THE PLOT

On July 5, 1950, the Knesset passed the Law of Return, which legally codified the right of every Jew to come to Israel as an immigrant. Which raises the question of who qualifies as a “Jew” for the purposes of immigration.

Initially Israel chose not to define specifically who is a Jew. The Knesset couldn’t agree on how to reconcile differing criteria, from religious law to traditional practice to the Nazi identification as anyone with a Jewish grandparent. The Law of Return creates a tension between an expansive definition of who is a Jew for the purposes of who the State of Israel allows to immigrate; and the religious definition of who is a Jew, which is much narrower. You can simultaneously be enough of a Jew under civil law to immigrate to Israel, while also not being enough of a Jew under religious law to be considered Jewish. It’s a muddle!

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Jews, especially the Mizrahi, were immigrating to Israel, but there wasn’t enough housing for everyone. In 1950 Israel began building ma’abarot — immigrant absorption camps that were supposed to be temporary but which persisted for more than a decade. Conditions were generally terrible, with one family per tent and sometimes only one or two sanitation facilities for hundreds of people. Unemployment and poverty were endemic. By 1952 and 1953, at the height of the ma’abarot population, Israel established what became known as Development Towns to replace the ma’abarot and reduce urban crowding along the coast. 

Israel’s poverty in housing was compounded by its insecurity in food. The massive and rapid influx of Jewish refugees placed enormous pressure on the economy, and strict rationing was in place. Hadassah worked with the U.S. Congress to pass a law allowing the export of stockpiled food, especially bulgar.

In 1948 Israel passed the Abandoned Areas Ordinance, which allowed the government to absorb territory that had been captured by the IDF during the War of Independence: land that had primarily belonged to the Palestinians. These villages were then used to settle the Mizrahi Jews.

THE PEOPLE

Hubert Humphrey: U.S. Senator who advocated for the export of stockpiled American food, especially bulgar, to Israel.

THE BIG IDEAS

The Law of Return doesn’t just answer a question, it creates them. How do you define who is a Jew? And if every Jew has a right to immigrate, where are you going to put them all? And what does it mean for Israel’s non-Jews, the Arabs who have equal rights as full citizens of the Jewish state? And is this discriminatory and racist, an act of Jewish supremacy?

Adding to the physical misery was the social segregation that the ma’aborat both effected and symbolized. The vast majority of those who were settled by the government in the camps were the Mizrahi. Although some European Jews and Holocaust survivors ended up in the ma’abarot, it was usually temporary. And when good housing did open up, especially in the major cities, you can be sure that the Ashkenazim — the European Jews — got it first. 

By the middle of the 1950s around one-third of Israel’s population, most of them Mizrahi, lived on what had once been Arab land. Though some demanded that the Palestinians be allowed to return, Israel argued that no country had every allowed the return of such a large group, especially one that could potentially be hostile. At the end of the day, the movement of Arabs from Israel, and Middle Eastern Jews to Israel, amounted to a population transfer. 

FUN FACTS

Under Jewish religious law, there are only two ways to become a Jew: you are born to a Jewish mother, or you have undergone an Orthodox conversion.

By 1951 around 250,000 Jews, about 1/6 of the population, were living in ma’abarot. 80% of them were Mizrahi.

According to The National Library of Israel, Senator Hubert Humphrey used the Hebrew word for bulgur in his written statement, marking the first time that Hebrew officially appeared in the Congressional Record.

© Jason Harris 2020