Aliyah

The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and the ingathering of exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel...

From the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, 1948

Aliyah - the ingathering of the exiles - is a fundamental aspiration of Zionism and the State of Israel. The Law of Return (1950), which grants every Jew the right to come to Israel as an immigrant and become a citizen, was enacted to give concrete expression to this cause. Since the establishment of the State, more than two and a half million immigrants have arrived; their expertise and talents have contributed immeasurably to the countrys economic, scientific, academic and cultural life.

WHY DO THEY COME?

The reasons why Jews immigrate to Israel run deep within the history, faith and psyche of the Jewish people. According to the Hebrew scriptures, God gave the Land of Israel to Abraham and his descendants for all time. The believing Jew, therefore, sees the Land as part of the religious/national heritage of the Jewish people, and attaches special merit to living there. Modern Zionism, the century-old political movement for the return of the exiled Jewish people to their historic homeland, is the secular side of this same coin: inspired by a mix of 19th century nationalism and centuries of Jewish homelessness and oppression, Zionism sees Israel as the Jewish homeland a place where all Jews can achieve fullest expression of their Jewish identity as well as a refuge for the persecuted.

These two approaches converge to make living in Israel an ultimate assertion of Jewishness, and immigrating there is considered by many Jews and Israelis to be an admirable and praiseworthy move. The Hebrew word for immigration (aliyah) means ascent or a spiritual going up. In marked contrast, therefore, to almost every other nation where immigrant communities are discouraged, restricted or regarded as second-rate citizens Israel not only welcomes its immigrants but also rejoices in them. It purposefully attracts them with job retraining, housing and tax concessions. A downswing in immigration figures is cause for national concern.

WHO COMES?

By far the largest numbers of immigrants come to Israel from what Israelis term the countries of distress places where Jews are unwelcome, harassed or actively persecuted. Throughout its 50 years, however, Israel has also welcomed hundreds of thousands of emigrants from the free world people driven principally by idealism. Some 200,000 have immigrated to Israel from America during this period, and more than double that number from Western Europe (not including Holocaust survivors).

Early Years of Statehood. The greatest influx of immigrants to Israel arrived during the first three years of statehood. Between 1948 and 1951, 688,000 people came, more than doubling the young countrys Jewish population. Almost half these people came from post-Holocaust Europe from its displaced persons camps, detention centers and destroyed communities. Most of the others were from Islamic countries in Africa and the Middle East, where the establishment of Israel placed them in danger.

Israel helped as much as it could. Marseilles, for example, was turned into a take-off point for European immigrants. While they waited for ships, Israel, through the Jewish Agency, helped house and feed the immigrants, as well as teach them Hebrew. In May 1949, when the Imam of Yemen agreed to let 45,000 of the 46,000 Jews in his country leave, Israeli transport planes flew them home in the fabled Operation Magic Carpet. In 1951, in another magnificently organized airlift Operation Ezra and Nehemiah 121,000 Jews were brought to Israel from Iraq, ending 2,500 years of Jewish life there. Libyan Jewish life ended that same year, with the emigration of its 32,000 Jews to Israel.

Israel welcomed this flood of humanity with 123 transit camps, 260 new settlements and 78,000 housing units. By the mid-1950s, almost all the newcomers were in permanent housing.

1950s and 1960s. In the 1950s, the character of immigration began changing. The gates of eastern Europe were closing, and the focus moved to North Africa. Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia won their independence and turned against their Jewish communities. Some 240,000 North African Jews came to Israel between 1952 and 1964. While they dominated the immigration scene, others came too from Hungary, Romania and Poland, Egypt and Iran, India and Latin America.

By the mid-1960s, Israel had built 448 new settlements and 25 new towns. Its agriculture was thriving, industry was developing, production was up by 50 percent and the rate of building was one of the highest in the world. Immigrants were now taken directly to apartments rather than transit camps, and 28,000 of them were learning Hebrew in 74 ulpanim (Hebrew language schools) nationwide.

1967 to the 1970s. Israels victory in the Six-Day War of June 1967 rocketed immigration out of a mid-decade slump. During the three years following the war, 23,900 people came from Western Europe and 17,900 from the United States. The war also ignited Jewish consciousness among the 2,500,000 Jews in the Soviet Union. Combined with growing détente, the result was a new wave of immigration: by the end of the 1970s, 140,000 Soviet Jews had emigrated to Israel.

1980s and 1990s. Liberalization in the USSR and its collapse in 1991 opened a floodgate. Between 1989 and 1996, nearly 700,000 Jews emigrated from there to Israel, where they now constitute the countrys largest national group. During these same years, Ethiopias ancient isolated Jewish community also began making its way to Israel. A secret rescue mission that Israel began in the mid-1970s to save Ethiopias Jews from drought and civil war culminated in two mass airlifts. From November 1984 to January 1985, a secret 45-day airlift dubbed Operation Moses brought 8,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel. It was followed in May 1991 by Operation Solomon, when Israel airlifted the remaining 14,200 Jews out of Ethiopia in 36 hours, bringing todays Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel to 56,000 people.

During the early 1990s, Israel also made smaller-scale but no less daring rescues of Jewish communities from war-torn Georgia, Moldava, Tajikistan, former Yugoslavia and Chechnya, and has at last managed to bring nearly all of the remnant Jewish communities of Syria and Yemen to safety in Israel.

The 1990s and beyond. Today, as 50 years ago, immigrants continue to make their way to Israel, and Israel continues to welcome them. Those from the free world are attracted today not only by their faith or Zionism but also by lifestyle and employment opportunities in the modern hi-tech nation that Israel has become. And there are still countries of distress places such as the Transdniester region of Moldova, Tajikistan, the Ukraine, Azerbaijan and some Arab countries where Israel keeps a watchful eye on the fate of Jewish communities.

SETTLING DOWN

Dramatic last-minute rescue missions are only the beginning of the story. What follows is finding a place to live, to study and to work, learning Hebrew and adjusting to the vociferous democracy and vivid, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic society that is todays Israel. Israel has 50 years of experience in helping immigrants settle in. Errors made in integrating the Yemenites in the 1950s and the North Africans in the 1960s were learned from and hopefully corrected, at least partially, with the Ethiopians and the Russians in the 1980s and 1990s. The process is not yet perfect, but Jews who come to the Jewish State whether they have to or whether they want to are welcomed, helped, feted and eventually integrated into the colorful mosaic of modern Israel.

The raison dêtre of the State of Israel continues to be aliyah, along with education and security.

Immigrants by Continent 1948-1996   Europe   58% Africa   18% Asia   15% America & Oceania   8% Unknown   1%

Immigrants by Year of Immigration 1948-1996   1948-51   688,000 1952-59   272,000 1960-69   374,000 1970-79   346,000 1980-89   154,000 1990-96   737,000