The Law of Return and absorption

The Canaanites, about two dozen members, contrasted the sabra with the Diaspora Jew and dreamed of a Land of Kedem predating Judaism and Islam.3

Praise of the new Hebrew man and woman appealed to intellectuals, and the Israeli/Diaspora divide shaped early culture.4

Some officials said Israel could not take every Jew. Finance minister Eliezer Kaplan said: we need workers and fighters.5

On July 5, 1950, the Law of Return gave every Jew the right to immigrate. Some 700,000 arrived over the next four years.1

Michael Goldman survived 80 lashes and called his family's disbelief the eighty-first blow. The story became a film.6

Ben-Gurion called survivors human dust. A Mapai leader demanded they learn love of homeland, a work ethic, and morals.7

Survivors' presence recalled that the Yishuv had been unable to rescue large numbers or stop the Holocaust.8

Yosef Rosensaft, a displaced-persons leader at Bergen-Belsen, accused Zionists of dancing the hora while others burned in the crematoria.10

In winter 1949, in Haifa, Rita Waxman found her son Haim, separated from her in Poland when he was 14.11

Between 1948 and 1951, Jews leaving Arab lands numbered about two hundred sixty thousand and accounted for roughly 56 percent of new arrivals.12

Yitzhak Greenbaum objected to bringing Yemenites, saying 70 percent of them were sick.14

Ben-Gurion wanted the Yemenite immigrant to forget his origin, as he claimed to have forgotten that he was Polish.15

Operation Ezra and Nehemia, in 1950 and 1951, airlifted 100,000 Jews from Iraq.16

In November 1950 Ben-Gurion wrote Yigael Yadin that Yemenites were 2,000 years behind in basic concepts of civilization, while also calling them more easily absorbed and versed in Hebrew.18

The chapter map lists about 120,000 Jewish immigrants in 1948 and 240,000 in 1949.19

In 1949, housing and jobs for 230,000 immigrants were estimated at up to 700 million dollars. The government printed money and rationed food.20

Ben-Gurion said that without austerity it would be nearly impossible to manage defense, immigrant absorption, and an acceptable living standard.22

Despite splits between secular and religious, left and right, Ashkenazim and others, the chapter concludes that a nation was forged.23

The election of January 25, 1949, chose 120 members by universal suffrage from age 18. Ben-Gurion's Labor won and held power until 1977.24

Hebrew as the national language and compulsory military service formed a shared culture amid near-constant war.26