Figure 1.--“ This photograph is marked group of children at the Onim rest camp near Tel Aviv. The dealer dates it to 1940. We have been unable to find any informtion about it. It looks to be a home for children that have escaped the NAZI Holocaust abd are recovering in Palestine. The Jewisg Agency had effective programs for assisimaling immigrants into the Jewish Yishuv.

Aliyah Aleph or Aliyah 'A' is the limited Jewish immigration permitted by British authorities into Mandatory Palestine (1934-48). Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Jewish immigration to Palestine increased after World War I (1924-26), but then leveled off. The primary factors were anti-Jewish economic legislation in Poland (which had a large Jewish poplation) and rstrictive immigration quotas adopted by the U.S. Congress. (This was restrictions on immigration in general not speifically on Jewish immigration.) The rise of the NAZIs in Germany led to immigration increasing again, reaching a record 66,000 (1935). The British were afraid that this level of immigration would disturb the Arabs and lead to public disorder. The British inforned the Jewish Agency that less than one-third of the quota requested would be approved in 1936. And even during the Holocaust and War, the numbr of immigrants were far below the 1935 peak. The British concerned about secrity and the NAZI threat acceeded to Arab demands by announcing in their 1939 White Paper that an independent Arab state would be created within 10 years, and that Jewish immigration was to be limited to only 75,000 pople for the next 5 years, after which it would be terminated. It also forbade land sales to Jews in 95 percent of the territory of Palestine. Even these draconian limitations were unaccptable to the Grand Mufti who had established control of the Palestinian community led The Arabs, nevertheless, rejected the proposal. In contrast, the British place no controls on Arab immigration. The Hope Simpson Commission investigating the 1929 Arab riots found that the British practice of ignoring Arab immigration from Egypt, Transjordan and Syria was displacing potential Jewish immigrants. The Jewish Agency could openly work with the legal immigrant and assimilate them into the (the Yishuv), the Palestinian Jewish community. The subsequent Peel Commission reported in 1937 that the “shortfall of land is, we consider, due less to the amount of land acquired by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population.” [Palestine Royal Commission Report, p. 242.] Even after the British learned of the NAZI mass slaughter of Jews, they contunue to strictly limmit Jewish immigration.

Created: 8:15 AM 11/2/2017
Last updated: 8:15 AM 11/2/2017