Building the country or rescuing the people: Ben-Gurion's attitude towards mass Jewish immigration to Israel in the mid-1950s

ABSTRACT

In mainstream scholarship, David Ben-Gurion is described as one of the main supporters and primary advocates of the policy of encouraging mass Jewish immigration to Israel (aliya) in the 1950s. The Zionist movement had two different motives for supporting aliya: Diaspora Jews’ need for a safe haven (which would require mass aliya), and the need to build a solid and stable Jewish society in mandatory Palestine/Israel (which would require selective aliya).

When Ben-Gurion, in the 1940s, came to favour mass aliya, he did so because of the immigrants’ potential contribution to the attainment of statehood and then the independent state.

In the first years after independence, when entire communities immigrated to Israel, they included old and infirm people who did not fit the image of the pioneers of pre-state aliya. Nevertheless, for Ben-Gurion, their demographic contribution outweighed the burden of their absorption. By 1952, he had changed his mind and became one of the strongest supporters of selective immigration. He continued to support selectivity even when, in 1955, the safety of Moroccan Jews and their freedom to emigrate was in jeopardy. Ben-Gurion's attitude to aliya from Morocco, in the shadow of the Czech-Egyptian arms deal, reflected his priority – a strong and secure Israel.

KEYWORDS:

• Israel
• Zionism
• immigration policy
• ethnicity
• Ben-Gurion
• Moroccan Jews

Acknowledgments

I would like to dedicate this article to the memory of my teacher, my doctoral supervisor and mentor for many years, Professor Zeev Tzahor, who passed away this year, and who served many years ago as the secretary of Ben-Gurion, the subject of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Aliya (literally ‘ascent’) is the Hebrew term for immigration by Jews to Palestine/Israel. The term has both a religious and a political meaning. From the religious point of view, going to the land of Israel is an ascent in holiness and fulfilment of a divine decree. From the political point of view, Zionism sees the immigration of Jews to Israel as positive, and their emigration as negative. ‘Aliya’ is a value-related term, whereas ‘immigration’ is neutral. Some argue that there is a difference between immigrants, who are moving from one country to another in attempt to improve their living conditions, and olim (those who make aliya), whose relocation to the Land of Israel is motivated by ideology or religious belief. For more on the difference, see Gur Alroey, An Unpromising Land: Jewish Migration to Palestine in the Early Twentieth Century (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), pp.1–19. Because the present article does not deal with immigrants/olim but rather with policy, it is irrelevant which term best describes the newcomers. For the policy-makers, it was all aliya. Hence, I employ that term throughout the article.

2. D. Hacohen, Immigrants in Turmoil: Mass Immigration to Israel and Its Repercussions in the 1950s and After, trans. Gila Brand (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2003), p.234.

3. Z. Zameret, ‘Ben-Gurion and Lavon: Two Standpoints on Absorption During the Great Wave of Immigration’, in D. Ofer (ed.), Israel in the Great Wave of Immigration (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1996), pp.77–78, on p.75 [Hebrew].

4. See http://www.bgh.org.il/Web/En/Default.aspx.

5. Minutes of the Jewish Agency Executive (hereafter JAE), 9/7/53, Central Zionist Archive [hereafter CZA] S100/85. Like Goldmann, many other officials objected to mass immigration, including Finance Minister Eliezer Kaplan, Moshe Shapira, who held the aliya and health portfolios (Hacohen, Immigrants in Turmoil, p.47), and Pinchas Lavon (Zameret, ‘Ben-Gurion and Lavon’).

6. See, for example, M. Naor, The Aliyah Book – A Hundred Years and More of Immigration and Absorption (Tel Aviv: Masada Press, 1991), p.128. Hebrew.

7. For example, Hacohen, Immigrants in Turmoil; A. Halamish, ‘Zionist Immigration Policy Put to the Test’, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies Vol.7/2 (2008), pp.119–34; Yitzhak Raphael, Not Easily Came the Light (Jerusalem: Idanim, 1981), p.158. Hebrew; Moshe Lissak, Mass Immigration in the Fifties: The Failure of the Melting Pot Policies (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1999).

8. A. Halamish, ‘Zionist Immigration Policy Put to the Test’, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies Vol.7/2 (2008), p.119.

9. For more about this dilemma, see A. Halamish, ‘Zionist Immigration Policy in the 1930s: From “Redemption” to “Survival”’, Zemanim, Vol.58 (1997), pp.86–98. Hebrew; eadem, A Dual Race Against Time: Zionist Immigration Policy in the 1930s (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 2006), pp.9–23. Hebrew; M. Shilo, ‘The Immigration Policy of the Zionist Institutions 1882–1914’, Middle Eastern Studies Vol.30/3 (July 1994), pp.597–617.

10. A. Halamish, ‘“Selective Immigration” in Zionist Ideology, Praxis and Historiography’, in A. Shapira, J. Reinharz, and J. Harris (eds.), The Age of Zionism (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Centre, 2000), pp.185–202. Hebrew.

11. Shilo, ‘The Immigration Policy’, pp.598–601.

12. ‘The Administration of Palestine … shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions…’ (League of Nations, Mandate for Palestine, Article 6, 12/8/1922, at https://web.archive.org/web/20131125014738/http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/2FCA2C68106F11AB05256BCF007BF3CB.

13. Halamish, ‘“Selective Immigration”’, pp.187–9; Y. Gelber, ‘Difficulties and Changes in the Zionist Attitude to Aliyah’, in D. Hacohen (ed.), Ingathering of Exiles: Aliyah to the Land of Israel: Myth and Reality (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Centre, 1998), p.250. Hebrew.

14. I. Kolat, ‘The Zionist Movement and the Arabs’, in Zionism and the Arab Question – Collected Historical Studies (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Centre, 1979), p.17. Hebrew.

15. For more on aliya as a component of Israel's strength, see: Hacohen, Immigrants in Turmoil, p.42; D. Ofer, ‘Emigration and Aliyah – A Reassessment of Israeli and Jewish Policy’, in R. S. Wistrich (ed.), Terms of Survival: The Jewish World Since 1945 (London: Routledge, 1995), pp.56–82; E. Meir-Glitzenstein, ‘From Eastern Europe to the Middle East: The Reversal in Zionist Policy vis-à-vis the Jews of Islamic Countries’, The Journal of Israeli History Vol.20/1 (Spring 2001), pp.34–5.

16. Halamish, ‘“Selective Immigration”’, pp.185–202; eadem, ‘Zionist Immigration Policy’, pp.121–4; Gelber, ‘Difficulties and Changes’, pp.250–2.

17. Gelber, ‘Difficulties and Changes’, p.250.

18. Halamish, ‘“Selective Immigration”’, p.186.

19. Halamish, ‘Zionist Immigration Policy’, p.122; Meir-Glitzenstein, ‘From Eastern Europe to the Middle East’, pp.28–30.

20. D. Hacohen, The One Million Plan (Tel Aviv: MOD, 1994), pp.85–233. Hebrew; Halamish, ‘Zionist Immigration Policy’, pp.124–5; eadem, ‘“Selective Immigration”’, p.196; Gelber, ‘Difficulties and Changes’, pp.279–82.

21. Halamish, ‘“Selective immigration”’, pp.196–7; D. Ofer, ‘Aliya, Gola and the Yishuv: Ben-Gurion's Policy During the Holocaust’, Cathedra Vol.43 (1987), pp.71–2. Hebrew.

22. Hacohen, The One Million Plan, pp.16–39.

23. Meir-Glitzenstein, ‘From Eastern Europe to the Middle East’, pp.31–7; Hacohen, The One Million Plan, pp.209–18; Gelber, ‘Difficulties and Changes’, pp.274–7.

24. Dobkin, at a meeting of the Mapai central committee, 12 July 1943, Labor party archives, 2-023-1943-41, p.54. See also Meir-Glitzenstein, ‘From Eastern Europe to the Middle East’, p.33.

25. D. Ofer, ‘Immigration and Aliyah: New Aspects of Jewish Policy’, Cathedra Vol.75 (1995), p.158. Hebrew.

26. Divrei ha-Keneset (Minutes of the Knesset), 21/11/49, pp.128–9.

27. Ben-Gurion at a meeting of the Mapai central committee (along with the party's Knesset members), 22 July 1949, Labour party archives, 2-011-1949-1, p.11.

28. See Halamish, ‘Zionist Immigration Policy’, p.126.

29. Hacohen, Immigrants in Turmoil, pp.95–161; Halamish, ‘Zionist Immigration Policy’, pp.126–8.

30. D. Zimhoni, ‘The Government of Iraq and the Mass Aliya of Jews to Israel’, Pe'amim Vol.39 (1989), pp.80 and 89. Hebrew.

31. Coordinating Committee, 27/8/50, Ben-Gurion Archives, Sede Boqer.

32. E. Meir, Zionism and the Jews of Iraq, 1941–1950 (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1993), p.240. Hebrew.

33. Ibid., p.310, n.120.

34. H. Barkai, The Early Days of the Israeli Economy (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1990), p.48. Hebrew.

35. Halamish, ‘Zionist Immigration Policy’, p.130. On the reasons for and background of the selective immigration policy in the 1950s, see A. Picard, ‘The Beginning of Selective Immigration in the 1950s’, Iyunim Bitekumat Yisrael Vol.9, (1999), pp.350–3. Hebrew.

36. A. Picard, ‘Emigration, Health and Social Control’, Journal of Israeli History Vol.22/2 (Autumn 2003), pp.34–45.

37. Hacohen, Immigrants in Turmoil, pp.234–6.

38. Picard, ‘The Beginning of Selective Immigration’, pp.379–80.

39. Halamish, ‘Zionist Immigration Policy’, p.128.

40. JAE, 5/11/51, CZA S100/76.

41. Hacohen, Immigrants in Turmoil, p.267. The selective immigration policy was not the only reason for the sharp drop in the number of olim in 1952–1953. The Communist countries of Eastern Europe barred Jewish emigration, and the economic crisis in Israel reduced the motivation for aliya in many Jewish communities. Middle-class Jews from Iran, Morocco, and Tunisia decided they would be better off staying in their country of origin. The main candidates for aliya came from the lower classes and were frequently rejected by Israel with its selective immigration policy. See A. Picard, Cut to Measure: Israel's Policy Regarding Aliya of North African Jews 1951–1956 (Sede Boqer: Ben-Gurion Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism, 2013), p.168. Hebrew.

42. Coordinating Committee, 27/11/51, Israel State Archives [hereafter ISA] RG43/G/3029/4.

43. See Y. Tsur, A Torn Community – The Jews of Morocco and Nationalism 1943–1954 (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2001), pp.330–2. Hebrew; Picard, Cut to Measure, pp.127–9.

44. Coordinating Committee, 14/7/52, ISA RG43/G/3029/4.

45. Picard, Cut to Measure, p.170.

46. Tsur, A Torn Community, pp.393–6; M. M. Laskier, Israel and Jewish Immigration from North Africa 1948–1970 (Sede Boqer: Ben-Gurion Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism, 2006), p.224. Hebrew.

47. Picard, Cut to Measure, pp.240–1; Giora Josephtal, head of the Jewish Agency Absorption Department, JAE, 13/7/54, CZA S100/94.

48. A. Picard, ‘The Reluctant Soldiers of Israel's Settlement Project: The Ship to Village Plan in the Mid 1950s’, Middle Eastern Studies Vol.49/1 (January 2013), pp.33–4.

49. A. Picard, ‘Funding Aliyah: American Jewry and North African Jews, 1952–1956’, Studies in Contemporary Jewry Vol.27 (2014), p.234.

50. Laskier, Israel and Jewish Immigration, p.224; Picard, Cut to Measure, pp.270–82; Picard, ‘Funding Aliyah’, p.235.

51. Moshe Sharett, Diary (Tel Aviv: Maariv Press, 1978), Vol.3, p.820 (7/3/55). Hebrew.

52. JAE, 18/1/55, CZA S100/97. It is important to note that Shragai changed his mind by the summer of 1955. The riots in Morocco convinced him that the push forces were now very strong and that the Jews from Morocco would come even if they needed to live in tents (JAE, 21/11/55, CZA S100/101).

53. Cited in Sharett, Diary, 28 February 1955.

54. Ibid.

55. For example, S. Tevet, ‘The Debate about the Aliya from Morocco and North Africa’, Ha'aretz, 26 August 1955. Hebrew.

56. M. Golani, ‘The Historical Place of the Czech-Egyptian Arms Deal, Fall 1955’, Middle Eastern Studies Vol.31/4 (1995), pp.803–6.

57. R. Pennell, Morocco Since 1830 – A History (London: C. Hurst, 2000), pp.288–92.

58. Picard, Cut to Measure, pp.294–302.

59. Editorial in the journal of the PDI (Parti démocratique de l'indépendance du Maroc), 11 February 1956. The Hebrew translation of the article is in CZA, file S6/7260.

60. Joint meeting of Jewish Agency Executive and the Government, 4/12/55, ISA RG43/G/3029/14.

61. Golda Myerson at a joint meeting of the Jewish Agency Executive and the Government, 4 December 1955, ibid.

62. Ibid.

63. Halamish, ‘Zionist Immigration Policy’, p.130.

64. Davar, 27 January 1956; repr. in N. Alterman, The Seventh Column (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hame'uhad, 1972), Vol.2, pp.59–60. Hebrew.

65. Laskier, Israel and Jewish Immigration, pp.277–88.

66. Picard, Cut to Measure, p.344.

67. Government meeting, 17 June 1956, Seventh Government, Vol.13, p.18, ISA.

68. Joint meeting of Jewish Agency Executive and the Government, 4 December 1955, ISA RG43/G/3029/14.

69. Much has been written on the ethnic question and priorities during the period of mass aliya. See, for example, Y. Tsur, ‘Carnival Fears: Moroccan Immigrants and the Ethnic Problem in the Young State of Israel’, Journal of Israeli History Vol.18.1 (1997), pp.73–103; M. Lissak, ‘The Demographic-Social Revolution in Israel in the 1950s: The Absorption of the Great Aliyah’, Journal of Israeli History Vol.22.2 (2003), pp.1–31. For a more general point of view, see A. Khazoom, ‘The Great Chain of Orientalism: Jewish Identity, Stigma Management, and Ethnic Exclusion in Israel’, American Sociological Review Vol.68 (2003), pp.481–510. For a review of additional scholarship on the ethnic issue and its categorization into a different approach, see Picard, Cut to Measure, pp.2–3.

70. D. Ben-Gurion, ‘Netzah Israel’ [The Eternal One of Israel], Israel Government Year Book, 5714 (Jerusalem: Government Printer, 1953), p.14. Hebrew.

71. E. Węgrzyn, ‘Reasons for Emigration of the Jewish Population from Poland to Israel in 1956–1959’, in F. S. Ouzan and M. Gerstenfeld (eds.), Postwar Jewish Displacement and Rebirth (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp.173–84.

72. Coordinating Committee, 18/2/58, ISA RG43/G/3029/14.

73. Restrictions on immigration do not stem only from economic concerns and have also been motivated by the ethnicity, religion, and race of the prospective immigrants. On the restrictions on immigration to the United States, see, for example, Reed Ueda, ‘An Immigration Country of Assimilative Pluralism’, in K. Bade and M. Weiner (eds.), Migration Past, Migration Future (Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997), pp.40–8. On Canada, see A.G. Green and D.A. Green, ‘The Economic Goals of Canada's Immigration Policy’, Canadian Public Policy Vol.25, No.4, (1999), pp.427–30. On Australia, see G. Tavan, ‘The Long, Slow Death of White Australia’, The Sydney Papers Vol.17, No.3 (2005), pp.128–39.

74. E. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), p.103.

75. A. Yakobson and A. Rubinstein, Israel and the Family of Nations (New York: Routledge, 2009), pp.126–31. For Germany, see H.-J. Hofmann, ‘Ethnic Germans (Aussiedler) from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in Germany’, Migration World Magazine Vol.22/1 (1994), pp.12–24. On Greece, see A. Triandafyllidou and M. Veikou, ‘The Hierarchy of Greekness: Ethnic and National Identity Considerations in Greek Immigration Policy’, Ethnicities Vol.2/2 (2002), pp.193–5.

76. Divrei ha-Knesset, 3 July 1950, pp.2036–7. See also D. Hacohen, ‘The Law of Return as an Embodiment of the Link Between Israel and the Jews of the Diaspora’, The Journal of Israeli History Vol.19, No.1 (1998), pp.61–89.

77. Halamish, ‘Selective Immigration’, pp.196–8; Hacohen, The One Million Plan, pp.16–39; Ofer, ‘Aliya, Gola and the Yishuv’.