Jewish immigration to Palestine in the long 1920s

An exploratory examination

Bibliographic Data

ID12535162
AuthorsJacob Metzer (MS Technology (United States), corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume27
Issue2
Pages221-251
Publication date2008-08-26
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Israeli History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1353-1042 • E-ISSN: 1744-0548
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13531040802284106
OpenAlexW1562689979
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited7

This article aims at filling some gaps in the existing knowledge regarding the quantitative dimensions of Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine, particularly during the first decade of British rule. It does so by providing an explorative analysis of the immigration in the long 1920s (1919–32), which is based on a newly constructed micro data set containing rich details of about 45,000 individuals (making up more than 40% of all the registered immigrants in those years). In dwelling on the immigrants' demographic characteristics, labor market skills, and entry categories, the analysis offers tentative answers to some of the questions concerning the comparative nature of Palestine's Jewish immigration at the time, while pointing to other, still unresolved issues awaiting further research. Hagit Lavsky made important suggestions all along. Nachum Gross, Ephraim Kleiman, and an anonymous referee provided useful comments. Haim Avni, the director of the Central Zionist Archives (CZA), Batya Leshem, senior staff member, and the other staff members of the CZA were all extremely helpful and supportive. Invaluable research assistance was supplied by Gur Alroey, Revital Benita, Guy Galili, Anat Goldman, Sagit Harel, Sebastian Klor, Edy Levit, Israel Pupko, and Efrat Shpiro. The research has been supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant 955/02). I am thankful to them all. Notes 1. The basic quantitative studies are Aliyah; CitationGurevich, Gertz, and Bachi, Ha-aliyah, ha-yishuv veha-tnu'ah ha-tivit; CitationSicron, Ha-aliyah le-Yisrael, and Ha-aliyah le-Yisrael: Tosefet statistit; Bachi, The Population of Israel. The last three studies refer in detail to all the relevant data compilations published by the Jewish Agency and the government of Palestine. For illuminating discussions concerning data sources, methodology, and substance, see also Della Pergola, “Aliya and other Jewish Migrations,” 172–209, and “The Global Context of Migration to Israel,” 51–92. 2. The number of registered immigrants between 1919 and 1948 reached a total of 452,306 individuals according to CitationSicron, Ha-aliyah le-Yisrael: Tosefet statistit, Table A1. See also Sicron, Ha-aliyah le-Yisrael, chap. 2. 3. In constructing the micro data set (MDS) we used, in addition to the immigrant cards, demographic information on individual immigrants contained in ship lists and in other scattered registers of immigrants that we uncovered from the following CZA files: S104; S3: 64, 67, 74, 509–1, 509–2; S4: 13, 16, 36, 59, 90, 108, 108i, 108ii, 108iii, 125, 125i, 902, 1083, 1251; S6: 3, 12, 16, 35, 186, 187, 270i, 273i, 290i, 299, 355, 367, 368, 374, 376, 598, 603, 613, 614, 616, 623, 626, 631, 631–1, 635, 638, 647, 650, 655, 657, 1185, 1251, 2516–3, 2970, 2991, 3157, 4420, 4450, 4828. Unless otherwise stated, the numbers presented and quoted in the rest of the article are all derived from this newly constructed micro data set (MDS). 4. The numbers in this paragraph, which are also the source of Figure 1, include all the immigrants as estimated by Sicron, except for his guesstimated number of tourists (10,000 in total) who remained illegally in the country (Ha-aliyah le-Yisrael: Tosefet statistit, Table A1). 5. CitationGiladi, Ha-yishuv, chap. 3; CitationMetzer, The Divided Economy, chap. 2. 6. This does not imply the absence of particular “push” factors inducing the outflow, only that emigration was not unwillingly imposed on the entire population by persecutions or other forms of discrimination, disallowing selectivity in migration. A clear case of a particular “push” factor intensifying voluntary emigration would be the heavy tax burden imposed on trade in Poland in the mid-1920s. It affected adversely the urban middle classes, Jews included, but still left the emigration decision to be voluntarily taken by families and individuals (see Giladi, Ha-yishuv chap. 2). 7. See for example CitationGelber, Moledet hadashah; CitationLavsky, “Le'umiyut, hagirah ve-hityashvut,” 153–77; CitationHalamish, Be-merotz kaful. 8. A small fraction of the listed persons in the MDS (893 individuals in total) were returning residents of Palestine. 9. Since almost all the immigrants included in the MDS were recorded on the immigrant cards by name and surname, it was possible to identify their sex even when not quoted. 10. The correlation coefficient between the two series is 0.900. 11. The comparison is based on the distribution of immigration by nationality, the only one available for the entire in-migration (Sicron, Ha'aliyah le-Yisrael: Tosefet statistit, Tables A6–A11). 12. See for example: CitationSjaastad, “The Cost and Returns of Human Migrations,” 80–93; CitationKuznets, “Immigration of Russian Jews,” 35–124; CitationMassey et al., “Theories of International Migration,” 431–66. 13. See among others the following sources: CitationFerenczi and Willcox, eds., International Migration, 210–14; Citation Demographic Yearbook , Table 4; Sex and Age of International Migrants; The Aging of Populations, Table 3; Kuznets, “Immigration of Russian Jews,” 35–124; CitationEasterlin, “Economic and Social Characteristics of Immigrants,” 1–34; CitationBaines, Emigration from Europe. 14. The percentage of the 20–29 age group among females (43.4) was even higher than among males (40.8). 15. Poland and the Soviet Union composed together 62.6% of the immigrants listed in the MDS by countries of last residence, with Poland accounting for 47.3%, and the Soviet Union for another 15.3%. 16. Whereas no less than 53% of the newcomers in 1922–32 with specified entry categories were granted by the Mandatory government a “labor” immigration certificate in response to periodic applications by the Jewish Agency, this proportion declined to around 40% among the arrivals of 1935–38. The proportion of “capital” entry permits (25%) remained, however, unchanged. These percentages were derived from the Statistical Handbook of Jewish Palestine, 103. In other compilations (such as Gurevich, Gertz, and Bachi, Ha-aliyah, ha-yishuv veha-tnu'ah ha-tivit) slightly different proportions are reported, but the direction of the difference between the two periods and its size is retained in them as well. 17. Aliyah, 32. 18. Note that the share of the combined 15–29 age group in the immigration of 1919–23, considered to be highly ideological, was about 55.8%. Only among the immigrants of 1927–32 did the proportion of these ages exceed 60% (60.9% to be exact), see below. 19. A ratio of 1 indicates that the proportion of the age group in question is identical in the emigrating group and in its sending population. A ratio larger than 1 means that the relative size of the examined age group is larger among the emigrants than in the home population and thus implies a positive selectivity in-migration for that age group (the larger the ratio, the larger the extent of the selectivity). A ratio smaller than 1 points to negative selectivity in migration (the smaller the ratio, the larger the extent of negative selectivity). 20. Except for Poland, the Soviet Union, and Romania in which 74% of all the age-recorded migrants resided before emigration, the other countries of origin were incorporated into distinct geographic areas as listed in the Table. 21. Sicron, Ha-aliyah le-Yisrael: Tosefet statistit, Table A8, and Aliyah, Tables 10 and 30. 22. For a similar comparison for the years 1905–14, see CitationAlroey, Imigrantim, 125–27. 23. Metzer, The Divided Economy, Table 3.1. 24. CitationBernard, “U.S. Immigration Policy,” 75–105. 25. CitationLinfield, Jewish Migration, Table 3. 26. Giladi, Ha-yishuv, chap. 2; Metzer, The Divided Economy, chap. 3. 27. The breakdown into the three age groups of 0–15, 16–44, 45+ is dictated by the US migration data by age, which are divided in the considered years into these three age groups only. 28. The 62% are drawn from the MDS. Among all the immigrants to Palestine in 1920–30 of known sex the proportion was somewhat lower, reaching 57%, see Sicron, Ha-aliyah le-Yisrael: Tosefet statistit, Table A13. 29. Bernard, “U.S. Immigration Policy,” 75–105. 30. This proviso of the American entry policies did affect mostly the immigration from the countries of Eastern and southern Europe, which was most severely curtailed by the quota system. For example, in 1925–29 no less than 656,832 quota immigrants were admitted to the US from northern and Western Europe, but only 14,227 non-quota immigrants, whereas for eastern and southern Europe the quota and non-quota total admissions were about the same 98,555 and 96,951, respectively (CitationEckerson and Krichefsky, “Immigration Restrictions,” 82–91). 31. Giladi, Ha-yishuv, chap. 2 32. A detailed discussion of the immigrants' marital status and related subjects is conducted below. 33. The number of unmarried women among the immigrating adult women may have been affected to some extent by the special entry permits allotted by the government to unmarried women. See Halamish, Be-merotz kaful, 178–85, 477. 34. See CitationGross, “Ha-meshek ha-yehudi,” 287–99. 35. Sex and Age of International Migrants, Tables 21, 38, 100, 109. 36. Easterlin, “Economic and Social Characteristics of Immigrants,” 1–34. 37. Note also that the number of married men exceeded the number of married women among the MDS-recorded immigrants in all three sub-periods, indicating movement without spouses of substantial extent, particularly among married men. See more on this issue in the findings reported in Table 9 and the discussion concerning them, below. 38. Easterlin, “Economic and Social Characteristics of Immigrants,” 1–34. 39. Willcox, ed., International Migrations, 301. 40. Sicron, Ha-aliyah le-Yisrael: Tosefet statistit, chap. 6; Bachi, The Population of Israel, chap. 8. 41. CitationChiswick and CitationMiller, “Language in the Immigrant Labor Market,” 229–96, and “The Endogeneity between Language and Earning,” 245–87. 42. The composition by sex of the group for which language information is available is virtually identical to that of all the listed immigrants in the MDS with known sex. Hence, the possibility that there were differences by gender in responding to the “language” question on the immigrant cards is ruled out. 43. The occupational composition of the entire population of immigrants is drawn from Aliyah, Table 15. 44. Consistent with these patterns are the findings that among the immigrant groups originating in the US and the Balkan states, whose members of 30 and above years of age constituted the high proportions of 64.4% and 44.1%, respectively (see Table 4 above), the shares of these two occupations were 40.3% and 37.9% in that order. In neither of the other countries of origin did they reach more than 27%. 45. See CitationHalamish “Aliyah lefi yekholet ha-klitah ha-kalkalit,” 179–216, on the absorptive capacity postulate as a policy guideline, and idem, Be-merotz kaful, for a detailed documentation and analysis of the Zionist immigration policy in general, and during the 1930s in particular, concerning the various entry categories as constrained by the government directives and determinants. 46. Family members who immigrated with their heads of family and were granted entry visa as their dependants are listed under the same entry category as that of their family heads. 47. Until 1925 tourists were governmentally classified by entry category “A” (see Reports of the Executive, 1923, 188, and 1925, 222–23). From 1926 onwards the tourist/travelers were identified by category “H.” In various immigrant lists they were often recorded alternatively by the number “8” (the position of “H” in the alphabet) or simply grouped under the heading of “tourists” (see CZA, Files S104). Interestingly, in the immigrant cards (from which the MDS was derived) all the immigrants who entered Palestine between 1926 and 1932 as tourist/travelers were listed as holding an “H”-type visa. 48. Aliyah, 26–38. 49. The returning residents of Palestine were classified by entry category “G” (see Report of the Executive, 1923, 188), and were recorded as such in the MDS. 50. Classification [1] in Table 14 combines people who were listed in the immigrant cards under several entry categories: category “B” in 1922–29, categories Ai to Aiii in 1926–29, Ai to Av in 1930–32 (see Aliyah, Table 18), and category “H” in 1919–25. The Report of the Executive (1923) notes that the “H” category was designated for “small tradesmen and artisans who may be granted visas if they have assured prospects of earning their living in the country,” stating that this category was rarely used (188). Indeed only 66 arrivals in 1919–25 are listed under the “H” category in the MDS. As mentioned above, starting in 1926 the “H” category was used to designate the entrants on tourist/traveler visas. 51. This category was designated in the governmental classification as “E” in 1922–25, and as “C” later on (see Aliyah, Table 18). 52. Religious functionaries were classified by entry category F in 1922–25, Av in 1926–29, and Bii after 1930. Orphans were classified by Aiv in 1926–29 and by Bi in later years, and pupils, by category Avi in 1926–29 and Biii afterwards (ibid.). 53. The composition of all the arrivals by entry category is derived from Aliyah, Tables 18 and 19. 54. This seems quite plausible in view of the various listings of tourist/travelers, as noted above

Ancient history · Archaeology · Immigration · Judaism · Mandatory Palestine · Palestine · Political science · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Migration and Labor Dynamics

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