Scope of the Influx

Declaration of statehood on May 14, 1948, brought with it mass immigration. Between May 1948 and December 1951, 700,000 immigrants arrived in the State of Israel, doubling the Jewish population of the country (see figure 4.1). Immigration originated from two geographic regions: Europe and the Balkans, and Africa and Asia. The total number of Holocaust survivors among the newcomers was 330,000—approximately half the immigrants during this two-and-a-half year period. The number of immigrants from North Africa and Asia totaled 370,000—123,300 from Iraq; 48,300 from Yemen; 34,500 from Turkey; and approximately 45,400 from North Africa (see figure 4.2).

By contrast with immigration during the mandate period, which was primarily from Europe and America, more than half the immigrants in late 1951 were from Asia and Africa, with the number of children and elderly exceptionally high, and the percentage who were of working age was middling. For the most part, the immigrants from Asia and North Africa arrived in family groups and entire communities, but their emigration was hastily organized due to political pressures. The newcomers did not have the luxury to gradually make preparations for the move—to sell their assets or liquidate businesses, nor to prepare themselves psychologically and emotionally for grappling with a strange country and the arduous conditions they would encounter there, difficulties further amplified by the fact that most were disenfranchised, arriving with meager possessions or only the clothes on their backs.