Israel Record
Immigration to Israel
Immigration: The Early
Years
Immigration: Since the 1930's
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FIRST ALIYAH
INSPIRED BY ZIONIST IDEOLOGY and the persecution
of Jews in Eastern Europe, groups of Jews began immigrating to Palestine in the late 19th
century. The Jewish community already there was primarily supported by charitable
donations from abroad. Many of the new immigrants sought an end to Jewish dependence on
charity, and they established agricultural settlements in Palestine in order to work the
land.
The first modern, organized wave of Jewish
immigration is known as the First Aliyah. Aliyah is a Hebrew word meaning ascent and
refers to those Jews who ascend or go up to the land of Israel. Between 1882 and 1903,
25,000 Jews entered Palestine.
THE FOUNDING OF PETACH TIKVAH
In 1878 a group of Orthodox Jews from Jerusalem
purchased a tract of land in the Sharon Valley, six miles from Jaffa. The 26 families
built mud huts to live in and called the farming community Petach Tikvah Gate of Hope.
Malaria, hunger and the flooding caused by the nearby Yarkon River led the early pioneers
to abandon their settlement and return to Jerusalem. Newcomers from Europe resettled
Petach Tikvah several years later and by 1888 they were receiving financial support from
Baron Edmond de Rothschild, the legendary French-Jewish philanthropist who became one of
the leading benefactors of early Jewish agricultural settlement in Palestine.
Hannah Trager was a young
girl living in Petach Tikvah in the 1880s. She later recorded
her experiences on the agricultural settlement.
EARLY YEMENITE IMMIGRATION
In contrast to the early pioneers who came to
Palestine with socialist principles to work the land, a wave of Yemenite Jews came to
Palestine for purely religious reasons. An American Christian woman,
Bertha Vesper, who lived in Jerusalem in the American Colony in the late 19th century,
described the arrival of Yemenite Jews in Jerusalem and the help
the American Colony extended to them.
SECOND ALIYAH
The First Aliyah was followed by four other
waves of immigration. The Second Aliyah (1904-1914) was sparked by a fresh wave of
persecution of Jews in Russia. An estimated 40,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine during
this time. Although First Aliyah immigrants initiated agricultural settlement of the land,
by the end of the wave, only 5,000 of the 25,000 immigrants were living in rural
settlements. Agricultural settlement really took off during the Second Aliyah.
In 1933, the year Hitler came to power, Jewish
immigration to Palestine markedly increased. Coming primarily from Central Europe, these
Jews brought with them a great deal of capital, as well as skills and experience in
industry, science, banking, medicine, law and international commerce. By 1936, the Jewish
population of Palestine was close to 400,000.
Deborah Dayan, the mother of
legendary Israeli war hero Moshe Dayan, immigrated to Palestine from Russia. She was a
member of the collective settlement of Degania, the first kibbutz. In
her memoirs she recalled her inner struggles in Russia and what motivated her to immigrate
to Palestine during the Second Aliyah.
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