Leaving Zion


Book Description

Explores Jewish emigration from Palestine and Israel during the critical period between 1945 and the late 1950s by weaving together the perspectives of governments, aid organizations, Jewish communities and the personal stories of individual migrants.




They Did Not Dwell Alone


Book Description

Drawing of his experience as former Dutch ambassador to the USSR, Petrus Buwalda recounts the full story of the "refuseniks", whose immigration to Israel was by way of Holland.




An Unpromising Land


Book Description

The Jewish migration at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries was one of the dramatic events that changed the Jewish people in modern times. Millions of Jews sought to escape the distressful conditions of their lives in Eastern Europe and find a better future for themselves and their families overseas. The vast majority of the Jewish migrants went to the United States, and others, in smaller numbers, reached Argentina, Canada, Australia, and South Africa. From the beginning of the twentieth century until the First World War, about 35,000 Jews reached Palestine. Because of this difference in scale and because of the place the land of Israel possesses in Jewish thought, historians and social scientists have tended to apply different criteria to immigration, stressing the uniqueness of Jewish immigration to Palestine and the importance of the Zionist ideology as a central factor in that immigration. This book questions this assumption, and presents a more complex picture both of the causes of immigration to Palestine and of the mass of immigrants who reached the port of Jaffa in the years 1904–1914.




German Jews and Migration to the United States, 1933–1945


Book Description

German Jews and Migration to the United States, 1933–1945 is a collection of first-person accounts, many previously unpublished, that document the flight and exile of German Jews from Nazi Germany to the USA,. The authors of the letters and memoirs included in this collection share two important characteristics: They all had close ties to Munich, the Bavarian capital, and they all emigrated to the USA, though sometimes via detours and/or after stays of varying lengths in other places of refuge. Selected to represent a wide range of exile experiences, these testimonies are carefully edited, extensively annotated, and accompanied by biographical introductions to make them accessible to readers, especially those who are new to the subject. These autobiographical sources reveal the often-traumatic experiences and consequences of forced migration, displacement, resettlement, and new beginnings. In addition, this book demonstrates that migration is not only a process by which groups and individuals relocate from one place to another but also a dynamic of transmigration affected by migrant networks and the complex relationships between national policies and the agency of migrants.




Postwar Jewish Displacement and Rebirth


Book Description

This volume offers insights into the major Jewish migration movements and rebuilding of European Jewish communities in the mid-twentieth century. Its chapters illustrate many facets of the Jews’ often traumatic post-war experiences. People had to find their way when returning to their countries of origin or starting from scratch in a new land. Their experiences and hardships from country to country and from one community of migrants to another are analyzed here. The mass exodus of Jews from Arab and Muslim countries is also addressed to provide a necessary and broader insight into how those challenges were met, as both migrations were a result of persecution, as well as discrimination.




Points of Passage


Book Description

Between 1880 and 1914 several million Eastern Europeans migrated West. Much is known about the immigration experience of Jews, Poles, Greeks, and others, notably in the United States. Yet, little is known about the paths of mass migration across “green borders” via European railway stations and ports to destinations in other continents. Ellis Island, literally a point of passage into America, has a much higher symbolic significance than the often inconspicuous departure stations, makeshift facilities for migrant masses at European railway stations and port cities, and former control posts along borders that were redrawn several times during the twentieth century. This volume focuses on the journeys of Jews from Eastern Europe through Germany, Britain, and Scandinavia between 1880 and 1914. The authors investigate various aspects of transmigration including medical controls, travel conditions, and the role of the steamship lines; and also review the rise of migration restrictions around the globe in the decades before 1914.




Jewish Emigration from the Yemen 1951-98


Book Description

The Yemeni Jewish remnants have triggered so much interest on the part of so many western governments and humanitarian organizations, to an extent that is quite rare. The story of the Yemeni Jewish remnants is distinct from that of their brethren who emigrated to Israel during Operation Magic Carpet (1949-51). Before and during Operation Magic Carpet, Yemeni Jews came on their own in overwhelming numbers, many of them on foot, undeterred by the prospects of the trials and tribulations which they knew would await them in the course of their travels. In contrast, the Yemeni Jewish remnants displayed a strong hesitation, if not reluctance, to leave Yemen. Thus, since Operation Magic Carpet and until 1962 - the year of the coup d'état eliminating the autocratic Imamic regime in Yemen and the closing of the Yemeni gates for Jewish emigration - only some four hundred Yemeni Jews heeded the call to emigrate to Israel. It is for this reason that the book is subtitled Carpet Without Magic. A 'red carpet' was indeed spread before the Yemeni Jewish remnants, but the 'magic' was no longer there.




After They Closed the Gates


Book Description

In 1921 and 1924, the United States passed laws to sharply reduce the influx of immigrants into the country. By allocating only small quotas to the nations of southern and eastern Europe, and banning almost all immigration from Asia, the new laws were supposed to stem the tide of foreigners considered especially inferior and dangerous. However, immigrants continued to come, sailing into the port of New York with fake passports, or from Cuba to Florida, hidden in the holds of boats loaded with contraband liquor. Jews, one of the main targets of the quota laws, figured prominently in the new international underworld of illegal immigration. However, they ultimately managed to escape permanent association with the identity of the “illegal alien” in a way that other groups, such as Mexicans, thus far, have not. In After They Closed the Gates, Libby Garland tells the untold stories of the Jewish migrants and smugglers involved in that underworld, showing how such stories contributed to growing national anxieties about illegal immigration. Garland also helps us understand how Jews were linked to, and then unlinked from, the specter of illegal immigration. By tracing this complex history, Garland offers compelling insights into the contingent nature of citizenship, belonging, and Americanness.




The Swedish Jews and the Holocaust


Book Description

"We will be judged in our own time and in the future by measuring the aid that we, inhabitants of a free and fortunate country, gave to our brethren in this time of greatest disaster." This declaration, made shortly after the pogroms of November 1938 by the Jewish communities in Sweden, was truer than anyone could have forecast at the time. Pontus Rudberg focuses on this sensitive issue – Jewish responses to the Nazi persecutions and mass murder of Jews. What actions did Swedish Jews take to aid the Jews in Europe during the years 1933–45 and what determined their policies and actions? Specific attention is given to the aid efforts of the Jewish Community of Stockholm, including the range of activities in which the community engaged and the challenges and opportunities presented by official refugee policy in Sweden.




Migration from the Newly Independent States


Book Description

This book discusses international migration in the newly independent states after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which involved millions of people. Written by authors from 15 countries, it summarizes the population movement over the post-Soviet territories, both within the newly independent states and in other countries over the past 25 years. It focuses on the volume of migration flows, the number and socio-demographic characteristics of migrants, migration factors and the situation of migrants in receiving countries. The authors, who include demographers, economists, geographers, anthropologists, sociologists and political scientists, used various methods and sources of information, such as censuses, administrative statistics, the results of mass sample surveys and in-depth interviews. This heterogeneity highlights the multifaceted nature of the topic of migration movements.