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Abstract
This article focuses on the ways in which over 200 families of Yemenite immigrants, who founded the city of Kiryat Shmona, the development town situated at the edge of Israel's Northern District, functioned as a group during the immigration process. This case study coincides with the trend – within research of mass immigration to Israel – that relates the historical narrative through the perspective of the immigrant and settler groups, rather than from the vantage point of the establishment in charge of their absorption. The affair could have gone down in the annals of history as a story of weakness and victimhood: hundreds of immigrants were sent off to settle in an outlying peripheral region and were compelled to integrate into an environment where the financially and political-powerful kibbutzim were preponderant. Yet the Yemenite immigrants of Kiryat Shmona turned out to be a consolidated, opinionated, fighting and stubborn force that succeeded, in trying conditions, to assert their voice, struggle for their values and identity, affect major changes within the immigration–absorption system.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my two remarkable research assistants Harel Seri-Levi and Reut Shasha-Diamant for data collection.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
Notes
1 Dvora Hacohen, ‘Mass Immigration and the Demographic Revolution in Israel’, Israel Affairs Vol.8 (2001), pp.177–90; Moshe Lissak, ‘The Demographic-Social Revolution in Israel in the 1950s: The Absorption of the Great Aliyah’, The Journal of Israeli History Vol.22.2 (2003), pp.1–31; Orit Rozin, ‘The Rise of the Individual in 1950s Israel: A Challenge to Collectivism’, UPNE, 2011, 180–90; Tsvi Tsameret, ‘The Integration of Yemenites in Israeli Schools’, Israel Studies Vol.6.3 (2001), pp.1–25; Avi Picard, ‘Building the Country or Rescuing the People: Ben-Gurion's Attitude Towards Mass Jewish Immigration to Israel in the Mid-1950s’, Middle Eastern Studies Vol.54.3 (2018), pp.382–99.
2 Sami Shalom Chetrit, Intra-Jewish Conflict in Israel: White Jews, Black Jews, (New York: Routledge, 2009).
3 Aviva Halamish, ‘Zionist Immigration Policy Put to the Test: Historical Analysis of Israel’s Immigration Policy, 1948–1951’, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies Vol.7.2 (2008), pp.119–34.
4 Yaron 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; Aviva Halamish, ‘A new look at immigration of Jews from Yemen to Mandatory Palestine’, Israel Studies Vol.11.1 (2006), pp.59–78; Esther Meir- Glitzenstein, The 'Magic Carpet' Exodus of Yemenite Jewry: An Israeli Formative Myth (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2014).
5 Adriana Kemp, “Sojourning People” or the “Big Fire”: State Power and Everyday Resistance in the Israeli Frontier in Hanan Hever, Yehuda Shenhav and Pnina Motzafi-Haller (eds.), Mizrahim in Israel: A Critical Observation into Israel’s Ethnicity (The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and Hakibbutz Hameuchad Press, 2002), pp. 36–67 (Hebrew).
6 Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, Between Baghdad and Ramat Gan: Iraqi Jews in Israel (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi Publishers, 2009); Orit Bashkin, Impossible Exodus: Iraqi Jews in Israel (Stanford University Press, 2017).
7 Orit Rozin, A Home for All Jews: Citizenship, Rights, and National Identity in the New Israeli State (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2016).
8 Bat-Zion Eraqi Klorman, The “Other” in the Political Culture of the Moshava in Yaffah Berlowitch (ed.), Conversing Culture with The First Aliya (Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House, 2010), pp.157–75, (Hebrew); idem, ‘Yemenite Jews and the Labor Movement: Cultural-Ideological Distinction or Ethnic and Economic Discrimination – Comments on Yosef Gorny’s article: "The Strength and Weaknesses of Constructive Paternalism: The Second Aliyah Leaders’ Image of the Yemenite Jews”’, Katharsis Vol.2 (2004), pp.53–68 (Hebrew); Dov Levitan, The Immigration of Yemeni Jews to Israel: The Realization of a Dream or a Social Dilemma: The Case of the Missing Yemeni Children in Eliezer Don-Yihya (ed.), Between Tradition and Renewal: Studies in Judaism, Zionism and the State of Israel (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press: 2005), pp.379–80 (Hebrew); Zsvi Tsameret, The Melting Pot in Israel: The Commission of Inquiry Concerning Education in the Immigrant Camps During the Early State Years, (New York: Suny Press: 2002); Eliezer Don-Yihya, Mashber u-temurah bi-medinah hadashah (Crisis and Change in a New state) (Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, 2008) (Hebrew).
9 Amir Goldstein, ‘Eliezer Krol of “Hashomer” and the Yemenite Immigrants in Kiryat Shmona, 1949–1950’, Iyunim Bitkumat Israel, Studies in Israeli and Modern Jewish Society Vol.25 (25), pp.151–178 (Hebrew).
10 Krol's diary, Beit Hashomer Archive, 28 September 1949.
11 bid., 11 November 1949.
12 ‘At the block's committee meeting’, Kfar Giladi bulletin, 18 January 1950.
13 The administration of Upper Galilee Regional Council to the names committee through the Jewish Fund, 26 June 1950, Upper Galilee Regional Council Archive.
14 M. Sirota to Krol, 24 January 1950, Krol's file, Beit Hashomer Archive.
15 Hashash to Eliezer Krol, 31 July 1950. Shimon Avizemer to Eliezer Krol, 23 August 1950, LPA 2 – 905 – 1950 – 5.
16 Khalsa settlers' letter to David Ben-Gurion, within Haim Tzadok, ‘Yemen's Burden: 1946–1951, The Story of the Fifty Thousand’ (self-published, Tel Aviv 1985), pp.100–1 (Hebrew).
17 The Knesset Records, 31 October 1950.
18 Khalsa residents' letter to David Ben-Gurion, within Tzadok, Yemen's Burden, pp.100–1.
19 A letter to Shimon Avizemer, the Department for Yemenite immigrants, 8 September 1950, LPA 2 – 905 – 1950 – 5 (a copy was also sent to the prime minister and the Jewish Agency).
20 Interview with Eli Zohar, January 2014. Avraham Hacohen's letter, 8 June 1982, Avraham Hacohen file, Kiryat Shmona Archive. Shlomo Zipman, My way (Tel Aviv: 1981), pp.142–3.
21 The historical writing underscored the political conflict between Mapai and the United Religious Front on this issue, as well as the internal dialogue on the issue within Mapai; see, for example: Tsvi Tsameret, ‘The Integration of Yemenites in Israeli Schools’, Israel Studies Vol.6.3 (2001), pp.1–25; Don-Yihya, Crisis and Change. See above, note 8.
22 Al Hamishmar (On Guard), 5 October 1950.
23 Letter of Khalsa settlers to David Ben-Gurion, in Tzadok, Yemen's Burden, pp.100–1.
24 The village committee of Kiryat Yosef (Al-Khalisa) to David Ben-Gurion, 9 January 1951, Israel State Archives.
25 Elkana Gali to the Committee of Kiryat Yosef (Al-Khalisa), 2 February 1951.
26 Pnina Fitzer, ‘In the Transit Camp in Kiryat Shmona – School in Kiryat Shmona’, KIBBUTZ Shamir Bulletin, March 1951.
27 Ibid.
28 Rozin, A Home for All Jews, pp.116–61.
29 The Yemenite Religious Committee of Kiryat Yosef, to the principal supervisor of the Mizrahi stream, 4 March 1951, Israel State Archives.
30 A visit in Kiryat Shmona (Al-Khalisa), Yisrael Yeshayahu's report, 15 March 1951. Oded Yosef's Report, 25 April 1951. Yosef Hashash, the Department for Yemenite Immigrants to Aharon Cohen, 13 April 1951, LPA, 2 – 905 – 1950 – 2b.
31 Rabbi B. Cohen, the education unit, to A. Perlman, departmental director for the implementation of compulsory education, 2 May 1951, ISA.
32 Maariv, 16 February 1950.
33 Haboker (This Morning), 4 February 1955.
34 Haboker, 9 September 1953.
35 Davar, 16 January 1950.
36 Davar, 13 October 1950.
37 Yisrael Yeshayahu, ‘A Visit to Kiryat Shmona (Halsa)’, 15 March 1951, LPA, 2 – 905 – 1950 - 2.
38 Haboker, 9 September 1953.
39 The committee of the village of Kiryat Yosef (Halsa) to Yisrael Yeshayahu (and the many copies), 17 June 1952.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid.
42 Brochure to immigrants in transit camps, 46, the Integration Department in Mapai, and also H. Rokach, Mapai's center, to the transit-camps' committees, September 1953, Bema'arechet Haklita (In the absorption system), December 1952, p.41.
43 Interview with Shimon Lidani, ‘Yemenite Immigrants' Branches,’ 25th Issue (September 1952), p.1.
44 Letter to A. Uzeri (probably Asher Nizri), Kiryat Shmona's Workers Council, 6 November 1952, LPA, 2 – 4 – 1952 - 293; Yisrael Kessar to Shimon Shaivi, 19 July 1953, LPA; as well as the letters in the apartments-allocation file in Bir Burin, ISA, C, 2310/11.
45 Davar, 3 September 1953.
46 Haboker, 9 September 1953.
47 Shimon Avizemer to Aharon Cohen and Saadia Zeira, 12 April 1951, LPA 2 – 905 – 1950 – 5.
48 H. Medhala to Sa'adiya Zaira, 23 March 1953 (copy to Yisrael Yeshayahu), LPA, 2 – 905 – 1952 – 9.
49 Bat-Zion Eraqi Klorman, ‘Yemenite Jews: History, Society, Culture’, Volume 3, Raanana, 2008: pp.355–7; pp.369–72.
50 Bat-Zion Eraqi Klorman. See comment 8 above.