1941 Hebrew HOLOCAUST Lea GRUNDIG Jewish BOOK Children REFUGEES Israel JUDAICA

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Seller: judaica-bookstore ✉️ (2,805) 100%, Location: TEL AVIV, IL, Ships to: WORLDWIDE, Item: 276250118018 1941 Hebrew HOLOCAUST Lea GRUNDIG Jewish BOOK Children REFUGEES Israel JUDAICA.

DESCRIPTION :  Here for sale is a RARE illustrated 1941 Hebrew book , Which tells in text and ILLUSTRATIONS the TRUE story of the JEWISH IMMIGRANTS children -  HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS . The book is names " The ANNALS of a YOUNG REFUGEE " ( Ma'Apil Tzair ) The touching text was written by BRACHA HABAS. Published in ERETZ ISRAEL ( Then also named PALESTINE ) over EIGHTY years ago , In the midst of WW2 and the HOLOCAUST in 1941- 42 . Based on testimonies and interviews which were gathered between the years 1941 - 1942. LEA GRUNDIG , Herself being a Holocaust survivor , Created several books in which she depicted the Holocaust horrors with her ETCHINGS . This book is one of these RARE publications. Original ILLUSTRATED cloth HC.  5 x 7" . 190 PP.  Very good condition for age. Tightly bound. Age tanning of leaves. Foxing of cloth HC. Very nicely preserved ex library copy.( Pls look at scan for accurate AS IS images ) . Will be sent inside a protective packaging .

AUTHENTICITY : This is the ORIGINAL 1941 first and only edition ( Dated ) , NOT a more recent edition or a reprint  , It holds a life long GUARANTEE for its AUTHENTICITY and ORIGINALITY.

PAYMENTS : Payment method accepted : Paypal & All credit cards. SHIPPMENT : SHIPP worldwide via  registered airmail is $ 25 . Book will be sent inside a protective packaging . Will be sent  around 5-10 days after payment .   The Holocaust (also called Shoah in Hebrew) refers to the period from January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, to May 8, 1945 (V¬E Day), when the war in Europe ended. During this time, Jews in Europe were subjected to progressively harsh persecution that ultimately led to the murder of 6,000,000 Jews (1.5 million of these being children) and the destruction of 5,000 Jewish communities. These deaths represented two-thirds of European Jewry and one-third of world Jewry. The Jews who died were not casualties of the fighting that ravaged Europe during World War II. Rather, they were the victims of Germany's deliberate and systematic attempt to annihilate the entire Jewish population of Europe, a plan Hitler called the “Final Solution” (Endlosung). After its defeat in World War I, Germany was humiliated by the Versailles Treaty, which reduced its prewar territory, drastically reduced its armed forces, demanded the recognition of its guilt for the war, and stipulated it pay reparations to the allied powers. The German Empire destroyed, a new parliamentary government called the Weimar Republic was formed. The republic suffered from economic instability, which grew worse during the worldwide depression after the New York stock market crash in 1929. Massive inflation followed by very high unemployment heightened existing class and political differences and began to undermine the government. On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist German Workers (N azi) Party, was named chancellor by president Paul von Hindenburg after the Na zi party won a significant percentage of the vote in the elections of 1932. The N azi Party had taken advantage of the political unrest in Germany to gain an electoral foothold. The Na zis incited clashes with the communists, who many feared, disrupted the government with demonstrations, and conduc ted a vicious propaganda campaign against its political opponents-the weak Weimar government, and the Jews, whom the Na zis blamed for Germany's ills. Propaganda: “The Jews Are Our Misfortune” A major tool of the Na zis' propaganda assault was the weekly N azi newspaper Der Stürmer (The Attacker). At the bottom of the front page of each issue, in bold letters, the paper proclaimed, "The Jews are our misfortune!" Der Stürmer also regularly featured cartoons of Jews in which they were caricatured as hooked-nosed and ape¬like. The influence of the newspaper was far-reaching: by 1938 about a half million copies were distributed weekly. Soon after he became chancellor, Hitler called for new elections in an effort to get full control of the Reichstag, the German parliament, for the Na zis. The Na zis used the government apparatus to terrorize the other parties. They arrested their leaders and banned their political meetings. Then, in the midst of the election campaign, on February 27, 1933, the Reichstag building burned. A Dutchman named Marinus van der Lubbe was arrested for the crime, and he swore he had acted alone. Although many suspected the Na zis were ultimately responsible for the act, the N azis managed to blame the Communists, thus turning more votes their way. The fire signaled the demise of German democracy. On the next day, the government, under the pretense of controlling the Communists, abolished individual rights and protections: freedom of the press, assembly, and expression were nullified, as well as the right to privacy. When the elections were held on March 5, the Naz is received nearly 44 percent of the vote, and with 8 percent offered by the Conservatives, won a majority in the government. The Na zis moved swiftly to consolidate their power into a dictatorship. On March 23, the Enabling Act was passed. It sanctioned Hitler’s dictatorial efforts and legally enabled him to pursue them further. The Na zis marshaled their formidable propaganda machine to silence their critics. They also developed a sophisticated police and military force. The Sturmabteilung (S.A., Storm Troopers), a grassroots organization, helped Hitler undermine the German democracy. The Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei, Secret State Police), a force recruited from professional police officers, was given complete freedom to arrest anyone after February 28. The Schutzstaffel (SS, Protection Squad) served as Hitler’s personal bodyguard and eventually controlled the concentration camps and the Gestapo. The Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers¬SS (S.D., Security Service of the SS) functioned as the Na zis' intelligence service, uncovering enemies and keeping them under surveillance. With this police infrastructure in place, opponents of the Na zis were terrorized, beaten, or sent to one of the concentration camps the Germans built to incarcerate them. Dachau, just outside of Munich, was the first such camp built for political prisoners. Dachau's purpose changed over time and eventually became another brutal concentration camp for Jews. By the end of 1934 Hitler was in absolute control of Germany, and his campaign against the Jews in full swing. The Na zis claimed the Jews corrupted pure German culture with their "foreign" and "mongrel" influence. They portrayed the Jews as evil and cowardly, and Germans as hardworking, courageous, and honest. The Jews, the N azis claimed, who were heavily represented in finance, commerce, the press, literature, theater, and the arts, had weakened Germany's economy and culture. The massive government-supported propaganda machine created a racial anti-Semitism, which was different from the long¬standing anti-Semitic tradition of the Christian churches. The superior race was the "Aryans," the Germans. The word Aryan, "derived from the study of linguistics, which started in the eighteenth century and at some point determined that the Indo-Germanic (also known as Aryan) languages were superior in their structures, variety, and vocabulary to the Semitic languages that had evolved in the Near East. This judgment led to a certain conjecture about the character of the peoples who spoke these languages; the conclusion was that the 'Aryan' peoples were likewise superior to the 'Semitic' ones" (Leni Yahil, The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, p. 36). The Jews Are Isolated from Society The Na zis then combined their racial theories with the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin to justify their treatment of the Jews. The Germans, as the strongest and fittest, were destined to rule, while the weak and racially adulterated Jews were doomed to extinction. Hitler began to restrict the Jews with legislation and terror, which entailed burning books written by Jews, removing Jews from their professions and public schools, confiscating their businesses and property and excluding them from public events. The most infamous of the anti-Jewish legislation were the Nuremberg Laws, enacted on September 15, 1935. They formed the legal basis for the Jews' exclusion from German society and the progressively restrictive Jewish policies of the Germans. Many Jews attempted to flee Germany, and thousands succeeded by immigrating to such countries as Belgium, Czechoslovakia, England, France and Holland. It was much more difficult to get out of Europe. Jews encountered stiff immigration quotas in most of the world's countries. Even if they obtained the necessary documents, they often had to wait months or years before leaving. Many families out of desperation sent their children first. In July 1938, representatives of 32 countries met in the French town of Evian to discuss the refugee and immigration problems created by the Naz is in Germany. Nothing substantial was done or decided at the Evian Conference, and it became apparent to Hitler that no one wanted the Jews and that he would not meet resistance in instituting his Jewish policies. By the autumn of 1941, Europe was in effect sealed to most legal emigration. The Jews were trapped. On November 9¬10, 1938, the attacks on the Jews became violent. Hershel Grynszpan, a 17¬year¬old Jewish boy distraught at the deportation of his family, shot Ernst vom Rath, the third secretary in the German Embassy in Paris, who died on November 9. Na zi hooligans used this assassination as the pretext for instigating a night of destruction that is now known as Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass). They looted and destroyed Jewish homes and businesses and burned synagogues. Many Jews were beaten and killed; 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps. The Jews Are Confined to Ghettos Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, beginning World War II. Soon after, in 1940, the N azis began establishing ghettos for the Jews of Poland. More than 10 percent of the Polish population was Jewish, numbering about three million. Jews were forcibly deported from their homes to live in crowded ghettos, isolated from the rest of society. This concentration of the Jewish population later aided the Naz is in their deportation of the Jews to the death camps. The ghettos lacked the necessary food, water, space, and sanitary facilities required by so many people living within their constricted boundaries. Many died of deprivation and starvation. The “Final Solution” In June 1941 Germany attacked the Soviet Union and began the "Final Solution." Four mobile killing groups were formed called Einsatzgruppen A, B, C and D. Each group contained several commando units. The Einsatzgruppen gathered Jews town by town, marched them to huge pits dug earlier, stripped them, lined them up, and shot them with automatic weapons. The dead and dying would fall into the pits to be buried in mass graves. In the infamous Babi Yar massacre, near Kiev, 30,000-35,000 Jews were killed in two days. In addition to their operations in the Soviet Union, the Einsatzgruppen conducted mass murder in eastern Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. It is estimated that by the end of 1942, the Einsatzgruppen had murdered more than 1.3 million Jews. On January 20, 1942, several top officials of the German government met to officially coordinate the military and civilian administrative branches of the N azi system to organize a system of mass murder of the Jews. This meeting, called the Wannsee Conference, "marked the beginning of the full-scale, comprehensive extermination operation [of the Jews] and laid the foundations for its organization, which started immediately after the conference ended" (Yahil, The Holocaust, p. 318). While the N azis murdered other national and ethnic groups, such as a number of Soviet prisoners of war, Polish intellectuals, and gypsies, only the Jews were marked for systematic and total annihilation. Jews were singled out for "Special Treatment" (Sonderbehandlung), which meant that Jewish men, women and children were to be methodically killed with poisonous gas. In the exacting records kept at the Auschwitz death camp, the cause of death of Jews who had been gassed was indicated by "SB," the first letters of the two words that form the German term for "Special Treatment." By the spring of 1942, the Na zis had established six killing centers (death camps) in Poland: Chelmno (Kulmhof), Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Maidanek and Auschwitz. All were located near railway lines so that Jews could be easily transported daily. A vast system of camps (called Lagersystem) supported the death camps. The purpose of these camps varied: some were slave labor camps, some transit camps, others concentration camps and their sub¬camps, and still others the notorious death camps. Some camps combined all of these functions or a few of them. All the camps were intolerably brutal. The major concentration camps were Ravensbruck, Neuengamme, Bergen-Belsen, Sachsenhausen, Gross-Rosen, Buchenwald, Theresienstadt, Flossenburg, Natzweiler-Struthof, Dachau, Mauthausen, Stutthof, and Dora/Nordhausen. In nearly every country overrun by the Na zis, the Jews were forced to wear badges marking them as Jews, they were rounded up into ghettos or concentration camps and then gradually transported to the killing centers. The death camps were essentially factories for murdering Jews. The Germans shipped thousands of Jews to them each day. Within a few hours of their arrival, the Jews had been stripped of their possessions and valuables, gassed to death, and their bodies burned in specially designed crematoriums. Approximately 3.5 million Jews were murdered in these death camps. Many healthy, young strong Jews were not killed immediately. The Germans' war effort and the “Final Solution” required a great deal of manpower, so the Germans reserved large pools of Jews for slave labor. These people, imprisoned in concentration and labor camps, were forced to work in German munitions and other factories, such as I.G. Farben and Krupps, and wherever the Na zis needed laborers. They were worked from dawn until dark without adequate food and shelter. Thousands perished, literally worked to death by the Germans and their collaborators. In the last months of Hitler’s Reich, as the German armies retreated, the Na zis began marching the prisoners still alive in the concentration camps to the territory they still controlled. The Germans forced the starving and sick Jews to walk hundreds of miles. Most died or were shot along the way. About a quarter of a million Jews died on the death marches. Jewish Resistance The Germans' overwhelming repression and the presence of many collaborators in the various local populations severely limited the ability of the Jews to resist. Jewish resistance did occur, however, in several forms. Staying alive, clean, and observing Jewish religious traditions constituted resistance under the dehumanizing conditions imposed by the Naz s. Other forms of resistance involved escape attempts from the ghettos and camps. Many who succeeded in escaping the ghettos lived in the forests and mountains in family camps and in fighting partisan units. Once free, though, the Jews had to contend with local residents and partisan groups who were often openly hostile. Jews also staged armed revolts in the ghettos of Vilna, Bialystok, Bedzin-Sosnowiec, Cracow, and Warsaw. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the largest ghetto revolt. Massive deportations (or Aktions) had been held in the ghetto from July to September 1942, emptying the ghetto of the majority of Jews imprisoned there. When the Germans entered the ghetto again in January 1943 to remove several thousand more, small unorganized groups of Jews attacked them. After four days, the Germans withdrew from the ghetto, having deported far fewer people than they had intended. The Na zis reentered the ghetto on April 19, 1943, the eve of Passover, to evacuate the remaining Jews and close the ghetto. The Jews, using homemade bombs and stolen or bartered weapons, resisted and withstood the Germans for 27 days. They fought from bunkers and sewers and evaded capture until the Germans burned the ghetto building by building. By May 16 the ghetto was in ruins and the uprising crushed. Jews also revolted in the death camps of Sobibor, Treblinka and Auschwitz. All of these acts of resistance were largely unsuccessful in the face of the superior German forces, but they were very important spiritually, giving the Jews hope that one day the Naz is would be defeated. Liberation and the End of War The camps were liberated gradually, as the Allies advanced on the German army. For example, Maidanek (near Lublin, Poland) was liberated by Soviet forces in July 1944, Auschwitz in January 1945 by the Soviets, Bergen-Belsen (near Hanover, Germany) by the British in April 1945, and Dachau by the Americans in April 1945. At the end of the war, between 50,000 and 100,000 Jewish survivors were living in three zones of occupation: American, British and Soviet. Within a year, that figure grew to about 200,000. The American zone of occupation contained more than 90 percent of the Jewish displaced persons (DPs). The Jewish DPs would not and could not return to their homes, which brought back such horrible memories and still held the threat of danger from anti-Semitic neighbors. Thus, they languished in DP camps until emigration could be arranged to Palestine, and later Israel, the United States, South America and other countries. The last DP camp closed in 1957 (David S. Wyman, "The United States," in David S. Wyman, ed., The World Reacts to the Holocaust, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, pp. 707¬10). Below are figures for the number of Jews murdered in each country that came under German domination. They are estimates, as are all figures relating to Holocaust victims. The numbers given here for Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania are based on their territorial borders before the 1938 Munich agreement. The total number of six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, which emerged from the Nuremberg trials, is also an estimate. Numbers have ranged between five and seven million killed. Africa 526 Albania 200 Austria 65,000 Belgium 24,387 Czechoslovakia 277,000 Denmark 77 Estonia 4,000 France 83,000 Germany 160,000 Greece 71,301 Hungary 305,000 Italy 8,000 Latvia 85,000 Lithuania 135,000 Luxembourg 700 Netherlands 106,000 Norway 728 Poland 3,001,000 Romania 364,632 Soviet Union 1,500,000 Yugoslavia 67,122 ****** The ghetto was not a Naz i invention. Its origins can be traced back to medieval times, when restrictions on the places where Jews were allowed to reside were commonplace throughout Europe. Although this restriction is usually perceived as relating to towns or cities, it even applied in certain cases to entire countries. For example, in 1791, Catherine the Great created the Pale of Settlement in western Russia. Most Jews were only allowed to reside within the Pale, and even there some cities were prohibited to them. Even earlier, in 1290, Edward I had expelled all Jews from England. They were not to be officially permitted to return until the time of Oliver Cromwell in 1655. To an extent, only being allowed to live in specified parts of a city presented no great problems to an almost wholly Orthodox community. Judaism, with its many religious requirements, encouraged Jews to live in close proximity to each other and their religious institutions. Whilst they were generally free to come and go within the towns in which they dwelt, until the mid-19th century there were special Jewish districts called "Jewish towns" in many larger Polish towns and cities. This was especially true of places that until the end of the 18th century were the property of Polish kings. Jews could only live in these specified districts. They were not permitted to live inside the towns' walls, in the so-called "Christian towns", although Jews were permitted to trade with Christians and to even rent small shops within the Christian sector. In towns belonging to the church, Jews were not allowed to settle at all until 1861-1862. By way of contrast, in smaller provincial towns which were the private property of aristocratic families, Jews were unreservedly welcomed because of the economic benefits they brought. It was frequently a less than idyllic existence, but it was bearable. Anti-Semitism was endemic, based upon religious bigotry and economic envy. From time to time it erupted in pogroms, most notoriously under the leadership of Bogdan Chmielnicki, who between1648-1656 is estimated to have murdered 500,000 Jews in Poland and central and eastern Ukraine – a loss of Jewish life not to be exceeded until the years of the Holocaust. The assassination of Czar Alexander II in 1881 unleashed a wave of anti-Jewish violence that resulted in the start of the great emigration from Russia and Congress Poland to the west, a process that continued largely uninterrupted until the outbreak of the First World War. An even bloodier outbreak of pogroms in 1903-1906 only served to increase the flood of eastern European Jews seeking shelter from persecution. Having immigrated to new countries, Jews tended to congregate in particular areas of a town or city even when no longer forced to do so, for the reasons already stated. That was a matter of choice. The Naz is eliminated that choice. Although ghettoisation as such was never introduced in the Reich itself, and only slowly appeared in the countries occupied by Germany, its effect was intentionally lethal. As will be detailed, whilst ghettos might be “open”, permitting some communication with the outside world, or “closed”, virtually sealed off from all exterior contact, almost all of them shared certain features in common. Dilapidated housing, appalling sanitary conditions, inadequate and poor quality food, absence of medical supplies and facilities – this was the lot of the ghetto dweller. And most of those ghetto dwellers also shared a common end. They died of starvation, disease and exhaustion within the ghetto, or at shooting pits and death camps outside of it. The first Na zi ghettos were never intended to be more than temporary, an interim concentration of Jews pending a decision concerning what the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” was going to be. That decision went through many convoluted changes before its ultimate determination. The policy towards the incarcerated Jews also changed as the realisation dawned on the Germans that a captive labour force could be put to better use than sweeping snow, or breaking rocks. Later, the ghettos served as convenient points at which to concentrate that Jewish labour force prior to its liquidation. Not every town had a ghetto. Reinhard Heydrich’s strategy was to remove Jews from small villages and towns to larger conurbations. In some cases, ghettos were formed before the initial killing spree, in other cases afterwards. Hundreds of ghettos were established in N azi occupied Europe, ranging in size from the 445,000 inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto to those containing just a few families in rural quasi-ghettos. In short, despite Heydrich’s instructions, there was no consistently discernible pattern to ghettoisation, and policy decisions were frequently taken at a local level. As it became increasingly apparent where Na zi policy towards the Jews led, underground movements began to form in the ghettos. They were not always successful in organising resistance, and even if they did, none had a hope of success, but their dignity, courage and sacrifice were to provide an inspiration to generations as yet unborn. Today, the term “ghetto” has acquired a somewhat different meaning. It is no longer applied solely, if at all, to Jews. Any ethnic minority residing near to each other in a specific area of a city create what is often described as a “ghetto.” It may be that the choice of accommodation is forced upon them for economic reasons, but by and large, these communities congregate for the same reasons that Jews once did. It is comforting to be surrounded by one’s peers, religious or racial. But in no way can these modern “ghettos” be compared to the N azi version. The ghettos of the Holocaust were described by one inmate as “a prison without a roof.” But they were much worse than that. A prison sentence offered at least the prospect of survival. For those interned in the ghettos, there was no such prospect. Slow and lingering, or swift and brutal, their fate was likely to be the same.There were of course survivors, and it is from their evidence and the extraordinarily detailed archives and personal diaries of those who did not survive, that it is possible to construct some kind of historical record of individual ghettos. No writing can begin to adequately describe the misery and despair of life in the ghettos established by the N azis. But compelled by an ancient tradition to “Schreibt un farschreibt!” – “Write and record!” a legacy was left which at least enables us to attempt to do so. ***** The term "ghetto" originated from the name of the Jewish quarter in Venice, established in 1516, in which the Venetian authorities compelled the city's Jews to live. Various authorities, ranging from local municipal authorities to the Austrian Emperor Charles V, ordered the creation of other ghettos for Jews in Frankfurt, Rome, Prague, and other cities in the 16th and 17th centuries. During World War II, ghettos were city districts (often enclosed) in which the Germans concentrated the municipal and sometimes regional Jewish population and forced them to live under miserable conditions. Ghettos isolated Jews by separating Jewish communities from the non-Jewish population and from other Jewish communities. The Germans established at least 1,000 ghettos in German-occupied and annexed Poland and the Soviet Union alone. German occupation authorities established the first ghetto in Poland in Piotrków Trybunalski in October 1939 The Germans regarded the establishment of ghettos as a provisional measure to control and segregate Jews while the N azi leadership in Berlin deliberated upon options to realize the goal of removing the Jewish population. In many places ghettoization lasted a relatively short time. Some ghettos existed for only a few days, others for months or years. With the implementation of the "Final Solution" (the plan to murder all European Jews) beginning in late 1941, the Germans systematically destroyed the ghettos. The Germans and their auxiliaries either shot ghetto residents in mass graves located nearby or deported them, usually by train, to killing centers where they were murdered. German SS and police authorities deported a small minority of Jews from ghettos to forced-labor camps and concentration camps. There were three types of ghettos: closed ghettos, open ghettos, and destruction ghettos.The largest ghetto in Poland was the Warsaw ghetto, where over 400,000 Jews were crowded into an area of 1.3 square miles. Other major ghettos were established in the cities of Lodz, Krakow, Bialystok, Lvov, Lublin, Vilna, Kovno, Czestochowa, and Minsk. Tens of thousands of western European Jews were also deported to ghettos in the east. The Germans ordered Jews residing in ghettos to wear identifying badges or armbands and also required many Jews to perform forced labor for the German Reich. Daily life in the ghettos was administered by Na zi-appointed Jewish councils (Judenraete). A ghetto police force enforced the orders of the German authorities and the ordinances of the Jewish councils, including the facilitation of deportations to killing centers. Jewish police officials, like Jewish council members, served at the whim of the German authorities. The Germans did not hesitate to kill Jewish policemen who were perceived to have failed to carry out orders. Jews responded to the ghetto restrictions with a variety of resistance efforts. Ghetto residents frequently engaged in so-called illegal activities, such as smuggling food, medicine, weapons or intelligence across the ghetto walls, often without the knowledge or approval of the Jewish councils. Some Jewish councils and some individual council members tolerated or encouraged the illicit trade because the goods were necessary to keep ghetto residents alive. Although the Germans generally demonstrated little concern in principle about religious worship, attendance at cultural events, or participation in youth movements inside the ghetto walls, they often perceived a “security threat” in any social gathering and would move ruthlessly to incarcerate or kill perceived ringleaders and participants. The Germans generally forbade any form of consistent schooling or education. In some ghettos, members of Jewish resistance movements staged armed uprisings. The largest of these was the Warsaw ghetto uprising in spring 1943. There were also violent revolts in Vilna, Bialystok, Czestochowa, and several smaller ghettos. In August 1944, German SS and police completed the destruction of the last major ghetto, in Lodz. The Germans ordered Jews residing in ghettos to wear identifying badges or armbands and also required many Jews to perform forced labor for the German Reich. Daily life in the ghettos was administered by Na zi-appointed Jewish councils (Judenraete). A ghetto police force enforced the orders of the German authorities and the ordinances of the Jewish councils, including the facilitation of deportations to killing centers. Jewish police officials, like Jewish council members, served at the whim of the German authorities. The Germans did not hesitate to kill Jewish policemen who were perceived to have failed to carry out orders. Jews responded to the ghetto restrictions with a variety of resistance efforts. Ghetto residents frequently engaged in so-called illegal activities, such as smuggling food, medicine, weapons or intelligence across the ghetto walls, often without the knowledge or approval of the Jewish councils. Some Jewish councils and some individual council members tolerated or encouraged the illicit trade because the goods were necessary to keep ghetto residents alive. Although the Germans generally demonstrated little concern in principle about religious worship, attendance at cultural events, or participation in youth movements inside the ghetto walls, they often perceived a “security threat” in any social gathering and would move ruthlessly to incarcerate or kill perceived ringleaders and participants. The Germans generally forbade any form of consistent schooling or education. In some ghettos, members of Jewish resistance movements staged armed uprisings. The largest of these was the Warsaw ghetto uprising in spring 1943. There were also violent revolts in Vilna, Bialystok, Czestochowa, and several smaller ghettos. In August 1944, German SS and police completed the destruction of the last major ghetto, in Lodz. In Hungary, ghettoization did not begin until the spring of 1944, after the Germans invaded and occupied the country. In less than three months, the Hungarian gendarmerie, in coordination with German deportation experts from the Reich Main Office for Security (Reichssicherheitshauptamt-RSHA), concentrated nearly 440,000 Jews from all over Hungary, except for the capital city, Budapest, in short-term “destruction ghettos” and deported them into German custody at the Hungarian border. The Germans deported most of the Hungarian Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. In Budapest, Hungarian authorities required the Jews to confine themselves to marked houses (so-called Star of David houses). A few weeks after the leaders of the fascist Arrow Cross movement seized power in a German-sponsored coup on October 15, 1944, the Arrow Cross government formally established a ghetto in Budapest, in which about 63,000 Jews lived in a 0.1 square mile area. Approximately 25,000 Jews who carried certificates that they stood under the protection of a neutral power were confined in an "international ghetto" at another location in the city. In January 1945, Soviet forces liberated that part of Budapest in which the two ghettos were, respectively, located and liberated the nearly 90,000 Jewish residents. During the Holocaust, ghettos were a central step in the Naz i process of control, dehumanization, and mass murder of the Jews. ********* Lea Grundig German, 1906-1977 Lea Grundig was one of the most important artists to follow in the tradition of Käthe Kollwitz, a much older contemporary. Like Kollwitz, Grundig was primarily concerned with documenting the lives of the working poor, and like Kollwitz, she was primarily a printmaker. Grundig created some of her most powerful work in the years immediately before and after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. She was, in fact, one of the only German artists to create work passionately criticizing the N azi regime while still living in Germany. The urgency of this period was a tremendous spur to her art, and she never quite equaled her earlier achievement in the work done subsequently, in Palestine and, after the War, in Communist East Germany. Biography Lea Lange was born in Dresden and raised as an Orthodox Jew. However, she found the Orthodox environment stifling, and in 1922 she began several years of art studies, first at the Academy of Arts and Crafts and then at the Academy of Art. Lea was impressed by the works of Barlach and Kokoschka, and the War cycle by Otto Dix reinforced her deep convictions as a pacifist. Around 1924, she met her future husband, the artist Hans Grundig, who came from a working-class background, and in 1926 both joined the Communist Party. Lea's father strongly objected to her political views and her association with Grundig. He sent her to a sanitarium in Heidelberg, and when Hans joined her there, Lea was shipped to Vienna. Again, Hans followed, and in 1928 the couple married. From that time on, they lived among their proletarian friends in one of Dresden’s poor housing units and eked out a meager living. In 1930, the couple and their friends joined the just-formed local branch of the Communist "Asso" (Association of German Revolutionary Artists). Lea Grundig preferred to create works on paper rather than on canvas, mostly in blacks, greys and whites, portraying her subjects in a social and psychological context that often reflected the misery and hardship of the working poor. In several etching cycles done during the early Na zi years, she aimed to depict "the thousand fears, the presentiment of doom, the imprisonment of the persecuted, the inhumanity and the fight against it by the best of mankind." Starting in 1936, both Grundigs were in and out of concentration camps as a result of their past Communist affiliations and ongoing anti-N azi activities. Lea managed to emigrate to Palestine, but Hans was incarcerated for the duration of the N azi period After World War II, Lea rejoined her husband in Dresden. Despite her unwavering Communist sympathies, Lea did not always have an easy time with the repressive East German regime, though toward the end of her life she was showered with many official honors. ************ Although little of Grundig’s work done prior to her emigration to Palestine survives, her printing plates were, amazingly, preserved through the war years. The Galerie St. Etienne usually has a good selection of etchings from the Weimar and early Hitler period, almost all of which were pulled after the war, when Grundig returned to Germany. These generally sell for about $3,000. Drawings from the early German period are, not surprisingly, much rarer and, when available, command roughly $10,000.00. *********** Käthe Kollwitz - Lea Grundig Two German Women & The Art of Protest Galerie St. Etienne, New York March 25, 1997 - May 31, 1997 Essay For some years, the Galerie St. Etienne has been engaged in a project which we hope will culminate in a book and a museum exhibition exploring the hitherto unacknowledged role played by women in the development of German Expressionism. The present show, based on a single chapter of this research, combines the work of one of Germany’s best known female artists, Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945), with one of the least known, Lea Grundig (1906-1977). Conventional art history posits Expressionism as a kind of Oedipal revolt of sons against fathers; a revolt which took aesthetic form in the first decade of the twentieth century and then assumed a more socio-political guise under the pressures of World War I and its aftermath in the unstable Weimar Republic. In this version of the story, the later heroes are artists such as George Grosz and Otto Dix, who risked persecution and prosecution to expose the corruption of Weimar society. However, the deeper and truer tradition of German artistic protest is that which was forged by Käthe Kollwitz at the turn of the century and which climaxed in the work of Lea Grundig, virtually the only artist who between 1933 and 1938 dared disseminate a substantial body of anti-Naz i art while still living in Hitler’s Germany.Not only did a significant art of protest arise earlier among German women than it did among men, but its female proponents evidenced a more sustained engagement with the genre. The most impassioned phases in the oeuvres of Grosz and Dix were fading by the mid 1920s, whereas Kollwitz and Grundig maintained a lifelong dedication to socially committed subject matter. And while Kollwitz and Grundig may be the most salient examples of this phenomenon, there were numerous other women (such as Kollwitz’s pupil, the slightly younger Sella Hasse, or later on, Jeanne Mammen and Hannah Höch) who in disparate ways trod similar paths. Indeed, social protest was one of the few areas in which female artists chose to and were allowed to take the lead. The question that must now be asked is, why?The most obvious answer to this question is that women were inclined to craft an art of protest because they were themselves an oppressed class. Though born into the bourgeoisie, Kollwitz (née Schmidt) and Grundig (née Langer) viewed the proletariat with a compassion that was for the most part alien to male artists of comparable social station. It is no coincidence that both women, once they had left the economic safety of their parental homes, began their careers by drawing empathic portraits of the working class. These portrayals violated significant taboos: when Kollwitz’s first print cycle, The Revolt of the Weavers (checklist nos. 6-10), was nominated for a gold medal at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in 1898, Kaiser Wilhelm II vetoed the award because he found the artist’s vision too gritty. Curiously, similar sentiments would be voiced over half a century later by the authorities in East Germany, who accused Grundig of catering to a decadent “cult of ugliness.” Neither Grundig, a dedicated communist, nor Kollwitz, who declined any party affiliation, would bend to the requirements of left-wing ideology. Their art rather reflected personal experience.As a result of their sympathetic identification with the under-class, Kollwitz and Grundig produced work that differs significantly both from that of Weimar Germany’s radical men, who concentrated on attacking the ruling powers, and from the kitschy idealizations of the proletariat that typify socialist realism. In her second print cycle, The Peasants’ War (checklist nos. 13, 17, 18), Kollwitz continued to describe and to some extent advocate armed revolution. Men and women were depicted equally as victims of oppression and as participants in the revolt, though the starring roles were given to female characters. Yet in the penultimate panel of the series, Battlefield, Kollwitz acknowledged that it is invariably men who die in battle and women who mourn. This reality was brought home by the artist’s own travails as a mother and especially by the death of her son Peter in World War I. Hereafter an avowed pacifist, Kollwitz devoted the remainder of her oeuvre to promulgating a world in which the female principles of nurturance and life would triumph over the male principles of war and death. The very fact and essence of being a woman thereby became a protest against the system that men have established. Kollwitz’s oeuvre is populated by a vast panoply of heroic women: the legendary “Black Anna,” who leads the peasants into battle; the mute widow whose open palms hang at her side in a gesture of stoic suffering (checklist no. 27); the anguished mothers who thrust themselves between their children’s bodies and death (checklist nos. 19, 24, 35). Grundig’s work, created at a slightly different time and under different circumstances, tells a sadder, quieter story. Like Kollwitz, Grundig executed print cycles, though hers were usually loosely related meditations on a common theme, rather than narratives with a specific linked sequence. The three Grundig cycles that are of most immediate interest, Woman’s Life (checklist nos. 49, 53, 56, 58, 62, 68, 69, 74, 75), Under the Swa stika (checklist nos. 51, 52, 57, 60, 61, 73, 76) and The Jew is to Blame (checklist nos. 66, 67), were created more or less simultaneously over a five year period following Hitler’s ascension to power in 1933. There are no heroes in these works, unless one counts Grundig herself, who courted death to produce and distribute them. Pulling editions that never exceeded five impressions on her own etching press, Grundig eventually managed to circulate hundreds of drypoints broadcasting the truth about Na zi Germany. Those that survive are from a relatively small group that made it out to Switzerland or Denmark. Grundig, who was Jewish, managed to survive, after two arrests, by escaping to Palestine. Grundig’s prints were for the most part attempts to bear witness, and while she was not above editorializing, she had no constructive solutions to propose. It was already an incendiary act to show that Na zi Germany was no paradise, but that its citizens wanted for adequate food and clothing (checklist no. 72). In contrast to Hitler’s icon of the happy Hausfrau, Grundig’s women were battered slaves to the domestic grind, so subordinate to this role that their presence need not even be mentioned in the titles The Kitchen and The Laundry Room. And though Grundig was devoted to her husband, the artist Hans Grundig, she depicted love as merely a momentary, fevered refuge from a living hell (checklist no. 59). For women less fortunate than she, suicide beckoned (checklist no. 70). Pregnancy was not a blessing, but a curse. The threat and then reality of Na zi persecution made it impossible for Grundig herself to consider motherhood, and perhaps in part for this reason, she (unlike Kollwitz) was not inclined to present children as the innocent seeds of a brighter future, but rather as the witless dupes of militaristic indoctrination (checklist nos. 63, 65, 71). Grundig concretely countered N azi propaganda by recording realistic human scenes of Jewish life, and she detailed the effects of Hitler’s policies by documenting mass emigration (checklist no. 64), Gestapo raids and the step-by-step legalization of murder. As early as 1935, her work spoke of impending war.It is clear that Grundig required great courage to pursue her chosen artistic course, and though Kollwitz, by then an elderly woman, allowed herself to be effectively silenced by Hitler, she had earlier demonstrated equivalent stamina and integrity of vision. Paradoxically, however, for all they risked in terms of content, neither Kollwitz nor Grundig was a stylistic revolutionary. In this, they represented the flip side of their male colleagues, who often stormed the bastions of academic aesthetic tradition, only to fall back on comparatively tame subject matter. One may surmise that it was difficult for German women to reject an academy from which they were officially excluded until 1919; how could they feel constricted by a tradition they had scarcely known? Beyond this, artists such as Kollwitz and Grundig may have sensed that aesthetic experimentation was in essence the prerogative of bourgeois male privilege. This fact, as it turned out, doomed much ostensibly revolutionary art of the early Weimar years: the male aesthetic was simply too rarefied to reach the masses. In choosing to retain a relatively realistic manner of rendering, Kollwitz and Grundig adopted the style that could most effectively serve their political purposes, while (perhaps unconsciously) skirting issues of male competition that might otherwise have sabotaged their careers. This was, admittedly, a double-edged sword: for while realism allowed the women to prevail professionally, up to a point and within certain narrowly defined parameters, their achievements were consigned, in part owing to their own aesthetic choices, to secondary status. It is not just that male-oriented histories of modernism grant the highest accolades to the stylistic revolutionaries, while disdaining work that is “merely” political. A humanistic bent can easily be branded “feminine” in a pejorative sense: sentimental, domestic, minor. Furthermore, both Kollwitz and Grundig, in devoting themselves chiefly to printmaking, had intentionally elected a minor art form.Kollwitz and Grundig decided to become printmakers both because printmaking suited their political agendas and because it offered a more viable alternative to painting, the medium of choice for men. Kollwitz could trace her decision to Max Klinger’s famous pronouncement that black and white is best suited to the expression of complex ideas, and to the discovery that she was an indifferent colorist. Still, not all painters have been great colorists, and as her rare colored prints demonstrate, Kollwitz could manipulate limited harmonies with profound subtlety (checklist no. 15). Similarly, Grundig turned to printmaking because she was overwhelmed by the superior coloristic talents of her husband Hans, a painter; while he readily created etchings, she did not feel comfortable treading on “his” turf. Printmaking was, in any case, the preferred medium for reaching the masses: inexpensive, capable of generating work in quantities that could be widely dispersed, and lacking the bourgeois preciousness of the painter’s touch. Especially for Grundig, but to a degree also for Kollwitz, printmaking provided a substitute for the conventional art market, with its elitist system of prizes, dealers, curators and critics. Once more, there was a trade-off between expediency and stature. The art of protest thus not only accorded with Kollwitz’s and Grundig’s personal experiences, it permitted them access to professional avenues that would otherwise have been foreclosed. They and women of similar inclinations could succeed in this genre because the logically attendant style and medium happened to be of relatively little interest or value to men. Like many of the most successful women artists of this period, Kollwitz and Grundig learned to function in the interstices and lacunae vacated by modernism’s overriding obsessions. It is for this reason, of course, that women’s achievements are often left out of the standard texts on modernism: much of their work does not quite fit. Perhaps, however, it is time to rethink a view of modernism so one-sided that it cannot encompass art as bold and moving and original as that created by Käthe Kollwitz and Lea Grundig. ************** (b Dresden, 23 March 1906; d Dresden, 10 Oct 1977). Printmaker, wife of (1) Hans Grundig. She studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule (1922-3) and then at the Akademie der Bildenden K?nste (1923), both in Dresden. However, the painting of Otto Dix influenced her more than her teachers, as did Dix's associate Hans Grundig, to whom she was married in 1928 and who encouraged her sharp social criticism and her enthusiasm for Communism. She was arrested twice during the Third Reich because of her party membership and her Jewish background, and because she was producing etchings with anti-Naz i themes, such as Under the Swas tika (1933-7; Berlin, Ladengal.) and the 12-plate series War Is Threatened (1935-7; see 1975-6 exh. cat., pp. 63-5). ********* Lea Grundig (* 23. März 1906 in Dresden als Lea Langer; † 10. Oktober 1977 während einer Mittelmeerreise) war eine deutsche Malerin und Grafikerin. Grundig rebellierte schon als junges Mädchen gegen die jüdisch-orthodoxe Einstellung der Familie und das „Händlertum“ des Vaters. Im Jahr 1923 begann sie ein Studium an der Akademie der Bildenden Künste Dresden und heiratete den Malerkollegen Hans Grundig. Sie wurde 1926 Mitglied der KPD und Mitbegründerin der Künstlergruppe Asso. In der Folgezeit schuf sie die Zyklen „Harzburger Front“, „Unterm Hakenkreuz“, „Der Jude ist schuld!“, „Krieg droht!“, „Im Tal des Todes“ und „Ghetto“. Im Jahr 1933 erhielt sie ein Ausstellungsverbot, im Mai 1936 wurde sie schließlich verhaftet. Wegen ihrer Mitgliedschaft in kommunistischen Organisationen war sie von Mai 1938 bis Dezember 1939 in Haft. Sie kam 1940 in ein Flüchtlingslager in der Slowakei und ging im Jahr darauf nach Palästina ins Exil. Bis 1942 lebte sie im Flüchtlingslager Atlit, danach in Haifa und Tel Aviv. Von November 1948 bis Februar 1949 lebte sie in Prag und kehrte anschließend nach Dresden zurück, wo sie 1949 eine Professur erhielt. Während dieser Zeit unternahm sie Reisen in die Volksrepublik China, nach Kuba und Kambodscha. Im Jahr 1961 wurde sie Ordentliches Mitglied der Akademie der Künste der DDR und war von 1964 bis 1970 Präsidentin des Verbandes Bildender Künstler. Ab 1964 war sie Mitglied des Zentralkomitee der SED. Im Jahr 1967 erhielt sie den Nationalpreis der DDR Erster Klasse und wurde 1970 Ehrenpräsidentin des Verbandes Bildender Künstler. Ihr wurde 1972 der Ehrendoktor der Universität Greifswald verliehen. In den Jahren 1975 und 1976 waren ihr große Personalausstellungen in Berlin und Dresden gewidmet. Sie starb im Jahr 1977 während einer Mittelmeerreise und liegt in Dresden begraben. Das Gesicht der Arbeiterklasse, 50 Drucke von Arbeiten aus den Jahren 1929 - 1977, Verlag Volk und Wissen Junge Ärztin aus einer Dresdner PoliklinikStraße in SchwedtDresden - Neumarkt Literatur [Bearbeiten] Autobiografie Gesichte und Geschichte (1960), Lea Grundig, ISBN 3320005863 Lea Grundig, Wolfgang Hütt, 1969, VEB Verlag der Kunst Hans und Lea Grundig, Hans Grundig, Lea Grundig, Erhard Frommhold (Herausg.), 1958, VEB Verlag der Kunst Die Maler aus der Ostbahnstrasse. Aus dem Leben von Hans und Lea Grundig Brigitte Birnbaum, 1990, ISBN 3358015564 *********** Lea Grundig was born in Dresden in 1906. Although raised as an Orthodox Jew, she later found the lifestyle to be too stifling. In 1922 she began her art studies attending the Academy of Arts and Crafts and then at the Academy of Art. Impressed by the works of Barlach, Kokoschka and the "War" cycle by Otto Dix, her convictions as a pacifist were reinforced. In 1924, she met her future husband, artist Hans Grundig with whom she joined the Communist Party. She was sent by her father, who vehemently objected to her political views, to a sanitarium in Heidelberg. When Hans followed her there, she was sent to Vienna, only to have him follow her again. The couple married in 1928 and lived among their proletarian friends in Dresden. In 1930 the couple joined the new branch of the Communist Association, the Association of German Revolutionary Artists. Lea Grundig’s concern was in artistically documenting the lives of the working masses. She was primarily a printmaker, creating her most powerful work in the years preceding and following Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. In various etching cycles, she aimed to depict the fear, doom and persecution of the early N azi years. After 1936, Lea and Hans Grundig were in and out of concentration camps because of their Communist affiliations. Lea eventually emigrated to Palestine, rejoining her husband in Dresden after the war. Lea Grundig died in 1977. ******* GRUNDIG, LEA (1906–1977) and HANS (1901–1958), German painters and graphic artists. Both were born in Dresden. Lea Grundig, born Lea Langer, began to study at the Dresden Academy of Arts in 1922. Already involved with the association of Communist students, she became a member of the German Communist Party (KPD) in 1926. Two years later, she married Hans Grundig, also a member of the Communist Party, and they both began to create posters and illustrations for Communist purposes. Lea Grundig focused on linolcuts, etchings, and drawings in a late-expressionist style describing the milieu of the lower classes, as in Mutter und Kind vor der Fabrik of 1933 ("Mother and Child in Front of the Factory"). Hans Grundig was recognized first for painted group portraits, like KPD – Versammlung ("Meeting of the German Communist Party," 1932, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin) in the neorealist style of the Neue Sachlichkeit, but soon turned to expressionist etching. In the mid-1930s, he created a series of allegories, human and brutish monsters in etching in which he denounced the National Socialist system as based on all-embracing terror. Both Hans und Lea Grundig were persecuted by the National Socialist authorities and had to give up working as artists. Lea was deported but managed to flee to Palestine in 1940, where she created several series of etchings related to the Holocaust. Hans Grundig was incarcerated and sent to the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen in 1940. He survived and met his wife again in 1949, when she returned to Dresden. She became a professor at the local Academy of Fine Arts. From the 1950s, they both adapted the style of socialist realism and took an active part in visualizing the ideology of the German Democratic Republic.******** BRACHA HABAS : Editor, writer and one of the first few women journalists in Erez Israel, Bracha Habas was born in Alytus, a town in the district of Vilna (Lithuania) on January 20, 1900, to a wealthy and cultured family of merchants who were actively involved in communal life. (The family name is the acronym of Hakham Binyamin Sefardi or Hakham Beit Sefer [School].) Her grandfather, Rabbi Simha Zissel, the scion of a rabbinic family in Vilna (that of the Yesod, Yehudah ben Eliezer; Yesod is an acronym for Yehudah safra ve-dayyan, “Yehudah scribe and judge,” d. 1762), was the first member of the family to turn to trade, opening a large general store that became a center of life in the township. On the other hand, her father, Rabbi Israel, successfully combined business with study: ordained in the yeshivas of Volozhin and Slobodka, he turned to business as a leather merchant only after marriage; nevertheless he continued to teach and to lecture on Torah-related subjects and, on joining the Hibbat Zion (Lovers of Zion) movement, was extremely active in converting people to the Zionist ideal and the study of Hebrew. He established a branch of Safah Berurah (“Plain Language,” a society founded in Jerusalem in 1889) in his hometown, was among the founders of the Mizrahi movement in 1902 and, once in Erez Israel, edited a non-partisan religious Zionist journal, Ha-Yesod (1931). Habas’s mother, Nehama Devorah, daughter of Rabbi Nahman Schlesinger (a descendant of Rabbi Eliyahu, the Vilna Gaon, 1720–1797), was also highly educated. Her father taught her Bible and she was fluent in both spoken and written Hebrew (an exceptional phenomenon among women born in the 1870s). Habas was the fourth child in a family of seven. When the oldest son reached bar-mitzvah age, her father decided to immigrate to Erez Israel and fulfill his life’s dreams; firstly, to abandon his occupation as a merchant and instead earn his living by farming; secondly, to protect his children from the increasing secularism of East European Jewry and educate them to a religious-Zionist life in Erez Israel. In the summer of 1908 the Habas family immigrated to Palestine. However, the encounter with their new homeland resulted in sorrow, disappointment and wandering. Their first stop was Petah Tikvah, where her father wished to purchase an orchard to cultivate and provide for his family. But the family found the heat there unbearable, the children developed skin and eye ailments, and Nehama was overwhelmed by the combination of household duties to which she was unaccustomed (laundry and bread-making) and the hitherto unfamiliar local foodstuffs, such as tomatoes, eggplants and olives. Their second stop was Haifa, where their alien status and loneliness were even harder to bear. Because of the crowded living conditions of the city’s small Jewish community, they were compelled to rent quarters in an Arab neighborhood and live among people with whom they had no common language. Furthermore, Arab culture predominated even in the Jewish school, where only Arabic and French were taught, no Zionist education provided, and the Jewish women teachers went around veiled. Their third stop was the Jewish neighborhood Neve Shalom near Jaffa (founded in 1890). Although even here they had to continue coping with unexpected conditions (such as moving house every year according to the Muhram law), henceforth there was no more wandering. Neve Shalom was a religiously-observant neighborhood, with religious schools (Talmudei Torah and yeshivot) for boys, but nothing for girls. No religious schools had as yet been founded for them. Thus their father was reluctantly compelled to send Bracha and her sisters (Hemda, Batsheva and Sarah) to a girls’ school in nearby Neve Zedek. This was a modern Hebrew school, with an excellent staff (including Dr. Nisan Turov, 1877–1953), which provided its pupils with high-level studies and a wide-ranging liberal education (all this despite the lack of even basic equipment and Hebrew textbooks). Since there was no religious education, their father was obliged to minimize the damage by gathering his daughters during their free time (particularly Shabbat afternoon) and teaching them basic texts in Judaism, such as Ethics of the Fathers, Ibn Pakuda’s Hovot ha-Levavot and Judah Halevi’s Kuzari. Nevertheless, the religious gap between him and his daughters only increased. The storm broke out when the oldest daughter, Hemda, finished school and wanted to continue her studies at the newly established Training Seminary for Women Teachers (later the Lewinsky Teachers’ Seminary). Her father objected violently and the family dispute attracted so much attention from neighbors that delegations of teachers and parents came to their home in an attempt to persuade him to change his mind. Finally, he gave in, with the result that not only Hemda but all the sisters attended the seminary. Bracha’s educational career was similar to that of Hemda: in 1914 she completed elementary school and in 1921 graduated from the Teachers’ Seminary. (Her college career was interrupted by the events of World War I, when the family, like all Jewish residents of Jaffa, were compelled to transfer to Petah Tikvah and Kefar Sava.) In 1919 she joined the socialist-Zionist party, Ahdut ha-Avodah, which gradually came to occupy a major place in her life—an organization to which she contributed the best of her abilities and talents, in education and journalism. As a party member, Habas joined its cultural committee and participated in its educational institutions. In her final year of studies, she counseled and taught working youngsters in a club which she established in Neve Shalom. Later she was among those who established and were active in Beit ha-Yeladim (The Children’s House), an afternoon club for workers’ children, as well as the first school for working youth (Noar Oved) in Tel Aviv. In the latter she developed unprecedented studies for young working women. The innovative aspect of this work lay in the fact that Bracha not only initiated and developed appropriate courses of study in a variety of subjects, but that she succeeded in getting together a class of young housemaids, most of them Yemenites, who diligently attended classes every evening. As her friend Ita Eig-Faktorit wrote: “She prepares for this work, day by day, as if for sacred worship; she arrives early, prepares the heder (room), a kind of canvas tent erected by amateurish hands on the sands of Tel Aviv, on the road to the sea, and welcomes the girls at the entrance to the class, as a sense of festival pervades the heder, so neatly arranged and tastefully decorated.” In 1924, Habas left Tel Aviv in order to contribute with her education and professionalism also to rural youth. For two years (1924–1925), she taught in the moshavah of Kinneret and later for a short while at the Meshek ha-Po’alot (Women’s Farm) at Nahalat Yehuda, where she both taught and worked at the chicken coop. It is worth noting that throughout all these years her father maintained ongoing contact with her, despite his pain and disappointment. He sent her long letters in which he not only conveyed news of home and family, but also discussed issues of outlook and ideology even as he never ceased to try to bring her back to her origins and to persuade her that there was no conflict between her socialist theory and religious belief. In 1926, seeking to further her schooling and deepen her knowledge of up-to-date pedagogical theory, Habas went to Leipzig, Germany. Here she earned her living as a teacher at the Zionist school headed by Dr. Vaskin and registered for courses in pedagogy at Leipzig University. A year and a half later, in 1927, she returned to Palestine and joined the staff of Beit Sefer le-Dugmah (the model elementary school) attached to the Women Teachers’ Seminary. She worked there for six years, both teaching in the elementary school and serving as a counselor to the upper classes of the seminary (1928 to 1933). At the same time, she did not neglect the school for working youth, where she taught both boys and girls voluntarily several times a week. Throughout these years, she was also writing, perhaps because Joseph Hayyim Brenner (1881–1921), her literature teacher at Lewinsky, encouraged her to do so. Certainly her encounter with him as both teacher and author exerted a great influence on her and on her decision to adopt writing as a way of life. Her first article appeared in Ba-Hathalah (At the beginning, 1921), which was published by the Ahdut ha-Avodah’s Cultural Committee. In it she described her follow-up work with her young worker pupils. In 1922, when the literary journal Hedim (Echoes) began publication, under the editorship of Asher Barash and Ya’akov Rabinovitch, Habas found a welcoming base there, as well. When she left for Germany, she continued to send her essays and stories to the weekend supplement of Davar, the newspaper founded in 1925, this time at the invitation of its editor, Berl Katznelson. At the same time (1926) she published a vocalized rhymed booklet for children, Tik ha-Segulah (The Exceptional Bag), which contained stories of her family and childhood in Alytus. On returning from Germany, Habas continued to publish stories and articles in the Davar supplements, mainly about her experience with, and observations of, children. In the autumn of 1931 Katznelson invited her to join Yizhak Yaziv (1890–1941) in founding a children’s newspaper. As Uriel Ofek (who edited Davar le-Yeladim in the 1960s and 1970s) wrote: “A few days after Rosh ha-Shana (September, 1931), two figures marched through the deep sands of Little Tel Aviv and turned towards the house of the artist Nahum Gutman (1898–1980). They were the tall Yizhak Yaziv and Bracha Habas with her long braids. The two told the artist about the plan of the Davar editorial board to publish a special supplement for children and asked him to illustrate it. On that day Davar le-Yeladim was founded.” Bracha Habas was involved with the weekly for twenty-five years, sometimes as editor. She wrote editorials, stories and reports. Even when she traveled abroad on missions far and wide, and also after her marriage to David Hacohen (1898–1984) in 1946 and her subsequent move to Haifa, she continued to submit material every week. In 1933 Habas took a leave from teaching and journalism in order to go to Vienna for further training in pedagogy and psychology. While in Vienna she was invited to Warsaw for literary work at the He-Halutz journal and also published Dapim le-Ivrit and a first collection of Yaldei he-Amal (The Child Laborers, a collection of stories for youngsters about child workers all over the world). From Warsaw she went as a correspondent to the Zionist Congress in Prague, where she met Berl Katznelson, who invited her to establish “The Youth Center” of the Histadrut Labor Federation and serve as editor of its publications. She headed this center from 1934 to 1935, combining her professional skills as educator, author and editor. The result was a long list of booklets, which included Vienna (1934); Tel Hai—A Collection (1934); Rahel (1934); The Kinneret Four (1935); The Life of Alexander Zeid (1938); Homah u-Migdal (Stockade and Tower: The New Settlements During the Blockade Years, 1939); Ha-Godrim ba-Zafon (The Fence Builders of the North, 1939); Hayyim Sturman: The Man and His Deeds (1939) and her own stories (Little Heroes: Lives of Children in Erez Israel, 1934). In 1935, Davar sent her as its correspondent to the Zionist Congress in Zürich. In the same year the Youth Center closed down and she was invited to become a permanent staff member of the Davar editorial board. She also joined the editorial board of the women’s paper Devar ha-Po’elet under the editorship of Rahel Katznelson, which had been founded in 1934. Of her work at Davar the poet Shimshon Meltzer (a colleague at the paper who later became editor of Davar le-Yeladim) wrote: “Bracha Habas was at the time the only woman on the editorial board. She was the paper’s female essence and its soul. She was among the last to express an opinion at meetings of the editorial board. She expressed that opinion quietly, briefly and clearly. And not only was her opinion heeded; it was often considered the most balanced. Whenever someone had to be appointed to a new position, such as starting a new column or even an additional newspaper, she was always the prime candidate.” Indeed, in addition to her regular work on the editorial board, she initiated and wrote the “Column for New Immigrants” and the supplement Davar la-Golah (Davar for the Diaspora). In his article “Between Two Meetings,” the historiographer Getzel Kressel portrayed Bracha Habas as the first professional woman journalist. (Mordechai Naor added that she was the first woman to report from the scene of an event.) Kressel wrote: “When I go back and try to give a bird’s eye view of the early days of Hebrew journalism, I try in vain to find the ‘species’ of woman journalist. … Of course, here and there a woman’s name appears, but Bracha was without a doubt the first to make journalism her permanent form of employment and persisted in it for decades.” Kressel also refers to two genres of journalism which characterized her writing: one was the social reportage, through which she “covered” the real life of the working class at all stages of life and at every age; the other was lyrical reporting, which although it always dealt with work-related topics, did so from a slightly different perspective, far from the limelight, and in an emotional, involved manner. However, her writing was free of adornment or extravagance, excelling in conveying experience in a direct and clear style. An additional contribution of Habas’s was the scores of books, pamphlets and anthologies that she wrote or edited, which via interviews, personal witnessing and documentation, told the story of “Working Erez Israel” (its institutions, activities, leadership), a story which actually told of the entire Yishuv enterprise. It was not by chance that her colleague, Rahel Adir, in enumerating her forty-eight publications, described her as “the recorder of Yishuv history” or “The chronicler of our times.” In 1940, Am Oved Publishing House was established and as usual she took upon herself the editorship of a series of books for young people of various ages (Shaharut [for Early Years], La-Yeled [For the Child], Min ha-Moked [From the Focal Point). Even her works for young people as well as those for adults became basic works in the critical history of the country, from Yishuv to state (settlement and struggle, Holocaust and illegal immigration, World War II and the War of Independence, the new Israel, aliyah and absorption). Examples include: The Riots of 1936 (1937), Youth Aliyah (1941), Close Brothers Who Were Expelled (1943), Letters from the Ghetto (1943), The Second Aliyah (1947), Kinneret during the Trial Period (1950), David Ben-Gurion and His Generation (1952), The Ship that Won: Exodus 1947 (1954), The Gate Breakers, Vol. 1: The Story of Aliyah Bet (illegal immigration, 1957), The Gate Breakers, Vol. 2: From the East and from the West (1960), Benot Hayil (Women of Valor, The Book of the ATS, 1964), the story of the women volunteer soldiers from the Yishuv during WWII, Movement Without a Name: Volunteer Work by Veteran Settler Youth Among New Immigrants (1964). Habas’s final work, published posthumously, was He-Hazer ve-ha-Givah (The Courtyard and the Hill: The Story of Kevuzat Kinneret (1969). Bracha Habas’s first marriage in 1924, at Kevuzat Kinneret, to Joseph Barchenko, the brother of Haganah leader, MK and minister Israel Galili, was very brief. In 1946 she married David Hacohen, a founder and director of Solel Boneh, who served as a member of Knesset for six terms (1949–1969) and was Israel’s first ambassador to Burma (1953–1955). In 1948 Habas and Hacohen jointly published a book on the Erez Israel delegation to the Congress of Asian nations, held in New Delhi, in which both of them participated (Twenty Days in India, March–April 1947). The time she spent in Burma as the wife of Israel’s ambassador also resulted in books related to the region: Pagodot ha-Zahav (The Golden Pagodas, 1959) and Distant Worlds: Impressions of a Journey to the Far East (1969). Throughout her life, Bracha Habas sought also to engage in belles-lettres. From time to time, she published short stories (such as “Pangs of the Motherland”) and books for youngsters such as Mi-Karov (From Nearby: Landscape and Person, 1940) and Story of a Young Illegal Immigrant (1966), but she never managed to write an entire novel. As her young writer friend, Yehudit Hendel, said: During her last years, Bracha dreamt of one book she wanted to write, her own book, about her own life. She always wrote other books, about other people, and postponed her own story. And that too because of an overwhelming sense of duty, although with much pain. I recall that a year ago [1967], when she was asked to write the book on Kinneret, she asked me for my opinion. And I have to admit that I said, “Bracha, this year it’s Kinneret, next year there’ll be something else, there’ll always be something. Let it be, write your own book, which you so long to do.” She listened. “You’re right,” she responded. “I must.” But she decided otherwise. With her, duty came before desire. She completed the book on Kinneret, but as for her own book, the book she dreamt of, she never even started it. Bracha Habas died of cancer on July 31, 1968. ***** Aliyah (Hebrew: עלייה Translit.: Aliya Translated: "ascent") is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael). It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology, and an important component of Judaism. The opposite action, Jewish emigration from Israel, is referred to as Yerida ("descent").[1] While the return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile, Jewish immigration to Palestine and later Israel has been continuous since 1882.Religious, ideological and cultural concept Aliyah is widely regarded as an important Jewish cultural concept and a fundamental concept of Zionism that is enshrined in Israel's Law of Return, which accords any Jew (deemed as such by halakha and/or Israeli secular law) and eligible non-Jews (a child and a grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew), the legal right to assisted immigration and settlement in Israel, as well as automatic Israeli citizenship. Someone who "makes aliyah" is called an oleh (m. singular) or olah (f. singular); the plural for both is olim. Many Religious Jews espouse aliyah as a return to the Promised land, and regard it as the fulfillment of God's biblical promise to the descendants of the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Aliyah is included as a commandment by some opinions on the enumeration of the 613 commandments.[3] In Zionist discourse, the term aliyah (plural aliyot) includes both voluntary immigration for ideological, emotional, or practical reasons and, on the other hand, mass flight of persecuted populations of Jews. The vast majority of Israeli Jews today trace their family's recent roots to outside of the country. While many have actively chosen to settle in Israel rather than some other country, many had little or no choice about leaving their previous home countries. While Israel is commonly recognized as "a country of immigrants", it is also, in large measure, a country of refugees. According to the traditional Jewish ordering of books of the Bible, the very last word of the Bible (i.e. the last word in the original Hebrew of verse 2 Chronicles 36:23) is veya‘al, a jussive verb form derived from the same root as aliyah, meaning "let him go up" (to Israel).[4] Historical background Return to the Land of Israel is a recurring theme in Jewish prayers recited every day, three times a day, and holiday services on Passover and Yom Kippur traditionally conclude with the words "Next year in Jerusalem." Since Judaism is both a nation and a religion, aliyah (returning to Israel) has both a secular and a religious significance. In all historical periods during which return to the Land of Israel was possible, Jewish groups and individuals have immigrated back to the Jewish homeland. For generations of religious Jews, aliyah was associated with the coming of the Jewish Messiah. Jews prayed for their Messiah to come, who was to redeem the Land of Israel from gentile rule and return world Jewry to the land under a Halachic theocracy.[5] Aliyah Bet: Illegal immigration (1933–1948) Main article: Aliyah Bet The British government limited Jewish immigration to Palestine with quotas, and following the rise of Na zism to power in Germany, illegal immigration to Palestine commenced. The illegal immigration was known as Aliyah Bet ("secondary immigration"), or Ha'apalah, and was organized by the Mossad Le'aliyah Bet, as well as by the Irgun. Immigration was done mainly by sea, and to a lesser extent overland through Iraq and Syria. Beginning in 1939 Jewish immigration was further restricted, limiting it to 75,000 individuals for a period of five years after which immigration was to end completely. The British made it illegal to sell land to Jews in 95% of the Mandate.[citation needed] During World War II and the years that followed until independence, Aliyah Bet became the main form of Jewish immigration to Palestine. Following the war, Berihah ("flight"), an organization of former partisans and ghetto fighters was primarily responsible for smuggling Jews from Poland and Eastern Europe to the Italian ports from which they traveled to Palestine. Despite British efforts to curb the illegal immigration, during the 14 years of its operation, 110,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine. In 1945 reports of the Holocaust with its 6 million Jewish dead, caused many Jews in Palestine to turn openly against the British Mandate, and illegal immigration escalated rapidly as many Holocaust survivors joined the Aliyah. Early statehood (1948–1950) After Aliyah Bet, the process of numbering or naming individual aliyot ceased, but immigration did not. A major wave of immigration of over half a million Jews went to Israel between 1948 and 1950, many fleeing renewed persecution in Eastern Europe, and increasingly hostile Arab countries. This period of immigration is often termed kibbutz galuyot (literally, ingathering of exiles), due to the large number of Jewish diaspora communities that made aliyah. However, kibbutz galuyot can also refer to aliyah in general. Since the founding of the State of Israel, the Jewish Agency for Israel was mandated as the organization reaponsible for aliyah in the diaspora. ******* Aliyah Bet (Hebrew: 'עלייה ב), meaning "Aliyah 'B'" (bet being the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet) was the code name given to illegal immigration by Jews to Palestine in violation of British restrictions, in the years 1934-1948. In modern day Israel it has also been called by the Hebrew term Ha'apala (Hebrew: ההעפלה‎). It was distinguished from Aliyah Aleph ("Aliyah 'A'") (Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet): the limited Jewish immigration permitted by British authorities in the same period Organization During Ha'apala, several Jewish organizations worked together to facilitate immigration beyond the established quotas. As persecution of Jews intensified in Europe during the Na zi era, the urgency driving the immigration also became more acute. Those who participated in the immigration efforts consistently refused to term it "illegal", instead calling it "clandestine." Ha'apala occurred in two phases. First, from 1934 to 1942, it was an effort to enable European Jews to escape N azi persecution and murder. Then, from 1945 to 1948, it was an effort to find homes for Jewish survivors of the Na zi crimes (Sh'erit ha-Pletah) who were among the millions of displaced persons ("DPs") languishing in refugee camps in occupied Germany. During the first phase, several organizations (including Revisionists) led the effort; after World War II, the Mossad Le'aliyah Bet ("the Institute for Aliyah B"), an arm of the Haganah, took charge. Routes Post-World War II, Ha'apala journeys typically started in the DP camps and moved through one of two collection points in the American occupation sector, Bad Reichenhall and Leipheim. From there, the refugees travelled in disguised trucks, on foot, or by train to ports on the Mediterranean Sea, where ships brought them to Palestine. More than 70,000 Jews arrived in Palestine using more than 100 ships.[1] American sector camps imposed no restrictions on the movements out of the camps, and American, French, and Italian officials often turned a blind eye to the movements. Several UNRRA officials (in particular Elizabeth Robertson in Leipheim) acted as facilitators of the emigration. The British government vehemently opposed the movement, and restricted movement in and out of their camps. Britain also set up armed naval patrols to prevent immigrants from landing in Palestine. History Over 100,000 people attempted to illegally enter Palestine. There were 142 voyages by 120 ships. Over half were stopped by the British patrols. Most of the intercepted immigrants were sent to internment camps in Cyprus: (Karaolos near Famagusta, Nicosia, Dhekelia, and Xylotumbou). Some were sent to the Atlit detention camp in Palestine, and some to Mauritius. The British held as many as 50,000 people in these camps (see Jews in British camps on Cyprus). Over 1,600 drowned at sea. Only a few thousand actually entered Palestine. The pivotal event in the Ha'apala program was the incident of the SS Exodus in 1947. The Exodus was intercepted, attacked, and boarded by the British patrol. Despite significant resistance from its passengers, Exodus was forcibly returned to Europe. Its passengers were eventually sent back to Germany. This was publicized, to the great embarrassment of the British government. A particularly "brilliant" account of Aliyah Bet is given by journalist I. F. Stone in his 1946 book Underground to Palestine, an first-person account of traveling with European displaced persons attempting to reach the Jewish homeland. [2] Voyages The Tiger Hill, a 1,499 ton ship, built in 1887, sailed from Constanţa on August 3, 1939, with about 750 immigrants on board. She took on board the passengers from the Frossoula, another illegal immigrant ship that was marooned in Lebanon. On September 1, the first day of World War II, the Tiger Hill was intercepted and fired on by British gunboats off Tel Aviv, and was beached. Hans Schneider, a Jewish refugee on the Tiger Hill, was killed. He may[who?] have been the first fatal casualty of World War II.[citation needed] Disasters On October 3, 1939, a large group of immigrants sailed from Vienna on the river boat Uranus, down the Danube. At the Romanian border, the Uranus was stopped and the immigrants were forced to disembark at the old fortress town of Kladovo in Yugoslavia. About 1,100 refugees were stranded there. In May, 1941, they were still in Yugoslavia, where 915 of them were caught and eventually killed by the invading Na zis. On May 18, 1940, the old Italian paddle steamer Pencho sailed from Bratislava, with 514 passengers, mostly Betar members. The Pencho sailed down the Danube to the Black Sea and into the Aegean Sea. On October 9, her engines stopped working, and she was wrecked off Mytilene, in the Italian-ruled Dodecanese Islands. The Italians rescued the passengers and took them to Rhodes. All but two were then placed in an internment camp at Ferramonti di Tarsia in southern Italy. They were held there until Allied forces liberated the area in September 1943. The story of the Pencho was published as Odyssey, by John Bierman. In October 1940, a large group of refugees were allowed to leave Vienna. The exodus was organized by Berthold Storfer, a Jewish businessman who worked under Adolph Eichmann. They took four river boats, Uranus, Schönbrunn, Helios, and Melk, down the Danube to Romania, where the Uranus passengers, approximately 1,000, boarded the Pacific, and sailed on October 11, 1940. They arrived at Haifa on November 1, followed by the Milos. The British transferred all the immigrants to the French liner Patria, intending to take them for internment to Mauritius. To stop the Patria from sailing, the Haganah smuggled a bomb on board. The explosion blew a hole in the side of the ship, which capsized, killing 267 persons. The British, by order of Winston Churchill, allowed the survivors to remain in Palestine. In December 1940 the Salvador, a small Bulgarian schooner formerly named Tsar Krum, left Burgas with 327 refugees. On December 12 the Salvador was wrecked in a violent storm in the Sea of Marmora, near Istanbul. 223 persons, including 66 children, lost their lives. The survivors were taken to Istanbul. 125 survivors were deported back to Bulgaria, and the remaining 70 left on the Darien (No. 66). [2]. On December 11, 1941 the Struma sailed from Constanţa, flying the Panamanian flag. The Struma was torpedoed and sunk by the Soviet submarine Shch-213 on February 24, 1942. 770 lives were lost. There was one survivor. On September 20, 1942 the Europa sailed from Romania, with twenty-one passengers. The boat was wrecked in the Bosporus. On August 5, 1944, the Mefkura (or Mefkure) sailed from Constanţa with 350 persons on board. The ship travelled with the Morino and Bulbul. During the night the Mefkura was sunk by gunfire/torpedo from by the Soviet submarine SC-215. Of the 350 persons being transported, only five survived. They were picked up by the Bulbul. Conclusion The success of Aliyah Bet was modest when measured in terms of the numbers who succeeded in entering Palestine. But it proved to be a unifying force both for the Jewish community in Palestine (the Yishuv) and for the Holocaust-survivor refugees in Europe (Sh'erit ha-Pletah). The ingathering of the exiles to their ancestral homeland is the raison d'etre of the State of Israel. Aliya (literally ascending) is the Hebrew word for immigration to the Land of Israel. The meaning of ascent in this context is spiritual as well as physical; all Jews are educated in the belief that this ascent is an essential part of Judaism. It is the ultimate form of identification with one's people, the Jewish people, whose life and destiny are inextricably tied to the Land of Israel. Since the beginning of the waves of aliya in the late 19th century, many hundreds of thousands of immigrants have arrived in the Land. The background, traditions and expertise brought by each wave have been of immeasurable value in the development of Israel's pluralistic, democratic society and modern economy.Following their expulsion and after the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in 70 CE, the majority of the Jews were dispersed throughout the world. The Jewish national idea, however, was never abandoned, nor was the longing to return to their homeland. Throughout the centuries, Jews have maintained a presence in the Land, in greater or lesser numbers; uninterrupted contact with Jews abroad has enriched the cultural, spiritual and intellectual life of both communities. Zionism, the political movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland, founded in the late 19th century, derives its name from word "Zion", the traditional synonym for Jerusalem and the Land of Israel. In response to continued oppression and persecution of Jews in eastern Europe and disillusionment with emancipation in Western Europe, and inspired by Zionist ideology, Jews immigrated to Palestine towards the end of the nineteenth century. This was the first of the modern waves of aliya that were to transform the face of the country. During World War II, the aliya effort focused on rescuing Jews from Na zi-occupied Europe. Some olim entered the country on visas issued under the "White Paper" quota; the majority came as illegal immigrants. This immigration, called Aliya Bet, arrived by land and by sea, from Europe and the Middle East, in contravention of the Mandatory Government's orders. The loss of contact with European countries, the hazards of maritime travel under wartime conditions, and the difficulty in obtaining vessels for transport of illegal immigrants placed severe constraints on Aliya Bet. Several boatloads of immigrants who managed to reach Palestine were sent back by British authorities upholding the quota system. Many lost their lives at sea or in the Na zi inferno in Europe. During the years 1944-1948, the Jews in Eastern Europe sought to leave that continent by any means. Emissaries from the yishuv, Jewish partisans and Zionist youth movements cooperated in establishing the Beriha (escape) organization, which helped nearly 200,000 Jews leave Europe. The majority settled in Palestine. From the end of World War II until the establishment of Israel (1945-1948), illegal immigration was the major method of immigration, because the British, by setting the quota at a mere 18,000 per year, virtually terminated the option of legal immigration. Sixty-six illegal immigration sailings were organized during these years, but only a few managed to penetrate the British blockade and bring their passengers ashore. In 1947, 4500 immigrants on the Exodus were sent back to Europe by the Mandatory government. The British stopped the vessels carrying immigrants at sea, and interned the captured immigrants in camps in Cyprus; most of these persons only arrived in Israel after the establishment of the state. Approximately 80,000 illegal immigrants reached Palestine during 1945-48. The number of immigrants during the entire Mandate period, legal and illegal alike, was approximately 480,000, close to 90% of them from Europe. The population of the yishuv expanded to 650,000 by the time statehood was proclaimed. On May 14, 1948 the State of Israel was proclaimed. The Proclamation of the Establishment of the State of Israel stated: "The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and the ingathering of the exiles; it will foster the development of the country for all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice, and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex..." This was followed in 1950 by the Law of Return, which granted every Jew the automatic right to immigrate to Israel and become a citizen of the state. With the gates wide open after statehood was declared, a wave of mass immigration brought 687,000 Jews to Israel's shores. By 1951, the number of immigrants more than doubled the Jewish population of the country in 1948. The immigrants included, inter alia, survivors of the Holocaust from displaced persons' camps in Germany, Austria and Italy; a majority of the Jewish communities of Bulgaria and Poland and one third of the Jews of Romania; and nearly all of the Jewish communities of Libya, Yemen and Iraq. The immigrants encountered many adjustment difficulties. The fledgling state had just emerged from the bruising war of independence, was in grievous economic condition, and found it difficult to provide hundreds of thousands of immigrants with housing and jobs. Much effort was devoted towards absorbing the immigrants: ma'abarot - camps of tin shacks and tents - and later permanent dwellings were erected; employment opportunities were created; the Hebrew language was taught; and the educational system was expanded and adjusted to meet the needs of children from many different backgrounds. Additional mass immigration took place in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when immigrants arrived from the newly independent countries of North Africa, Morocco and Tunisia. A large number of immigrants also arrived during these years from Poland, Hungary and Egypt. .  ebay1083/18
  • Condition: Used
  • Condition: Very good condition for age. Tightly bound. Age tanning of leaves. Foxing of cloth HC. ( Pls look at scan for accurate AS IS images ) .
  • Religion: Judaism
  • Country of Manufacture: Israel
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: Israel

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