Mass Migration

1
Mass Migration

• Social and Economic Challenge

2
Dimensions and Composition
3
Mass Immigration Policy

• Demographic interest
• The long awaited open gates
• The Pro-Israel Jewish consensus
• The active Holocaust Survivors
• The destruction of European Jewry
• The Muslim countries new reservoir
• Israeli active Initiative

4
Absorption Policy - A

• Circumstances and Consequences 1948-9
• War Exhaustion during European immigration
• ? Recruiting survivors to the battle front
• Abandoned Arab villages and cities
• ? settlement of immigrants in former Arab
  neighborhoods

5
Absorption Policy - B

• Circumstances and Consequences
• 1949-1952
• Economic crisis
• Immigrants without means
• No employment or housing
• ?Temporary sheltering poor conditions
• Affecting mainly immigrants from Asia-Africa

6
Absorption Policy C

• Melting Pot and survival strategies
• a. To educate-modernize immigrants
• b. Cultural transformation of New Jews
• c. To settle the entire country
• d. Population distribution to
  peripheries
• e. To focus on the future and forget the
  past

7
Social Implications

• The gap between old-timers and new immigrants
• Ethnic split
• European (Ashkenazi) better off
• Asian-African (Mizrahi) worse and feeling
  neglected
• Frustration of Holocaust survivors

8
Political implications

• UN Resolution 194 December 1948
• Clash with the Arab Refugees Right of Return
• Internal implications
• ethnic radicalization (The Black Panther and
  Wadi Salib Riots)
• On the longer run Rebellion against Mapai rule