r/JewsOfConscience Jewish Anti-Zionist Sep 27 '24

History During the first few decades of Zionist immigration to Palestine, Zionist leaders rejected ~61% of immigrant applicants on the basis of their 'economic situation'.

https://x.com/_ZachFoster/status/1839340554347270415
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u/ArmyOfMemories Jewish Anti-Zionist Sep 27 '24

More excerpts:

The letters sent to the Zionist information bureaus enable us to gain a better understanding of the considerations involved in immigration to Palestine. The representatives’ answers, on the other hand, reveal the Zionist policy with regard to immigration to Palestine and the kind of immigrants that the Zionist movement wanted. Until the outbreak of World War I, the Zionist movement did not have an official policy with regard to immigration, but an earnest debate took place within it on the question of “the good of the people” versus “the good of the land.” Those that favored the good of the people desired a mass migration of the Jews to Palestine to rescue them physically and spiritually, while those who favored the good of the land claimed that the country was unable in a short time to absorb masses of Jews seeking to emigrate. They therefore claimed that people with capital or people able to work should be given preference to poor immigrants or those with limited capacities who had little to contribute to the Yishuv. In 1882, for instance, the secretary of the Hibbat Zion movement, Moshe Lieb Lilienblum, said that “if we want to settle the land, we can only consider the rich, who can buy property at full price and prepare all the instruments at their own expense, but there is no room for the poor in Palestine.”73 However, Theodor Herzl, in his book The Jewish State (1896), took the opposite approach: “We must not visualize the exodus of the Jews as a sudden one. It will be gradual, proceeding over a period of decades. The poorest will go first and cultivate the soil. They will construct roads, bridges, railways and telegraph installations, regulate rivers, and provide themselves with homesteads.”74

  • Alroey, Gur. An Unpromising Land (Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture) (pp. 96-97). Stanford University Press. Kindle Edition.

The answers of Sheinkin and Ruppin, the directors of the information bureaus, to those who approached them, show that both of them favored a selective immigration of capitalists first and preferred “the good of the land” to “the good of the people.” In their opinion, Palestine was unable to absorb immigrants without capital, because they would be unable to subsist there. So if poor immigrants did come, they might endanger the whole settlement enterprise. Palestine, said Ruppin, was not a land of refuge, and it was incapable of absorbing unsuitable immigrants. The natural goal of immigration was therefore the United States and not Palestine.75 Menahem Sheinkin said similar things when stating the policy of the information bureau on taking up his post:

The information bureau for Palestinian affairs declares the following: the present situation in the country is that new migrants with no means have no chance of subsisting. The other type of people, who can come without asking if they have a place here, is those with capital, with larger or smaller financial resources. For these, conditions in Palestine are very good, even if they are not specialists in any field.76

In a letter to Otto Warburg, a member of the executive committee, Sheinkin told him “that the Yishuv in Palestine is growing by thousands, and they want to come here and make a living from their work. The bureau must tell them once again that insofar as the Yishuv can absorb artisans, it has almost absorbed as many as it needs, for there are artisans for whom there is already no room in Palestine.”77 Even at the end of the period, Sheinkin continued to be of the opinion that only healthy immigrants with the financial means to set themselves up were needed in the country. If immigrants of the other kind arrived, the whole Zionist enterprise would be endangered. We all have one aspiration and objective, said Sheinkin,

which is to strengthen and improve it through the entry into the country of an abundance of healthy and strong elements that have the means to strike roots, to live and to give life. We also know that, as against this, it would be a great danger to the Yishuv and all our work if, as a result of our advice and directives, undesirable elements—that is to say, ones that have no chance of managing here—would come to settle, because, in returning to the countries they came from, they have the power to destroy in one hour what we have built over a considerable length of time. We all know that it is much easier to destroy than to build or to reconstruct.78

Sheinkin claimed that “the undesirable elements” would not only be a burden on the Yishuv but also, in returning to their countries of origin because of their inability to support themselves, they would give Palestine a bad name. In this way, he said, they would prevent the arrival of immigrants with means and the capacity to pay their way who could contribute to the development of the Yishuv.

  • Alroey, Gur. An Unpromising Land (Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture) (p. 98). Stanford University Press. Kindle Edition.

[...]that 61 percent of the applicants received negative answers from Sheinkin and Ruppin. About 18 percent of the replies had conditions attached, such as: come, investigate, and then decide; come only if you have enough money; or come only if you are prepared to manage with little. About 21 percent of the applicants received positive replies without conditions or restrictions. The criteria for recommendation were fixed according to the economic situation of the applicant, and there was a correlation between his capital and the answer he received.

  • Alroey, Gur. An Unpromising Land (Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture) (p. 99). Stanford University Press. Kindle Edition.