IMMIGRATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS: TREATING CHILDREN IN THE PSYCHO-HYGIENE CLINIC IN MANDATE TEL AVIV

Abstract

During the 1930s and 1940s hundreds of children were diagnosed in Tel Aviv's Psycho-Hygiene Clinic for Children as suffering mainly from organic retardation or neurosis. Those diagnosed as retarded or “educationally impaired” were sent either to special education institutions or to vocational schools and, in severe cases, to closed institutions. The children diagnosed as neurotic were usually treated individually at the clinic or in private clinics by mental health specialists and remained with their families. In most cases those diagnosed as retarded were children of Mizrahi origin whilst the children diagnosed as suffering from neurosis were of Ashkenazi origin. This paper argues that the diagnosis of so many children as problematic, as well as the relationship between their diagnosis and their ethnic origin, embodies two basic trends in yishuv society, especially prominent during the British Mandate: the labelling of the Mizrahim in general, and Mizrahi children in particular, as culturally and mentally inferior; and a high degree of intervention on the part of mental health specialists. The involvement of psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and specialists in fields such as mental hygiene and Psycho-Hygiene created a pathologization of social and economic problems, and by doing so obscured the harsh realities of immigration.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the reviewers for their useful remarks.

Notes

“Psycho-hygiene institutions and special education,” Yediot Iriyat Tel Aviv, The Tel Aviv Municipality yearbook, 1944.

I have used “Mizrahim” in this article as it was the common terminology during the period for describing people who came from Islamic countries, as well as countries with a high percentage of Moslems, such as Bukhara. For a discussion of the issue of Mizrahi identity in the yishuv period, see, for example: Shenhav, The Arab Jews.

These were the common concepts at the time.

Hirsch, “We are Here”; Shehory-Rubin, “Mental Hygiene.”

“Municipal education in the year of the report: Special education,” Yediot Iriyat Tel Aviv, the 1937–1938 yearbook. The clinic's name was changed in the year in which Yehoshua Fishel Shneorson was appointed Head, and it is reasonable to assume that he proposed the change, due to his specialization in the field of “psycho-hygiene” before immigrating to Palestine.

Ben-Shimon, “The Development of Special Education,” 137–8.

See, for example, “Education in Municipal Schools,” Yediot Iriyat Tel Aviv, no. 7-9, year 11, April–June 1941.

Shavit and Biger, A History, 92–4.

Razi, “The Family.”

A common terminology used at the time for integrating children into various frameworks.

“Social welfare, the department for childcare,” Yediot Iriyat Tel Aviv, 1937–8 yearbook; “a copy of the expert report of Prof. Moses, a physician of nervous and educationally-impaired children,” sent from the department for childcare to the administration of the Ben-Shemen children's village, 24.8.37, Tel Aviv Municipal Archives (hereafter TAMA), 4-A1771.

Fireberg, “Tel Aviv,” 167–217; Troen, 92–5.

Niederland, “The Emigration”; Zalashik, “Psychiatry.”

See, for example, the letter of Hedwig Gelner, head of the Department of Children's Services, to Henrietta Szold, head of the Social Welfare Department of the Jewish National Council, 19.10.34, TAMA 4-B2116.

Mordechai Brahiyahu, head of the Hygiene Department in schools, to the Tel Aviv Municipality Department of Education and Culture, 22.5.34, TAMA, 1768-4.

“Psycho-hygiene institutions and special education,” Yediot Iriyat Tel Aviv, no. 7-9, 1939–40.

See, for example, “Ten-year report on social work in Tel Aviv,” Hedwig Gelner, 12.9.43, TAMA 1427-4, p. 7; letter and report by Prof. Shneorson, supervisor of special education in Tel Aviv, to the head of the Department of Education, 27.9.43, TAMA, 4-A1799.

“On the question of the mental health of the new generation,” Yehoshua Fischel Shneorson, August, 1940, TAMA 4-C1798.

“Psycho-hygiene institutions and special education,” Yediot Iriyat Tel Aviv, 1939 yearbook.

“Childcare, school meals, summer camps and clubs, caring for neglected children and street children,” Yediot Iriyat Tel Aviv, no. 7-9, June–August 1935.

“Counselling Clinic for Educationally-Impaired Children”; “Education in municipal schools,” Yediot Iriyat Tel Aviv, no. 7-9, Year 10, April–June 1940.

Letter from Eliyahu Rosenbaum, head of the Department of Education, to Shimon Barkol, Head of the Social Welfare Department, 12.4.43, TAMA, 4-A1799.

Shehory-Rubin, “Mental Hygiene.”

As Shehory-Rubin states in her article, “Mental Hygiene,” these were common categories for cataloguing children suffering from organic retardation, according to their IQ.

Hedwig Gelner, head of the Department of Children's Service, to the Mishan social welfare committee, 19.10.38, TAMA 4-B1784; Henrietta Szold, The Social Welfare Department of the Jewish National Council, to the Hadassah administration in New York, 3.5.40, Central Zionist Archives, A125/134 (CZA).

A report by Shneorson, supervisor of special education in Tel Aviv, to Eliyahu Rosenbaum, head of the Department of Education, TAMA, 4-A1799.

“On the Tel Aviv Psycho-Hygiene Counseling Clinic,” Prof. F. Shneorson, Yediot Iriyat Tel Aviv, no. 7-8, Year 8, 1938–39.

“Psycho-hygiene institutions and special education,” Municipal report for 1938–39, Yediot Iriyat Tel Aviv.

Ibid.

“Psycho-hygiene institutions and special education, Yediot Iriyat Tel Aviv, 1939 yearbook.

Ibid.

Although the clinic operated in the 1940s as well, most of the data published relate to the late 1930s. The reason may stem from Shneorson's zeal to validate his innovations and his contribution as the clinic's new director in the early years of his activity.

Shoshana Persitz, head of the Department for Children's Services and the Department of Education and Culture, to the Department of Social Welfare of the community committee in Jaffa, 8.5.35, TAMA 1423-4; Henrietta Szold, head of the Department of Social Welfare of the Jewish National Council, to the executive committee of the education system, 27.7.33, TAMA 4-A2116.

See, for example, “Reports on juvenile delinquents in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv,” by Henrietta Szold, head of the Department of Social Welfare of the Jewish National Council, to K. Reynolds, government supervisor for delinquent children, 23.1.35, TAMA, 4-C2116.

“On the Tel Aviv Psycho-Hygiene Counseling Clinic,” Yediot Iriyat Tel Aviv, no. 7-8, 1937–8. This explanation ignores the simple fact that the majority of the children were sent to the clinic by teachers, social workers and the like, and not by their parents.

“Psycho-hygiene institutions and special education,” municipal report for 1938–39, Yediot Iriyat Tel Aviv.

Reifen, “Street Children.”

Lissak, “Immigration, Absorption,” 191–2. However, the division between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi inhabitants was not the same in the various localities. Thus, for example, the Mizrahi residents of Jerusalem constituted approximately half of all the Jewish population in the city. See: Gelber, “The Consolidation,” 345.

Fireberg, “Tel Aviv,” 171–80.

Gelber, “The Consolidation,” 343–7

This is a high percentage in comparison with the overall percentage of the urban population and particularly among the new immigrants, see, for example, “The Care for Children in Tel Aviv,”: “Caring for children after they leave school,” Yediot Iriyat Tel Aviv, Issue 4, January 1934.

Thus, for example the new immigrants from Central Europe had a special social welfare department in Tel Aviv that opened in September 1933: the committee for the social welfare for the immigrants from Germany. See “A report on the referral of immigrants to the childcare department,” 3.1.35, TAMA, 4-B1770. On the other hand, the immigrants from the Moslem countries had fewer organized frameworks to which they could go for help. See Lissak, “Immigration, Absorption,” 298.

Report of the Health Center Club, written by Atshi Stern, a teacher, 20.11.33, TAMA, 1768-4.

See for example the collection of essays in Hever, Shenhav, and Motzafi-Haller, Mizrahim in Israel.

See Shenhav's discussion of this aspect in The Arab Jews.

Gelber, “The Consolidation,” 344–5; Yonah and Saporta, “The Pre-vocational Education.”

Svirsky, “IQ Exams,” 154–62.

“Special education in Tel Aviv,” by Prof. Dr. Fishel Shneorson, Yediot Iriyat Tel Aviv, Issue 9, 1937–38.

School for working youth, the General Federation of Labour in Israel, to the Department of Children and Youth, the Department for Neglected Youth, the Jewish National Council, 5.12.47, CZA, JU/12948.

The Department of Children's Services to Henrietta Szold, head of the Department of Social Welfare, the Jewish National Council, 2.7.34, TAMA, 4-A2116.

“The regulation of abandoned youth,” minutes from a press conference held by Shoshana Persitz devoted to the question of abandoned children, February, 1935, TAMA, 4-C2116. See also Gelber, “The Consolidation,” 344–5.

Gelber, “The Consolidation,” 345.

A report and letter from Dr Hupert to Henrietta Szold, the Social Welfare Department of the Jewish National Council, 9.5.35, TAMA, 4-B1770. See also Fireberg, “Tel Aviv,” 353–7.

The classrooms in Tel Aviv were so overcrowded (over 50 children in a class) that in the late 1930s classes were held in two shifts, until noon and after noon, see Fireberg, “Tel Aviv,” 348–65.

Prof. Shneorson, head of the Psycho-Hygiene Clinic for Children, to Mr David-Zvi Pinkas, head of the Department of Education, 20.9.39, TAMA, 4-B1798.

“The therapeutic plan for deserted children of the Jewish National Council's Social Welfare Department, 11.3.35, TAMA, 1423-4.

Prof. Shneorson, head of the Psycho-Hygiene Clinic for Children, to Mr. David-Zvi Pinkas, head of the Department of Education, 20.9.39, TAMA, 4-B1798. See also: Shehory-Rubin, “Mental Hygiene,” 41.

Riger, The Vocational Education, 48.

Yonah and Saporta, “The Pre-vocational Education”; Riger, The Vocational Education, 47–8.

“On the Tel Aviv Psycho-Hygiene Counseling Clinic,” by Prof. F. Shneorson, Yediot Iriyat Tel Aviv, Issue 7-8.

Lissak, “Immigration, Absorption,” 239.

Baki, Immigration, the Settlement, 14; Fireberg, “Tel Aviv,” 172.

Bernstein, Women on the Margins, 97–128.

Zalashik, “Psychiatry.” On the widespread assumption as of the end of the nineteenth century that nervous disorders, such as hysteria and neurasthenia, are mainly characteristic of Jews, see, for example, Gilman, “Jews and Mental Illness.”

Ben-Shimon, “Development of Special Education,” 26–7.

Rolnick, Freud in Zion, 183–6.

Ibid, 189–294; Stoller-Liss, “Creating a Zionist Baby.”

Alroey, Immigrants, 20–5.

Two studies that have been published in recent years deal with the various aspects of immigration and an immigration society in the context of the Jewish yishuv are an exception that prove the rule. The first is Gur Alroey's study of the “immigrants” during the second Aliyah (see Alroey, Immigrants), and the second is Deborah S. Bernstein's book on women in the periphery of Tel Aviv during the British Mandate. See Bernstein, Women on the Margins.

See Sander Gilman's discussion of these ideas in the context of Jewish self-hatred: Gilman, “Jews and Mental Illness.”

“The Counseling Clinic for Educationally-Impaired Children,” by Clara Perlberger, clinic director, 16.12.34, TAMA, 1768-4.

See e.g. Darr, Called Away.