the conquest of the region by Muhammad Ali of Egypt in 1832 – all drawn by the expectation of the arrival of the Messiah in

5049-655: The country. While many have actively chosen to settle in Israel rather than some other country, many had little or no choice about leaving their previous home countries. While Israel is commonly recognized as "a country of immigrants ", it is also, in large measure, a country of refugees , including internal refugees. Israeli citizens who marry individuals of Palestinian heritage, born within the Israeli-occupied territories and carrying Palestinian IDs, must renounce Israeli residency themselves in order to live and travel together with their spouses. The Hebrew Bible relates that

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5148-509: The different waves of aliyah , beginning with the arrival of the Biluim from Russia in 1882, are categorized by date and the country of origin of the immigrants. In the late 19th century, 99.7% of the world's Jews lived outside the region, with Jews representing 2–5% of the population of the Palestine region . Pre-19th century small-scale return migration of Diaspora Jews to the Land of Israel

5247-709: The disciples of the Vilna Gaon and the disciples of the Chattam Sofer , added considerably to the Jewish populations in Jerusalem , Tiberias , Hebron , and Safed . The messianic dreams of the Gaon of Vilna inspired one of the largest pre-Zionist waves of immigration to Eretz Yisrael. In 1808 hundreds of the Gaon's disciples, known as Perushim , settled in Tiberias and Safed, and later formed

5346-708: The emptied Palestinian village of Kasla in the Judean Hills , became functional in May 1950 when 150 families were settled there. In July Giora Yoseftal had 70,000 immigrants shifted into the ma'abarot, and by the following year a further 50,000 were relocated in them as the batei olim , already at capacity, were closed. Plans to provide immigrants with jobs requiring heavy physical labour, and with housing and plots of agricultural land in outlying areas, were generally unsuccessful, with many migrating back to camps near cities and towns on finding themselves ill-equipped or unprepared for

5445-494: The entire Jewish population of Libya left for Israel around this time, and clandestine aliyah from Syria took place, as the Syrian government prohibited Jewish emigration, in a process that was to last decades. Israel also saw significant immigration of Jews from non-Arab Muslim countries such as Iran , Turkey , and Afghanistan in this period. This resulted in a period of austerity . To ensure that Israel, which at that time had

5544-470: The former Arab village on the site, was one of two large ma'abarot established in Jerusalem , and consisted of hundreds of asbestos huts inhabited by new immigrants from both North Africa and Eastern Europe. Most of the huts were dismantled in the 1960s and tenements were built in their stead. Two surviving pieces were slated for demolition in 2012, despite protests that they should be conserved as part of Israel's heritage. The prefabricated structures used in

5643-644: The founding of the State of Israel, the Jewish Agency for Israel was mandated as the organization responsible for aliyah in the diaspora. From 1948 until the early 1970s, around 900,000 Jews from Arab lands left, fled, or were expelled from various Arab nations, of which an estimated 650,000 settled in Israel. In the course of Operation Magic Carpet (1949–1950), nearly the entire community of Yemenite Jews (about 49,000) immigrated to Israel. Its other name, Operation On Wings of Eagles (Hebrew: כנפי נשרים, Kanfei Nesharim),

5742-496: The geographical Land of Israel or the Palestine region , which is today chiefly represented by the State of Israel . Traditionally described as "the act of going up" (towards the Jewish holy city of Jerusalem ), moving to the Land of Israel or "making aliyah" is one of the most basic tenets of Zionism . The opposite action – emigration by Jews from the Land of Israel – is referred to in the Hebrew language as yerida ( lit.   ' descent ' ). The Law of Return that

5841-405: The immigrant camps, the new country implemented rapid Jewish migration, requested reparations from Germany and projects such as the National Water Carrier and the National Outline Plan. Dr. Piera Rossetto described the debate around the conditions of the Ma'abarot, stating that in her opinion "the most controversial issue in this respect is not the outcome (e.g. the ma'abarot) of the choice, rather

5940-410: The immigrants still living in transit camps. The Israeli government built 260 new settlements and 78,000 housing units to accommodate the immigrants, and by the mid-1950s, almost all were in permanent housing. The last ma'abarot closed in 1963. In the mid-1950s, a smaller wave of immigration began from North African countries such as Morocco , Tunisia , Algeria , and Egypt , many of which were in

6039-405: The immigrants were then sent to transit camps, known initially as immigrant camps , and later as Ma'abarot . Many were also initially housed in reception centers in military barracks. By the end of 1950, some 93,000 immigrants were housed in 62 transit camps. The Israeli government's goal was to get the immigrants out of refugee housing and into society as speedily as possible. Immigrants who left

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6138-453: The influx by making a 'revolutionary proposal'. I propose that we dismantle the immigrant camps and put up immigrant housing throughout the length and breadth of the country, beside every settlement from Dan to Nir-Am that has some foothold in the economy. We will establish sixty neighbourhoods for up to 1,000 persons. The olim will be employed in afforestation, fruit-tree planting, reclamation, terracing and landscape clearing. In this manner,

6237-399: The land". Widespread use of the term Aliyah to describe ideologically inspired Jewish immigration to Palestine / Israel is due to Arthur Ruppin 's 1930 work Soziologie der Juden . Aliyah has also been defined, by sociologists such as Aryeh Tartakower , as immigration for the good of the community, regardless of the destination. Aliyah is an important Jewish cultural concept and

6336-415: The large-scale immigration of Jews to Palestine had consequently begun by 1882. Since the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948, more than 3 million Jews have made aliyah. As of 2014 , Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories contain approximately 42.9 percent of the world's Jewish population . The Hebrew word aliyah means "ascent" or "going up". Jewish tradition views traveling to

6435-401: The late 19th century, 99.7% of the world's Jews lived outside the region, with Jews representing 2–5% of the population of the Palestine region . Despite its historical value as a national aspiration for the Jewish people , aliyah was acted upon by few prior to the rise of a national awakening among Jews worldwide and the subsequent development of the Zionist movement in the late 19th century;

6534-433: The latter by 1953 were erected to cope with the housing needs of 70,000 immigrants in 42 of ma'abarot. The remaining 69 canvas tent ma'abarot held 108,850 residents. According to scholars Emma Murphy and Clive Jones, the "housing policies weighted in favour of Ashkenazi immigrants over Oriental Jews . Housing units earmarked for Oriental Jews were often reallocated to European Jewish immigrants, consigning Oriental Jews to

6633-403: The lowest rates in the world- was high, reaching 157 deaths per 1000 live births. All these facts generated harsh criticism. A considerable numbers of immigrant transit camps and ma'abarot were established in former British military bases transferred or sold to Israel. Some of these bases were also allocated to MALBEN . Eventually most of these bases were demolished. When the ma'abarot plan

6732-503: The ma'abarot metamorphosed into Israeli towns, or were absorbed as neighbourhoods of the towns they were attached to, and residents were provided with permanent housing. The number of people housed in Ma'abarot began to decline from 1952 onwards. The last Ma'abarot were closed sometime around 1963. Most of the camps transformed into development towns , among them Kiryat Shmona , Sderot , Beit She'an , Yokneam , Or Yehuda and Migdal HaEmek . Israeli satirist Ephraim Kishon produced

6831-593: The ma'abarot were imported from Canada, the United States, Finland, Sweden and Japan, which was costly, but the government faced a political dilemma: to adjust the pace of immigration to the building industry's capacity to building permanent homes or accelerate immigration and bridge the gap with temporary structures. During the first years after Israel's independence, the largest group of immigrants arriving in Israel at this time—over 100,000—hailed from Iraq . The rest were from Europe, including more than 270,000 from different parts of Eastern Europe. Jonathan Kaplan offers

6930-526: The mid-1950s, and many formed the basis for Israel's development towns . The last ma'abara was dismantled in 1963. The ma'abarot became the most enduring symbol of the plight of Jewish immigrants from Arab lands in Israel ; according to Dalia Gavriely-Nuri, the memory of these camps has been largely erased from Israeli memory. The Hebrew word Ma'abara (singular) derives from the word ma'avar ( Hebrew : מעבר , lit.   'transit'). Ma'abarot (plural) were meant to be temporary communities for

7029-492: The midst of nationalist struggles. Between 1952 and 1964, some 240,000 North African Jews came to Israel. During this period, smaller but significant numbers arrived from other places such as Europe, Iran , India , and Latin America . In particular, a small immigration wave from then communist Poland , known as the " Gomulka Aliyah", took place during this period. From 1956 to 1960, Poland permitted free Jewish emigration, and some 50,000 Polish Jews immigrated to Israel. Since

7128-594: The missing children adopted out to childless couples . Eventually, hut-shaped canvas tents were added, followed by tin or wooden shacks. Sanitary conditions were dismal. According to a journalist who visited the Migdal Gad maabara, "in the whole camp there were two faucets for everyone. About a thousand people. The toilets had no roof and were infested with flies." In one community it was reported that there were 350 people to each shower and in another 56 to each toilet. Infant mortality—the pre-state Yishuv had achieved one of

7227-423: The new arrivals. Immigrants housed in these communities were Jewish refugees mainly from Middle East and North Africa , as well as Holocaust survivors from Europe . Though such camps were set up early in 1950, the word only entered official usage in the spring of that year. According to Dr. Irit Katz, the camps were the product of the 1944 One Million Plan , which produced detailed recommendations for absorbing

7326-566: The patriarch Abraham came to the Land of Canaan with his family and followers in approximately 1800 BC. His grandson Jacob went down to Egypt with his family, and after several centuries there, the Israelites went back to Canaan under Moses and Joshua , entering it in about 1300 BC. In Zionist historiography, post the Balfour Declaration and the start of the "Third Aliyah", the "First Aliyah" and "Second Aliyah" originally referred to

7425-501: The perilous journey to the land of Israel. Pre-Zionist resettlement in Palestine met with various degrees of success. For example, little is known of the fate of the 1210 "aliyah of the three hundred rabbis" and their descendants. It is thought that few survived the bloody upheavals caused by the Crusader invasion in 1229 and their subsequent expulsion by the Muslims in 1291. After the fall of

7524-521: The period of the Second Aliyah. It is estimated that over half of those who arrived during this period ended up leaving; Ben Gurion stated that nine out of ten left. Between 1919 and 1923, 40,000 Jews, mainly from Eastern Europe arrived in the wake of World War I . The British occupation of Palestine and the establishment of the British Mandate created the conditions for the implementation of

7623-525: The plains of Babylonia , which lay relatively low; or somewhere in the Mediterranean Basin , from where they arrived by ship. It is noteworthy that various references in the earlier books of the Bible indicate that Egypt was considered as being "below" other countries, so that going to Egypt was described as "going down to Egypt" while going away from Egypt (including Hebrews going out of Egypt to Canaan)

7722-649: The privations of ma'abarot for longer periods." 78% of residents in the ma'abarot were of Middle Eastern extraction, and unemployment rates ran as high as 90-96% in the worst camps. Those ma'abarot with a less dense population and an Ashkenazi majority, such as Kfar Vitkin and Even Yehuda , had better employment opportunities. In ma'abarot camps like Emek Hefer , Pardes Hanna and Caesarea , police reports described ethnic tensions along an Ashkenazi/Mizrachi divide as explosive, but infra-communal rifts also occurred, for example between Iraqi Kurdish Jews and Iraqi Arab Jews . Beit Mazmil (today Kiryat HaYovel ), named after

7821-616: The promises contained in the Balfour Declaration . Many of the Jewish immigrants were ideologically driven pioneers, known as halutzim , trained in agriculture and capable of establishing self-sustaining economies. In spite of immigration quotas established by the British administration, the Jewish population reached 90,000 by the end of this period. The Jezreel Valley and the Hefer Plain marshes were drained and converted to agricultural use. Additional national institutions arose such as

7920-496: The same time, tensions between Arabs and Jews grew during this period, leading to a series of Arab riots against the Jews in 1929 that left many dead and resulted in the depopulation of the Jewish community in Hebron . This was followed by more violence during the " Great Uprising " of 1936–1939. In response to the ever-increasing tension between the Arabic and Jewish communities married with

8019-509: The same time, the number of Jewish immigrants from Arab countries greatly increased. Special operations were undertaken to evacuate Jewish communities perceived to be in serious danger to Israel, such as Operation Magic Carpet , which evacuated almost the entire Jewish population of Yemen , and Operation Ezra and Nehemiah , which airlifted most of the Jews of Iraq to Israel. Egyptian Jews were smuggled to Israel in Operation Goshen. Nearly

8118-578: The start of a huge wave of immigration dubbed the "Third Aliyah", in contrast to the Biblical "First Aliyah" and "Second Aliyah" " returns to Zion " described in Ezra–Nehemiah . Over the next two years, discussion in Zionist literature transformed the two prior to refer to the contemporary immigration waves at the end of the 19th century and the early 20th. These periods as per the modern convention were first published in October 1919 by Yosef Haim Brenner . In

8217-639: The task. The camps were under the guidance of two religious parties, Agudat Israel and Mizrachi . Violent confrontations broke out over issues of forced secularization, which were opposed by Yemeni Jews, and several people were shot dead or died during these clashes, variously at Ein Shemer , Beit Lid and Pardes Hanna in the first half of 1950. The early ma'abarot consisted of tents, one for each family. In those conditions, infants were separated from their mothers and placed in children's housing where nursing personnel had almost exclusive control and parental access

8316-431: The tin dwellings were replaced with permanent housing. In the early 1950s, the immigration wave subsided, and emigration increased; ultimately, some 10% of the immigrants would leave Israel for other countries in the following years. In 1953, immigration to Israel averaged 1,200 a month, while emigration averaged 700 a month. The end of the period of mass immigration gave Israel a critical opportunity to more rapidly absorb

8415-582: The two Biblical " returns to Zion " described in Ezra–Nehemiah – the "First Aliya" led by Zerubbabel , and the "Second Aliya" led by Ezra and Nehemiah approximately 80 years later. A few decades after the fall of the Kingdom of Judah and the Babylonian exile of the Jewish people, approximately 50,000 Jews returned to Zion following the Cyrus Declaration from 538 BC. The Jewish priestly scribe Ezra led

8514-592: The two hubs of rabbinic learning were Babylonia and the land of Israel . Throughout the Amoraic period, many Babylonian Jews immigrated to the land of Israel and left their mark on life there, as rabbis and leaders. In the 10th century, leaders of the Karaite Jewish community, mostly living under Persian rule, urged their followers to settle in Eretz Yisrael. The Karaites established their own quarter in Jerusalem , on

8613-465: The urgency of the situation, and the incapacity of foreign hospitals to cope with the large numbers of aged and ill, plans to treat such populations before making aliyah or subject them for medical selection, as suggested by the Jewish Agency, were dropped in favour of transporting all potential olim irrespective of their health, to Israel, creating a critical burden for the nascent state's health system. Newly arrived people were generally quarantined in

8712-607: The various commitments the British faced at the dawn of World War II, the British issued the White Paper of 1939 , which severely restricted Jewish immigration to 75,000 people for five years. This served to create a relatively peaceful eight years in Palestine while the Holocaust unfolded in Europe. Shortly after their rise to power, the Nazis negotiated the Ha'avara or "Transfer" Agreement with

8811-616: The war ended. Romanian Jews were, under their own will, "sold" or "exchanged" to Israel in the 1950s with the help of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee for about 8,000 lei (about 420 dollars ). The price of these Jews usually varied according to their "worth". This practice continued at a slower pace from 1965 under Nicolae Ceaușescu , a Romanian communist leader. During the 1950s, West Germany had been also paying Romania an amount of money in exchange for some Germans of Romania , and, just like

8910-741: The western slope of the Kidron Valley . During this period, there is abundant evidence of pilgrimages to Jerusalem by Jews from various countries, mainly in the month of Tishrei , around the time of the Sukkot holiday. The number of Jews migrating to the land of Israel rose significantly between the 13th and 19th centuries, mainly due to a general decline in the status of Jews across Europe and an increase in religious persecution . The expulsion of Jews from England (1290), France (1391), Austria (1421), and Spain (the Alhambra decree of 1492) were seen by many as

9009-507: Was "going up out of Egypt". Thus, in the Book of Genesis 46 God speaks to Jacob and says “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. I will go down to Egypt with you." And in the Book of Exodus 1, the oppressive new King of Egypt suspects the Hebrews of living in Egypt of being enemies who in time of war might "Fight against us, and so get them up out of

9108-446: Was 650,000 at the state's founding, was more than doubled by an influx of about 688,000 immigrants. In 1949, the largest-ever number of Jewish immigrants in a single year - 249,954 - arrived in Israel. This period of immigration is often termed kibbutz galuyot (literally, ingathering of exiles), due to the large number of Jewish diaspora communities that made aliyah. However, kibbutz galuyot can also refer to aliyah in general. At

9207-423: Was first implemented, the Jewish Agency was responsible for providing utilities such as water, electricity and sanitation. After this responsibility was transferred to the local authorities, the Jewish Agency claimed it could no longer oversee maintenance due to financial and manpower constraints. Eliyahu Dobkin protested the poor conditions in the ma'abarot, calling them a "holy horror." David Ben-Gurion took

9306-423: Was highly restricted. On occasion, these children were transferred to hospitals without the knowledge of their families, and parents encountered great difficulties in travelling from the ma'abarot to these distant facilities. Cases exist of parents arriving at hospitals only to be informed their child had died, occurrences which fed into what became a narrative of suspicion that the state putatively engaged in having

9405-570: Was inspired by Following the establishment of Israel, about one-third of Iranian Jews , most of them poor, immigrated to Israel, and immigration from Iran continued throughout the following decades. An estimated 70,000 Iranian Jews immigrated to Israel between 1948 and 1978. Following the Islamic Revolution in 1979, most of the Iranian Jewish community left, with some 20,000 Iranian Jews immigrating to Israel. Many Iranian Jews also settled in

9504-525: Was launched to bring the Beta Israel Jews of Ethiopia . In one day, May 24, 34 aircraft landed at Addis Ababa and brought 14,325 Jews from Ethiopia to Israel . Since that time, Ethiopian Jews have continued to immigrate to Israel bringing the number of Ethiopian-Israelis today to over 100,000. After the war, Romania had second-largest Jewish population in Europe, of around 350,000 or higher. In 1949, 118,939 Romanian Jews had emigrated to Israel since

9603-527: Was organized by the Mossad Le'aliyah Bet , as well as by the Irgun . Immigration was done mainly by sea, and to a lesser extent overland through Iraq and Syria . During World War II and the years that followed until independence, Aliyah Bet became the main form of Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine. Following the war, Bricha ("escape"), an organization of former partisans and ghetto fighters

9702-516: Was passed by the Israeli parliament in 1950 gives all diaspora Jews, as well as their children and grandchildren, the right to relocate to Israel and acquire Israeli citizenship on the basis of connecting to their Jewish identity . For much of their history , most Jews have lived in the diaspora outside of the Land of Israel due to various historical conflicts that led to their persecution alongside multiple instances of expulsions and exoduses . In

9801-614: Was primarily responsible for smuggling Jews from Eastern Europe through Poland. In 1946 Poland was the only Eastern Bloc country to allow free Jewish aliyah to Mandate Palestine without visas or exit permits. By contrast, Stalin forcibly brought Soviet Jews back to USSR, as agreed by the Allies during the Yalta Conference . The refugees were sent to the Italian ports from which they traveled to Mandatory Palestine. More than 4,500 survivors left

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