Aliya

Jewish children rescued from the German concentration camps in 1945 on their way to the State for the Jews in the British Mandate of Palestine (now known as the State of Israel).

Aliyah (Hebrew, עלייה‎, “ascent”), also spelled Aliyah, plural aliyah, is the term used to refer to Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel (and since its creation in 1948, to the State of Israel). The person who makes aliya is called olé (masculine) or olá (feminine); plural olím or olot, respectively. The reverse action, emigration from Israel to another territory, or diaspora, is known as ieridah or “descent”.

Aliyah in Zionism and Judaism

Jewish migration to Israel from 1948 to 2007.

The concept of aliyah to the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael) is central to Jewish culture and religion and forms the fundamental basis of Zionism.

The 1950 Law of Return, which guarantees any Jew in the world their right to migrate to Israel, settle there, and obtain Israeli citizenship almost without hindrance, is based on that idea. The term aliyah includes both voluntary migration for ideological, emotional or practical reasons, as well as that of persecuted Jewish populations. While Israel is commonly recognized as "a country of immigrants," it is also, to a large extent, a country of refugees. The vast majority of Jews in Israel today have recent family roots outside the country.

Etymologically, the word aliyah is related to the Hebrew term aliyah la'réguel (עלייה לרגל), which means “pilgrimage”, due to the effect of ascension to Jerusalem during the prescribed pilgrimages for the holidays of Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot. Many religious Jews espouse immigration as a return to the promised land, seeing it as the fulfillment of God's Biblical promise to the descendants of the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The return to Zion has been incorporated into Jewish law as a religious obligation for every Jew. Although authorities differ as to the precise condition of the obligation, its legal force is seen in a number of rulings, such as that a spouse's refusal to accompany a husband or wife on a transfer to Earth of Israel is grounds for divorce.

Waves of immigration or aliot

During the recent history of the Jewish people—the time of Zionism—there have been five main waves of immigration or aliyot to Palestine, prior to the creation of the State of Israel:

• First Alia (1881-1903)
• Second Ali (1904-1914)
• Third Aliba (1919-1923)
• Fourth Aliyá (1924-1929)
• Fifth aliá (1929-1939)

Office of the Ministry of Alia and Immigration in Jerusalem

After the creation of the State of Israel, the Jewish population of the country multiplied more than eight times (thanks to the successive Aliot), going from 650,000 people in 1948 to some 5,415,000 in 2007.

According to Chaim Weizmann, between 1840 and 2000, 3,400,000 people arrived in Israel in various aliot, for religious-national, economic reasons or seeking refuge as a result of the Holocaust^{[ citation required]}. As a consequence of this, the relationship between the Jewish and non-Jewish population in Israel gradually changed. Thus, while in 1882 the percentage of the Jewish population in Palestine was 8%, in 1931 it became 16.9% and in 1946 30%.

The first two aliot were made up of immigrants mostly from Eastern Europe. They were caused by economic reasons and, above all, by persecution. These immigration waves were part of a much larger emigration of Eastern European Jews, most of whom fled to the United States. However, many of those who had been part of the early Zionist movements went to Israel. Many of them were socialist Zionists and among them were the kibbutz pioneers. The Balfour Declaration, as well as the Russian Revolution and its consequences, brought about the third aliyah.

The fourth aliyah, which lasted from 1924 to about 1930, differs from previous waves in that it was triggered almost exclusively by economic conditions. As a result of a series of harsh fiscal policies in Poland, some 80,000 Jews immigrated to Israel, the vast majority settling in the center of urban development, Tel Aviv.

The fifth aliyah came mainly from Eastern Europe, with a very significant minority from Germany. Many of the German immigrants were highly educated and professional, and played an important role in the economic development of the Ishuv. The Second World War gave a decisive impetus to immigration, especially illegal, due to British immigration restrictions.

With the establishment of Israel as a sovereign state, immigration formally took precedence with the enactment of the Law of Return, which grants immediate citizenship to immigrating Jews. The law had both ideological and self-interest components - it was generally perceived that the country needed population growth for its defense and survival. However, the ensuing mass immigration, especially from North African countries (Mizrahi or Eastern Jews), was seen by some as a threat to Israel, economic stability and the Westernized or Ashkenazi character of the state, and they called for immigration restrictions.. Nonetheless, the government continued to encourage mass immigration, even though it was ill-equipped to handle it. This mass immigration has radically changed the ethnic composition of Israel, previously largely of European origin (Ashkenazi or European Jews), and the continuing interplay between ethnicity and socioeconomic status has been a growing source of tension throughout society.

During the 1970s, immigration was driven primarily by émigrés from the Soviet Union, most of whom came as victims of persecution and for ideological reasons. On the contrary, the vast majority of the close to one million immigrants from the former USSR in the 1990s came for economic reasons. Soviet immigrants in general, and especially those of the 1990s, maintained a strong identification with their ancient origins and have forced Israeli society and politics to become much more multicultural. They have even created their own party, Israel Beitenu, whose electorate is made up mainly of immigrants born in the former USSR.