This is an article published in the Davar newspaper on March 11, 1949. Under the heading “Ingathering of the Exiles by Air” are pictures of immigrants from various countries. The photographs include immigrants from Poland, Aden, Yemen, China, Eritrea, Germany, and America. There are also two photographs of Zionist activists: Miriam Sharshat from the United States and Margot Bloch from Germany. The new immigrants are carrying their belongings in bags and parcels and are mostly in family groups. They are dressed in warm clothes, and some are wearing traditional clothing.
The text in the centre describes the mass aliya (immigration) to Israel. It explains that the establishment of the State of Israel has inspired people from around the world to return to their homeland, some because they felt they should be in Israel and others because they were unable to remain in the Diaspora. The short article details the needs of the new arrivals: housing, employment, language, and children’s education. The text finishes with a call to the readers to join the government and the Jewish Agency in the task of absorbing the new olim.
In Israel’s early years, there was a major wave of Jewish immigration. Most of the immigrants were Holocaust survivors from Europe or Jews who were fleeing persecution in Arab countries. Within three and a half years, the population of Israel had doubled. In 1949 alone, the year of the publication of this newspaper, around 250,000 people arrived in Israel – the largest number of olim to this day. Many arrived from displaced persons (DP) camps and from British detention camps in Cyprus. The immigrants from Arab countries mostly arrived in special operations evacuating communities that were in grave danger, such as Operation Magic Carpet from Yemen (1949–1950) and Operation Ezra and Nehemia from Iraq (1951–1952).
The large influx of people was welcomed by the new state, but resources for their absorption were scarce. A system of rationing, the tsena, was thus implemented, and the new immigrants were housed in transit camps called ma’abarot.
As mentioned in the article, the olim arrived in Israel via the ports and Lod Airport. The airport, named after the nearby town of Lod, was established by the British Mandate and inaugurated in 1937. It was first named the Wilhelma Airport, a reference to the German colony on whose territory the field was built. With the death of David Ben-Gurion, the name was changed to Ben-Gurion Airport.
The phrase “ingathering of the exiles,” kibbutz galuyot, appears in the Torah and is a reference to the End of Days when all the Jewish People exiled to different places in the world will be returned to the Land of Israel.
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Mass Immigration to Israel in the Early Years of Israel - The early years of the State of Israel were noted for the large wave of immigration from all corners of the world; in the State’s first three and a half years, 688,000 new immigrants arrived, doubling Israel’s population. The immigrants were mostly Holocaust survivors from Europe and refugees from Arab countries. This welcome influx of Jews necessitated many resources. The immigrants needed housing and jobs. They also needed to integrate into Israeli society, and there was therefore a massive campaign to teach the immigrants Hebrew.
