Jewish and Israeli Immigration
Though there was a native Jewish population in Turkish Palestine, the first wave of Jewish immigration, or aliyah, to Palestine occurred between 1882 and 1903. These Jews were for the most part fleeing the pogroms and anti-Semitism of czarist Russia and the Ukraine. Some hardened idealists were motivated by a desire to return to their homeland and rebuild their country. These would form the basis of the Kibbutz movement, and would lay a foundation for the Second Aliyah.
The Second Aliyah brought Jews from Russia who were imbued with Marxist ideology as well as those who wanted a better life. In 1909 Kibbutz Deganya was founded. An invention of the Russian projects, the Kibbutz was meant to actualize Marxism while cultivating the land. At the other end of the spectrum, Tel Aviv was founded the same year. A center of capitalization, Tel Aviv represented the progress of the land’s industry.
6 million Jews are currently residing in Israel. This is mostly, if not entirely, the result of immigration and the Zionist goal of uniting the Diaspora in a single territory. Three million Jews, mainly from Islamic countries and Eastern Europe, have immigrated to Israel since it claimed independence.
The first massive wave of Jewish immigration in the new State occurred between 1948 and 1951. During this time, 688,000 olim made aliyah to Israel. These immigrants were mostly composed of refugees from Nazi concentration camps, Jews from Arab countries, and Jews who had been refused entry to Israel under the British Mandate.
Between 1952 and 1989 1.2 million immigrants acquired Israeli citizenship by right of return. 750,000 of them were from Arab countries including; Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya. In 1989, a large number of Jews were finally permitted to leave the former Soviet Union. They were encouraged to settle in Israel.
Read more about this topic: History Of Israeli Nationality
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“I herewith commission you to carry out all preparations with regard to ... a total solution of the Jewish question in those territories of Europe which are under German influence.... I furthermore charge you to submit to me as soon as possible a draft showing the ... measures already taken for the execution of the intended final solution of the Jewish question.”
—Hermann Goering (1893–1946)
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—Aaron Ben-Ze’Ev, Israeli philosopher. “The Vindication of Gossip,” Good Gossip, University Press of Kansas (1994)
“I was interested to see how a pioneer lived on this side of the country. His life is in some respects more adventurous than that of his brother in the West; for he contends with winter as well as the wilderness, and there is a greater interval of time at least between him and the army which is to follow. Here immigration is a tide which may ebb when it has swept away the pines; there it is not a tide, but an inundation, and roads and other improvements come steadily rushing after.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)