Immigration to Israel

Tel Aviv Aiport

Immigration to Israel

Following their expulsion, and after the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in 70 AD, the majority of the Jews were dispersed throughout the world. The Jewish national idea, however, was never abandoned, nor was the longing to return to their homeland.

Throughout the centuries, Jews have maintained a presence in the land, in greater or lesser numbers; uninterrupted contact with Jews abroad has enriched the cultural, spiritual and intellectual life of both communities. 

Zionism, the political movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland, founded in the late 19th century, derives its name from word “Zion,” the traditional synonym for Jerusalem and the Land of Israel. In response to continued oppression and persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe and disillusionment with emancipation in Western Europe, and inspired by Zionist ideology, Jews immigrated to Palestine toward the end of the nineteenth century. This was the first of the modern waves of Aliyah (literally: “Going Up”) that were to transform the face of the country.

On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was proclaimed. 

The proclamation of the establishment of the State of Israel stated: “The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and the ingathering of the exiles; it will foster the development of the country for all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice, and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex....”

This was followed in 1950 by the Law of Return, which granted every Jew the automatic right to immigrate to Israel and become a citizen of the state. With the gates wide open after statehood was declared, a wave of mass immigration brought 687,000 Jews to Israel's shores. By 1951, the number of immigrants more than doubled the Jewish population of the country in 1948. The immigrants included survivors of the Holocaust from displaced persons' camps in Germany, Austria and Italy; a majority of the Jewish communities of Bulgaria and Poland, one third of the Jews of Romania, and nearly all of the Jewish communities of Libya, Yemen and Iraq. 

The immigrants encountered many adjustment difficulties. The fledgling state had just emerged from the bruising War of Independence, was in grievous economic condition, and found it difficult to provide hundreds of thousands of immigrants with housing and jobs. Much effort was devoted toward absorbing the immigrants: Ma'abarot—camps of tin shacks and tents—and later permanent dwellings were erected; employment opportunities were created; the Hebrew language was taught; and the educational system was expanded and adjusted to meet the needs of children from many different backgrounds. 

Additional mass immigration took place in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when immigrants arrived from the newly independent countries of North Africa, Morocco and Tunisia. A large number of immigrants also arrived during these years from Poland, Hungary and Egypt.

Immigration from Western Countries

While mass immigrations to Israel have mostly been from countries of distress, immigration of individuals from the free world has also continued throughout the years. Most of these persons are motivated by idealism. This Aliyah gained strength after the Six-Day War, with the awakening feelings of Jewish identity among Diaspora Jewry.

Immigration from the Soviet Union and former Soviet Union

From 1948 to 1967, the relations between Jews in the Soviet Union and the State of Israel were limited. Following the Six-Day War, Jewish consciousness among Soviet Jews was awakened, and increasing numbers sought Aliyah. As an atmosphere of detente began to pervade international relations in the early 1970s, the Soviet Union permitted a significant number of Jews to immigrate to Israel. At the end of the decade, a quarter of a million Jews had left the Soviet Union; 140,000 immigrated to Israel.

Soviet Jews were permitted to leave the Soviet Union in unprecedented numbers in the late 1980s, with President Gorbachev's bid to liberalize the country. The collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991 facilitated this process. After 190,000 Olim reached Israel in 1990 and 150,000 in 1991, the stabilization of conditions in the former Soviet Union and adjustment difficulties in Israel caused immigration to level off at approximately 70,000 per year. From 1989 to the end of 2003, more than 950,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union had made their home in Israel.

Immigration from Ethiopia

The last two decades has witnessed the Aliyah of the ancient Jewish community of Ethiopia. In 1984, some 7,000 Ethiopian Jews walked hundreds of miles to Sudan, where a secret effort known as Operation Moses brought them to Israel. Another 15,000 arrived in a dramatic airlift, Operation Solomon, in May 1991. Within thirty hours, forty-one flights from Addis Ababa carried almost all the remaining community to Israel.

Total Immigration, by Country of Origin

(1948 – Present)

Russia and Ukraine (Former USSR)	1,223,723
Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia	354,852
Romania	276,586
Poland	173,591
Iraq	131,138
United States	99,406
Ethiopia	91,375
France	78,981
Iran	76,934
Argentina	66,916
Turkey	62,837
Yemen	50,731
Bulgaria	44,372
Egypt and Sudan	37,763
Libya	35,844
United Kingdom	34,761
Hungary	32,022
India	28,702
Czechoslovakia (Former)	24,468
South Africa	20,038
Germany	19,905
Yugoslavia (Former)	10,768
Syria	9,547