| INTRODUCTION When one moves to another country, he immigrates. But in transferring his residence to Israel, a Jew makes aliyah. This distinction is not merely one of semantics, but is in many ways a window to understanding Israel and Israeli society. It illustrates not only why Jews from all over the Diaspora have, and continue to, come to Israel, but also explains the lengths to which the society will go in order to bring them here and to facilitate their successful absorption into the community. The Jewish presence in, and return to, Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel) dominates both Jewish history and theology. Historically, Israel has been the homeland of the Jewish people for nearly 4,000 years, and Jerusalem its center since King David established the city as his capital 3,000 years ago. Throughout this time, Jews have maintained a nearly constant presence on the Land, despite its successive conquest by foreign armies including the Babylonians, Greeks, Assyrians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Mamlukes, Ottoman Turks and British. Even after the Romans destroyed the Second Temple and conquered Jerusalem, dispersing the majority of the Jewish population to a life of exile, the Jews never forgot the land of their forefathers. They continued to pray facing Jerusalem, commemorate the destruction of the Temple with fast days, remember the loss of Jerusalem through rituals in the marriage ceremony, and recite the prayer "Next year in Jerusalem" at the conclusion of the Passover seder and at other religious observances. The link to the Holy Land is perhaps best expressed in the Biblical Psalm, "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning," (Psalms 137:5). Thus, throughout the centuries, generations of Jews have made aliyah a means of fulfilling a religious obligation. The very word "aliyah," Hebrew for "ascent" or "pilgrimage," conveys the religious significance of the act of returning to Israel, and those who make aliyah are known as "olim," or "ascenders." According to halakha (Jewish law), there are many prayers that can only be recited and mitzvot (commandments) that can only be performed while in Eretz Israel. Indeed, many religious Jews have made aliyah for this reason. Others focused on the coming of the Messiah, believing that redemption would not take place until the Jews returned to the Land. With the advent of modern Zionism, the return to Eretz Israel was translated from a religious aspiration to secular, political terms. Theodor Herzl, the father of political Zionism and founder of the World Zionist Organization (WZO), recognized that the Jews constituted a nationality who had the right to return to their historic homeland and establish their own state. Early settlers on the Land at the beginning of the modern Jewish return to Eretz Israel focused on building the Land through their own labor, and those with socialist leanings sought to create a utopian Jewish state here. The persecutions of the modern era, including pogroms in Eastern Europe and genocide at the hands of the Nazis during World War II, demonstrated that Jews could never be secure in the Diaspora, and required a state of their own. As soon as the state was founded, its leaders made clear that Israel's very raison d'etre was to provide a home for all Jews who chose to come. In accordance with the 1950 Law of Return and the 1952 Citizenship Law, every Jew from throughout the world is entitled to settle in Israel and to become a citizen immediately upon arrival, receiving the same rights and benefits as all other citizens. But Israel has taken this national commitment much further: not only allowing all Jews to come, but facilitating their arrival under the auspices of the Jewish Agency, and aiding their absorption by providing the new olim with funds, shelter, education, and other services. Israel has gone to extraordinary lengths to fulfill this national promise. Keeping its doors open to immigration despite the bloody and grueling 1948 War of Independence, and admitting all who came - despite their desperate poverty - even when Israel was facing periods of extreme economic hardship in the early 1950s, Israel has never retreated from its commitment. During these turbulent years, Israel's population doubled and then tripled, and people gave away what little they had in order to help the newcomers who had even less. This radical, unconditional commitment to the immigration and absorption of Jews from the world over is unprecedented in the history of a world in which immigration, if permitted at all, is regulated according to the nation's self-defined interests and economic absorptive capacity at the time. In Israel, by contrast, the sacred pledge to provide a national home for the Jewish people has always assumed the highest priority. To this day, Israel remains a country of immigrants, as approximately 40% of Israelis are themselves olim. Aliyah is integral to our identity, to our values, to the progress of our society, and to our enduring legacy. FIRST ALIYAH, 1880-1903 Jews have lived in Eretz Israel throughout history, despite being exiled by various conquerors, who sought to sever the tie to their homeland. In 1881, the Jewish community numbered over 25,000 -- 9,000 of whom lived in Tiberias, Safed, Hebron, Jaffa and a few other localities. The rest were concentrated in Jerusalem, where they formed the majority of that city's population. These were the members of the "Old Yishuv," a devoutly religious community which sought fulfillment in prayer and study. The catalyst for the large-scale modern Jewish return to Eretz Israel was increasing oppression of the Jews in much of Eastern Europe, including Russia, Romania and the Austro-Hungarian Empire (mainly Hungary and Galicia). These developments served to erode the hope of the Haskalah movement, popular among European Jews during the time of the Enlightenment, that secular education and cultural assimilation would win Jews acceptance in the Diaspora states in which they lived. The success of Jews in these societies brought the opposite result, as epitomized by Russian pogroms in 1881-83. This violence was sparked by government warnings of imminent Jewish "domination," a ploy to distract the public from further anti government activity in the wake of the assassination of Alexander II. Having lost faith in their ability to gain acceptance in these Eastern European states, over a million Jews fled to the United States to escape persecution. A small number of Jews, however, argued that relocating to another country did not constitute a lasting answer to the problem of Jewish statelessness. Instead, they began to advocate as a more fundamental solution the return of the Jews to their historical and religious home in the Land of Israel. From their initiative grew the Hibbat Zion ("Love of Zion") movement, which sprang up throughout Eastern Europe and Russia, despite the risk faced by its members of arrest by government authorities. Bilu, the most celebrated group within the movement, sent the first organized collection of pioneers to Eretz Israel in 1882. The settlers were beset by difficulties, such as a lack of funds with which to purchase land for settlement and a call by the Ottoman Turkish government for the immediate cessation of Jewish immigration. Baron Edmond de Rothschild enabled these first efforts at aliyah to continue by providing funds to support four of the seven settlements established by 1884. In addition, Rothschild supplied funds for the purchase of farm implements, homes, and crops, as well as money for the erection of synagogues, schools, hospitals, and facilities for the elderly. By the end of the First Aliyah period, idealism gave way to exhaustion amongst the settlers, who were forced to battle difficult conditions, and who were not yet able to achieve their dream of self-reliance, as they were still dependent on Arab labor in order to till the land. Despite these disappointments and the rigors of life in the unsettled land - draining swamps, suffering numerous deaths from malaria, and living without protection - it was their idealism that pulled these first pioneers through. At the same time, significant headway had been achieved by 1903: between 20,000 and 30,000 people, chiefly from Eastern Europe, had arrived in Eretz Israel; nearly 90,000 acres of land had been purchased, and 20 new settlements founded; urban settlement had begun, largely in Jaffa, which housed 3,000 new immigrants; and the establishment of the first Hebrew elementary schools marked the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language. SECOND ALIYAH, 1904-1914 Though different in character from the First Aliyah, this second modern wave of immigration to Eretz Israel shared the impetus of oppression. Slow growth due to stagnation in the development of the first settlements, and grief after the death in 1904 of Theodor Herzl, was displaced by renewed pioneering fervor in the wake of the 1903 Kishinev pogroms. The violence was precipitated by revolutionary activity in Russia which would ultimately lead to the failed Russian revolution of 1905. In its attempt to suppress the revolutionary fervor, the czarist government characterized the movement as the result of "Jewish machinations," and encouraged the Russian press to engage in anti-Jewish propaganda in order to divert the attention of the masses from revolution. The result was the onslaught of pogroms which lasted from 1903 to 1906 and led to the deaths of over 1,000 Jews. This tragedy awakened nationalist sentiment among young European Jews, inspiring new determination to build a Jewish homeland. Their enthusiasm also bore the markings of socialist idealism, as many of the young people had been supporters of the revolutionary cause in Russia, and when that movement failed in 1905, they sought to create their own utopian society in Eretz Israel. This synthesis of Zionism and Socialism was first advocated by Nahman Syrkin, who termed the Jews the "'proletariat of the proletariat' - persecuted, driven from land to land, destined to perish physically and spiritually," arguing that their "sole redemption lies in Zionism." This philosophy was adopted by the Po'alei Zion ("Workers of Zion") movement, whereas other groups, such as the Ha-Po'el ha-Za'ir ("The Young Worker"), focused more on the importance of physical labor as the vehicle for national organization, without stringent reliance on socialist doctrine. Both ideological strains represented within the Second Aliyah helped to instill a belief in avodah atzmit ("personal labor," or the idea that one should live by the fruits of his own labor and not exploit the labor of others), which was manifested in the establishment of the first kibbutz at Deganyah in 1909. The immigrants realized that in order to create a selfreliant Jewish society, Jews would have to engage in all of the vocations required by their economy, including agriculture, construction, and handicrafts. Significant progress toward that goal was made during this period, as individuals focused on providing needed services for newcomers, such as housing, employment, and health care. The Jewish National Fund (JNF) was established in 1901 as the land purchase and development fund of the Zionist Organization and the first bank, the Anglo-Palestine Company, was founded in 1903. Young people began to organize themselves into HeHalutz ("The Pioneer") societies, which sprang up across Eastern Europe, preparing those who pledged to go to Eretz Israel for a period of three years in order to develop the Land. Ha-Shomer ("The Watchman") was organized to provide the rudiments of Jewish self-defense, and the use of Hebrew was expanded to encompass all aspects of life. At the start of World War I, the Yishuv (Jewish community in Eretz Israel) had grown to 85,000, 40,000 of whom had immigrated during the Second Aliyah and served to attract more olim to Eretz Israel. THIRD ALIYAH, 1919-1923 Aliyah was interrupted by World War I and did not resume until its conclusion in 1919, at which time the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and postwar pogroms in Ukraine, Poland, and Hungary led many to flee Europe. Thanks to relatively liberal entrance policies during this period, immigration to the United States was an option, and those who chose instead to come to Eretz Israel did so largely out of belief in Zionist ideology. At the same time, developments in Palestine inspired hope that the Zionist dream might be realized. The fall of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent British administration over Mandatory Palestine, which followed the 1917 Balfour Declaration, in which British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour pledged British support for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, served to encourage such optimism. As a result, He-Halutz groups grew both in size and distribution, spreading throughout Europe and to the United States. He-Halutz played the important role of preparing young people for life in Israel while they were still living in the Diaspora. In its training centers, future olim studied Hebrew language and literature, learned the ideals of the Zionist movement, and engaged in farming and manual labor, as practice for the rigors of life in Eretz Israel. These centers also provided the opportunity for young people to experience the principles of the movement at work, and so served to stimulate increased interest in aliyah. This heightened interest was accommodated by the World Zionist Organization, which worked during this period to put into place the financial and bureaucratic machinery needed in both Eretz Israel and the Diaspora in order to facilitate aliyah. This included establishing Palestine Offices in both the main ports of embarkation and the chief countries of emigration, and inaugurating a new agency entitled Keren Hayesod ("the Foundation Fund"), which solicited contributions from Jewry worldwide, encouraging the masses to donate a certain amount each year toward the building of the Jewish National Home. Despite the increased demand for immigration to Mandatory Palestine and growth of nascent institutions needed to accommodate it, problems in the form of restrictions on immigration to Mandatory Palestine were on the horizon. These limits were imposed by the British in response to Arab pressure for the cessation of Jewish immigration, and were justified in a number of ways. Among them was the British interpretation of the language used in the 1920 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, of which the British assumed administration. Under the Mandate, the British were instructed to "facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and ... encourage ... close settlement by Jews on the Land, while assuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced." The latter clause, in combination with the phrase "under suitable conditions," was used by the British to justify severe immigration restrictions. Then, the 1921 decision by Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill to install the Emir Abdullah as the ruler of Transjordan, effectively removed over 70% of the original area assigned to the Palestine mandate from possible settlement by Jews. Further sanction to Britain's position was provided by the 1922 Churchill White Paper, which, while reaffirming the Balfour Declaration by insisting that Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine must continue, provided for the imposition of numerical restrictions by stating that the inflow "cannot be so great in volume as to exceed whatever may be the economic capacity of the country at the time to absorb new arrivals." This stipulation was interpreted extremely conservatively by the British Civil Administration in Mandatory Palestine, which would habitually slash estimates of "economic absorptive capacity" presented by the Zionist Organization to such a degree as to bring about labor shortages, which in turn inhibited Mandatory Palestine's economic development and encouraged Arab immigration. In spite of these hindrances, the Third Aliyah helped to transform the character of the Yishuv, due largely to the influence of the halutzim ("pioneers"), whose large- scale immigration served to characterize the period. The 35,000 new olim who came as part of the Third Aliyah worked with those who had immigrated during the Second Aliyah to establish the Histadrut, the nationwide labor organization which represented members of all trades; took the initiative in the founding of Haganah, a further advance in the coordination of Jewish self-defense; increased the number of Jewish settlements by constructing many kibbutzim and moshavim (villages which combined aspects of both cooperative and private farming); and contributed many workers needed for the building of housing and roads and the creation of an industrial base, while bolstering the incipient agricultural base. These olim were successful, not only in integrating themselves into the pre-existing Yishuv, but also in establishing institutions which would help others to follow their lead. FOURTH ALIYAH, 1924-1931 (some sources mark 1928 as its conclusion) Largely composed of Polish olim who fled their homes due to a combination of economic crisis and anti-Semitism, which resulted in economic, social, and political backlash against the Jews, it was during this wave that immigration to Mandatory Palestine grew to a significant percentage of Jewish migration worldwide. Of the global total of 393,000 Jewish migrants at this time, twenty-one percent immigrated to Mandatory Palestine, up from less than ten percent during the period of the Third Aliyah. This was largely due to the implementation of new legislation in the United States, formerly the chief destination of Jews leaving Eastern Europe, which virtually banned additional immigration. Thus, while the number of halutzim arriving in Eretz Israel during this period declined due to strictures imposed by the Soviet Union on the work of the He-Halutz, the decrease in their numbers was compensated by the increase in aliyah by the Polish Jews, many of whom were middle-class. Most of these new olim brought with them a small amount of capital, which they typically invested in housing and small businesses. The Fourth Aliyah is also distinguished by the fact that significant numbers of non- European Jews immigrated to Eretz Israel at this time. In addition to the 2,000 new olim from the Americas, most of whom came from the United States, 9,200 immigrants relocated from Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq, Yemen, Persia and Turkey. While immigrants from the non-Western countries of Asia and Africa had accounted for only about five percent of total immigration to Mandatory Palestine during the Third Aliyah, the proportion increased to twelve percent during this wave. The period from 1924-1931 also served to illustrate the effect of economic conditions within Mandatory Palestine on the number of people choosing to make aliyah. Economic depression in Mandatory Palestine during the years 1926-1927 not only caused a slowdown in immigration to Eretz Israel, but it also motivated a number of Jews to leave and emigrate to other countries. These Jews became known as yordim ("descenders," as opposed to olim), 23,000 of whom left Mandatory Palestine, detracting from the 82,000 who came during this period. This resulted in a total Jewish population of 175,000 in Eretz Israel at the close of 1931. Even with these difficulties, the Fourth Aliyah left its mark on the developing Yishuv, particularly in the areas of urbanization and the development of industry. FIFTH ALIYAH, 1932-1938 (some sources date 1929 as its start) For the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party to power in Germany marked the initiation of a period which would first bring economic, social and political exclusion, and would later culminate in systematic extermination. In order to escape continuously deteriorating conditions in Europe, many Jews fled to Mandatory Palestine, and during this period the Jewish return to Eretz Israel began to assume the characteristics of a mass migration. The immigration of Jews from the Middle East also contributed to this development, as worsening economic conditions in these countries, especially in Yemen, led to increased discrimination against the Jews there. Thus, of the over 217,000 new olim during the Fifth Aliyah, most came from Poland (91,000) and from Germany and Austria (40,000), with significant numbers from the Soviet Union (16,000), from Romania (11,000), and from Yemen (7,000). The population of the Yishuv became more diversified, changing from a community of mostly Russian, Polish, and some Middle Eastern Jews, into one that for the first time included a substantial number of immigrants from Germany, Austria, Romania, Greece, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the Americas (from which the number of olim nearly doubled). As the situation of Jews in Europe continued to worsen, prompting many to seek safety elsewhere, these refugees from Hitler found that restrictions on immigration blocked most potential avenues of escape, including that to the United States. In a speech before the Peel Commission in 1936, Chaim Weizmann, President of the WZO and later the first President of the State of Israel, explained that for millions of Eastern European Jews, the world could be classified as "places where they cannot live" and "places which they cannot enter." For these Jews, immigration to Mandatory Palestine provided their only hope, but even here the path was largely blocked by restrictions imposed by the British. These attempts to curb aliyah were regarded as a violation of fundamental Jewish rights, and many groups and individuals, including some British government employees, began to seek ways in which to help the refugees to evade the restrictions. Some arrived in Mandatory Palestine as tourists but remained indefinitely. Poor immigrants were given fictitious deposits of 1,000 pounds to enable them to purchase "capitalist" visas. False marriages were arranged to enable two people to enter on a single permit. Others succeeded in making clandestine entrances across the Lebanese or Syrian borders, or arrived in Eretz Israel through Transjordan. A few ships were able to make their way to Mandatory Palestine without the permission of the authorities. Despite British attempts to stop what they termed "illegal" immigration, approximately 50,000 olim reached Mandatory Palestine through the use of such measures in the years between 1920 and 1937. The British routinely deducted their numbers from the total amount allowed. |
| ||
| Aliyah (to continue) | |
|
The Case Agianst Israel's Enemies by Alan Dershowitz 
Coming from England and particularly from the BBC, MUST BE SEEN VIDEO! ANOTHER MUST SEE VIDEO |