New Jewish Immigrants Await Processing in Haifa, Palestine

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New Jewish Immigrants Await Processing in Haifa, Palestine

Photograph

By: Anonymous

Date: c. 1945

Source: Hulton-Deutsch Collection

About the Photographer: The Hulton-Deutsch collection is managed by Corbis, a photo-repository company that provides photographs and video imagry, along with licensing services, to advertisers, publishers, filmmakers, and marketers.

INTRODUCTION

Following episodes of anti-Semitism throughout Europe in the latter decades of the nineteenth century, the idea of establishing a Jewish homeland gained popularity among Jews. The movement to create a Jewish state in Palestine became know as Zionism. In France, the Dreyfus affair, during which a Jewish army captain was convicted of treason based on forged evidence, highlighted the institutionalized anti-Semitism and influenced writers such as Leon Pinsker (1821–1891) and Theodore Herzl (1860–1904). In 1986, Herzl published Der Judenstaat (The State of the Jews), which argued that the condition of the Diaspora, or Jews residing throughout the world, would continue to deteriorate unless they create a national homeland. Under Herzl's leadership, the first Zionist Congress met in August 1897 in Basle and determined the goal of Zionism to be the establishment of a Jewish national homeland. As such, the Zionist movement established itself as an international organization with a structure and institutions, including the Zionist General Council and the Zionist Executive. The Third Congress passed the first constitution for the organization in 1899. After Herzl's death, Chaim Weizmann (1874–1952) led the Zionist movement and met with British leaders in the hopes to gain British support for a homeland. By 1907, Weizmann had visited Palestine and concluded that the region should be the colonized by the Jews. As such, a trickle of immigrants began to move into the region.

During this time, Western powers viewed Palestine as a region that lacked a unified national settlement. The approximately 200,000 Arabs there were identified based on common language rather than national identity and resided in the region but lacked a formal government structure. As World War I began to spread to European colonies, Britain negotiated agreements with both Arabs and the Jews who resided in the Middle East. In 1917, with the Balfour declaration, the British acknowledged sympathy for Zionist goals and their intent to sponsor a national home for the Jews. As the Allied powers defeated Germany and Turkey, Britain occupied much of the Middle East, allowing it to become the dominant power in the region. The League of Nations granted Britain a Mandate for Palestine at the San Remo Conference in 1922, whereby the region would be administered by British forces. As a provision under the Mandate for Palestine granted to Britain, an agency was created to represent the Jewish people and aid in the establishment of a Jewish homeland. The Zionist Organization established by Herzl was initially tasked as this agency. In 1929, the Jewish Agency for Palestine was created under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine as an element of the World Zionist Organization in building a homeland for Jews. Meanwhile, Jews began to immigrate in larger numbers to Palestine. During the period 1919–1931 the Jewish segment grew from 8 to 177 percent of the total population as their numbers increased from 60,000 to 175,000.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler began to implement his policies to eradicate the Jews. During this period, Arabs became increasingly resistant to the increase in Jewish immigrants to Palestine. The British negotiated with both the Jewish and Arab populations in order to create alliances against Germany. As a stipulation of the agreement with the Arabs, the British established a blockade, preventing further immigration of Jews to the region. The White Paper of 1939, published by the British government after a series of conflicts that resulted in the deaths of Britons, Jews and Arabs, marked a change in Britain's policy toward the Jewish homeland. The White Paper announced that Britain sought an independent Palestinian state, governed by Jews and Arabs who shared authority. As World War II came to an end, approximately 250,000 Jews had become displaced as a result of the conflict. Many displaced were widows and orphans of victims of the Holocaust. These refugees were housed in displaced person camps in the Allied zones of Germany, Austria, and Italy. The refugees had no homes to which to return, and few countries were willing to allow immigration into their country. In 1945, U.S. special envoy Earl Harrison created a report for President Harry Truman calling for a mass evacuation of Jews from Europe to Palestine. The British rejected this as an option, and other nations were slow to amend their immigration policies to allow for immigration.

PRIMARY SOURCE

NEW JEWISH IMMIGRANTS AWAIT PROCESSING IN HAIFA, PALESTINE

See primary source image.

SIGNIFICANCE

In July 1945, an organized movement to assist in the illegal immigration from Eastern Europe to Palestine began. Brischa (Hebrew for "escape") was organized by the Aliyah Bet organization and sought to transfer those displaced Jewish persons to Palestine. The exodus was led by soldiers from the Jewish Brigade who routed immigrants through Poland into the U.S. zone in Germany. Once there, clandestine ships awaited to make the passage to their new homes. Although many of the transport ships reached their destination, some ships were captured and their passengers interred. In July 1947, the Exodus 1947 was stopped by British forces. When the passengers and crew refused to surrender, the British opened fire on the vessel. Worldwide publicity of the event led to support for the Jewish cause. Until 1948, approximately 100,000 Jews successfully crossed the British Blockade to relocate to Palestine as a result of the Brischa.

The Jewish inhabitants of the region declared their independence and the statehood of Israel following the 1948 termination of the Mandate for Palestine by the United Nations Resolution 181. Surrounding Arab nations rejected the state of Israel while western powers and the Soviet Union acknowledged the new country. Shortly after the British left the newly formed state, several Arab nations, including Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, declared war on Israel. Invasions by Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian forces began the Israeli War of Independence. The armistice for this war, signed in 1949, partitioned more land to Israel than originally agreed to by the United Nations resolution.