Chapter 4 Over Troubled Water

Palestine Offices

After World War I, immigration offices were established in various parts of Europe to handle the large numbers of Jews who were considering immigration to Palestine or were applying to immigrate. These offices continued the work of the information bureaus that had been established in the early twentieth century throughout the Pale of Settlement to help Jews immigrate to various destination countries. The Jewish Colonization Association (ICA) was the first to establish an information bureau in St. Petersburg; this bureau was responsible for hundreds of information bureaus throughout the Russian Empire. In 1905, the Hibbat Zion movement established an information bureau in Odessa that helped Jews reach Palestine. A year later, it also founded information bureaus along the route that ships followed to Palestine—in Trieste, Constantinople, Beirut, Alexandria, Jaffa, and Haifa.1

When immigration to Palestine resumed after World War I, it once again became necessary to provide relevant information about the country and to assist Jews in going there. From 1919 to 1921, the Zionist General Council and the Zionist Congress discussed the subject, and the decision was made to establish Palestine Offices in every country that had potential immigrants. Although the Palestine Offices were known by the name of the country in which they were located, they were subordinate to the Zionist Organization and received instructions from the Aliya Department.2 The Palestine Offices were divided into several categories: a central office covered several countries; a national office handled immigration affairs in a single country; a district office was a branch of the central or national office and dealt with one district; and coastal offices were established in major coastal cities from which Jews sailed for Palestine. The territorial boundaries of the offices’ activity were determined by the Aliya Department; if a country had more than two offices, one of them was defined as a central office.3

Europe had the highest concentration of Palestine Offices, but there were also offices in North and South America (New York, Ottawa, and Buenos Aires), Africa (Egypt, Tunisia, and Johannesburg), and Asia (Yokohama and Baghdad).4 Their role was to provide information to Jews interested in immigrating to Palestine, to identify and select “suitable” immigrants based on the employment situation in Palestine and the instructions of the Zionist Executive, to keep orderly records on the applicants, to help them obtain the necessary travel papers, to represent the immigrants vis-à-vis the local British consul, to help ship the immigrants’ belongings to Palestine, to arrange lodging for the immigrants at the ports of departure, and to assist them until they boarded the ship.5

The procedure in the Palestine Office included registration, a medical exam, obtaining a visa and other documents, medical inspection, and follow-up with the immigrants from the moment they left their country of origin until they reached Palestine. Prospective immigrants would fill out a questionnaire with details including age, family status, occupation, property, and whether they had relatives in Palestine. Applicants also had to be examined twice by a doctor from the office before receiving authorization to immigrate. The first exam took place before they obtained their passports; the second was before they set out. The Palestine Office was responsible for obtaining the visa from the British consul and other travel papers needed to pass through European countries. For protection from travel agents and scoundrels of various sorts who might exploit their dependence, the immigrants paid the Palestine Office for their visas, tickets for the train and ship, and shipment of their belongings to Palestine.6 The Palestine Office assigned the immigrants to ships sailing to Palestine, sent them on a special railroad car to the port of departure, made sure their belongings were sent on time, and sometimes even had a representative escort them and make sure they reached their destination safely.7

The hardest part for the Palestine Offices was to select the most suitable candidates for settlement in Palestine. Because the number of applicants exceeded the number of immigration certificates issued by the Mandatory government, the Palestine Office workers had to decide who could go and who could not. These workers were stuck in the middle: on the one hand, they were being pressured by the Zionist movement to send able-bodied candidates who could take part in building the Yishuv; on the other, large numbers of Jews were asking to immigrate. It was a time of political persecution, pogroms, and economic hardship, and all these factors increased the pressure on the Palestine Offices. They found themselves in a tight spot: they wanted to satisfy the Zionist Executive but also approve the requests of prospective immigrants.

The most prominent and most important of the Palestine Offices established in Europe in the 1920s were in Vienna, Trieste, Warsaw, and Constantinople. Each office faced unique challenges, depending on circumstances of time and place, but they all tried to help Jewish migrants while complying with the decisions of the Aliya Department and the Mandatory government.

Vienna and Trieste

The first two Palestine Offices established were in Vienna and Trieste. These cities were major way stations for thousands of Jews en route to Palestine: Vienna was a central crossroads for Jews on their way to Trieste, and Trieste was the main port of departure for Jewish immigrants to Palestine in the 1920s (in some years, the sole port).

The offices in Vienna and Trieste opened in November 1918 and helped Jews seeking to reach Palestine after the war.8 The Vienna office rented three houses near the city as temporary lodging for Jews on their way to Trieste. There, prospective immigrants spent twelve days in quarantine and then underwent disinfection and medical exams before they were permitted to continue on to Trieste to board the ship that would take them to Palestine. Those who did not undergo disinfection and exams in Vienna did so in Trieste, but because conditions in Vienna were more pleasant, many preferred to wait there for authorization to immigrate. At the end of the quarantine period, they were examined again, and only afterward did they take the train to Trieste.

The Palestine Office in Vienna was one of the most active, busiest offices in Europe, with twenty people working there. From 1920 to 1922, some twelve thousand people passed through it.9 The office helped destitute immigrants and provided them with kosher meals in public kitchens. Some immigrants were given clothing, travel expenses, and assistance in obtaining entry visas for Palestine. Candidates were asked not to apply directly to the British consulate; their applications were handled by Palestine Office employees, who filled out the consulate’s questionnaires on their behalf and collected the fee for the visa from them. The Vienna office also dealt with sick people who had been sent back from Palestine to Europe after having been refused entry or who had fallen ill in Palestine and needed medical treatment.

The diverse population that went through the Vienna office gives us an idea of the profile of prospective and actual immigrants to Palestine and returnees from there in the 1920s. A survey of immigration via Vienna divided the Palestine Office’s clientele into three categories. The first category consisted of people from Vienna—those who had been born in Vienna or who had gone there before or during World War I and settled there. Some of them believed in Zionist ideals; others were “passive regarding the [Zionist] movement but were quiet, dedicated working people with a healthy national consciousness.”10 Most of the people in this category were able-bodied and had recognized occupations, and they would fit in well in Palestine. The second category consisted of so-called pilgrims—people who had gone to Vienna illegally in order to reach the port of Trieste. According to the survey, not all of them contacted the Palestine Office and officially applied to immigrate. They tried to change money and exchange information, and only sometimes did they ask to lodge in one of the office’s homes. The third category, refugees, was subdivided into two groups. The first comprised young people who had left Poland, Galicia, and Hungary “under pressure from various external factors (usually the army).” The second consisted of Hechalutz members who had official papers and authorization for aliya. “Some of them have a trade and have had a halutzic education; others are young men who were forced to flee only by fear of the army. They include people with various qualities, and not always bad ones.”11

The protracted wait in Vienna for documents and aliya authorization gave the workers in the office a chance to determine the caliber of the prospective immigrants and to filter out problematic ones who would be unsuited for aliya.

These are the faces of the immigrants who have filled the Hechalutz homes in Vienna for more than two years. They all clustered around the Palestine Office and Hechalutz Federation, did all sorts of hard, dirty work in villages nearby and in the city, and lived under conditions of hardship and strain for many months. That life revealed the face of each and every one of them—both their human and social attitudes in general and their attitude toward Palestine in particular. In some cases the Viennese filth swept up laggards who, whether by force or willingly, became pimps and idlers in the course of their long stay. The small group of olim—“the Association of Olim in Vienna”—spewed them out of the Hechalutz house and sent them away scornfully. Those who remained were the ones who had enough desire to keep waiting for aliya.12

The heterogeneity of the prospective immigrants led to intraorganizational disagreements on a matter of principle: whether to approve all applications to the Palestine Office or only those from Zionists: “Regarding those from abroad [the pilgrims and refugees] there was a difference of opinion. One extreme opinion insisted on the principle of absolute centralization and total opposition to the wild migration that has muddled the work of the aliya offices.”13 Some Palestine Office workers favored rejecting everyone “who came from abroad without a letter from the office in their country, not giving them any moral or material assistance, and therefore not admitting them to the Hechalutz house.” The workers’ circles felt differently, maintaining that they had to take care of everyone. Reality, they argued, superseded bureaucracy: “Fleeing and migrating are natural phenomena originating in other factors and not in the availability of a visa in Vienna, Trieste, or Galați.” Hechalutz members also argued, “One army call-up notice in Poland or Galicia will bring hundreds of young Jewish men across the border despite all the Palestine Offices in the world and without any letters or authorization from them. We will not be able to lock the door to them because the torrent will be stronger than we are. . . . We must therefore regard all those in Vienna as one immigrant camp from lots of origins and native lands.”14

The Vienna office chose a middle way. It issued warnings in the Jewish press in the countries of origin—“Let no one dare come to Vienna from there because [they] will not be sent to Palestine”—and acted heavy-handedly with Jews who arrived without authorization. However, it opened its homes to them and made efforts to find them work, teach them a trade, and—if it became possible in the future—send them to Palestine: “We did this if someone was found to be qualified and if there was no explicit objection to him from the Palestine Office in his country or the Hechalutz Federation in his country.” The Vienna office came under criticism for sending to Palestine Jews who had not gone through the Palestine Offices in their countries of origin; the workers were accused of sending undesirable elements.

The outcry and the dust of controversy stirred up by certain offices against the Palestine Office in Vienna, [with the claim] that we will destroy discipline in the Zionist camp by sending to Palestine people who were rejected in their own countries, and their demand for a monopoly on these grounds over people from their countries everywhere in the world, this is all mere self-righteousness. . . . Regarding the selection of “human material” for immigration, we have no less expertise than the people in the office that is complaining about us. The fact is that we have never sent to Palestine people who were rejected in their country.15

Poet Isaac Lamdan, too, got a bad impression of the prospective immigrants in the summer of 1920 when he was waiting for travel papers to immigrate to Palestine. During his stay in the city, he was seized by despair in view of “the human material now immigrating to our land.” In his diary he wrote, “Most of the immigrants are destroying and not building. This is a herd of people with twisted brains and no feeling, the buds of ugly exile. Will they build us?”16

The workers’ parties were also preoccupied by the “undesirable element.” Due to the difficulty the Vienna office was having regulating immigration and filtering out unsuitable candidates, Hapoel Hatzair established an aliya committee to take care of halutzim before their aliya, providing material assistance, arranging lodging, supplying food, and most importantly, selecting the appropriate “human material.” “You comrades must remember that our job is not to send exiles/refugees but to arrange for human material willing to take part in building up the country through work.”17 The Hapoel Hatzair aliya committee also came under pressure from Palestine not to send halutzim who were unfit (whether mentally or physically) for work: “There is no doubt that the grumbling stems from the same reason, namely, that those complaining were not aware of the true situation when they moved to Palestine, and in their first experience of work, their hopes and illusions were dashed on the rock of harsh reality. Aside from these immigrants, who were not prepared materially and spiritually for their great, difficult destiny, we see here and there a hodgepodge of immigrants who are having a hard time adjusting to conditions in Palestine.”18

The Trieste office cooperated with the office in Vienna and generally only accepted immigrants who had already undergone disinfection and received the travel papers needed to enter Palestine. The office arranged for lodging and meals for immigrants who could not afford them, handled the transfer of their belongings to the ships, provided financial and consular assistance, negotiated with the Italian government to ensure the rights of immigrants passing through Italy, and served as point of contact with the shipping companies.19

More than four thousand immigrants per year passed through the Trieste office in the 1920s. Half of them went to Palestine in the summer months (June–September), the busiest time of year.20 The large number of immigrants using the Trieste office’s services were a financial burden on the office, making it difficult to provide assistance, especially to those not permitted to board the ships. “As you know, there is a terrible shortage of lodgings here, but we are sure we can eliminate this problem through our efforts. What we cannot do is cover the cost of supporting those who are kept back.”21 Despite the financial hardship, the office provided the immigrants with lodging, kosher food, and sometimes even the fare for the voyage “from Trieste to Jaffa-Haifa for deserving yet destitute halutzim.” Immigrants who fell ill received medical care from a special doctor “who treats the needy for free. We have counted eleven cases of serious illness among olim who have received our assistance, both in the immigrants’ house and in the hospital. Unfortunately, we must note the deaths of two patients from cardiac arrest. They passed away upon arrival in Trieste.”22

In Trieste, as in Vienna, Zionist aliya officials were asked to send to Palestine only those who could contribute to building the Yishuv. Because the immigrants were aware that they would have to undergo an approval procedure at the Palestine Office, some simply avoided the office and went directly to the ship: “Unfortunately . . . there are also many who deliberately avoid coming to our office while they are here—knowing in advance that we would try to keep them here since the terms of their travel are not in accordance with your orders.”23

Due to the large number of Jewish migrants in the port city, the high costs, and the difficulty of making all the arrangements for immigration to Palestine, the heads of the Palestine Office in Trieste asked the Zionist Commission and the Zionist Executive in London for the authority to regulate immigration via Trieste to Palestine. “Only we know the conditions on the voyage, the local government regulations, [and] the local absorption capacity. It is unreasonable for national Palestine Offices to send as many olim as is convenient for them without checking with us regarding possibilities for lodging and sailing and prevention of an unreasonably long wait in Trieste. The Palestine Offices should therefore be required to be in touch with Trieste before arranging to transport olim to there.”24

Warsaw

The third Palestine Office, after the ones in Vienna and Trieste, was established in Warsaw in 1920 and soon became one of the biggest and most active offices in Europe. By 1925, approximately twenty-five thousand migrants had passed through it, and it oversaw fifty-four local offices throughout Poland.25 The office handled all the necessary arrangements for leaving Poland and entering Palestine and answered the questions of Jews seeking preliminary information about immigration procedures and conditions in Palestine.

The Warsaw office also handled transit permits for passing through Austria on the way to Trieste. The immigrants had to present permits and travel papers when crossing the border en route. Without these documents, they could not set out, and there was constant concern that their entry visas would expire. A report by the Warsaw office stated, “It is worth paying attention to the various impediments to aliya aside from approval of the British visa. The matter of authorizations from Vienna, which were essential in order to obtain a visa to pass through Austria, has always been an obstacle for us.”26 According to the report, the immigrants paid large sums for the long stay in Warsaw, awaiting permission to board the ship in Trieste. “Sometimes it took around six weeks or more until we received the authorizations for the immigrants, which took hard work to obtain. In Vienna the immigrants had to wait twenty-one days in free quarantine and they had to pay the Ma’avirim company here for their stay in Vienna. Payment would be accepted in Austrian or Italian currency and they would have to buy the currency from speculators and scalpers, losing a lot of money in the process.”27

The initial years of the Palestine Offices—and particularly the office in Warsaw—were hard ones. The Zionist Organization had difficulty financing their activity, and without money, it was hard for them to assist the immigrants. One solution to the immigrants’ empty pockets was to appeal to American Jewish aid organizations. The Warsaw office signed an agreement with HIAS, which sent money from “American Jews for their relatives in Poland who wanted to immigrate to Palestine. It was kept in the office for the immigrants until they set out for Palestine.” In addition, the office negotiated with the Zionist Organization in the United States “regarding arrangements for sending money . . . for their relatives in the emigration countries so that they can go to Palestine.”28

The main difficulty for workers in the Palestine Office involved filtering out unsuitable candidates. The heads of the office were subjected to incessant heavy pressure to send only the physically and mentally fit, not to compromise on the caliber of the immigrants, and to avoid sending Jews who were liable to end up not settling in Palestine. Menachem Ussishkin, for example, pleaded again and again with the directors of the Warsaw office to send young people and, as much as possible, to avoid sending immigrants who were unfit for physical labor in Palestine:

Nevertheless, Heaven forbid we should stop immigration by the young people. You simply have to keep a closer eye than you have until now on the element that is going to make sure they are physically healthy in the full sense of the word. We are getting weak people with nervous ailments, consumption, and so on. The catastrophe that such miserable people inflict on the Yishuv goes without saying. Examine the halutzim over and over again before you give them permits to go. Those going also have to be spiritually healthy; in other words, they should know what they are going to Palestine for. . . . The fearful and faint of heart should stay home.29

The director of the Haifa aliya bureau, Levi Shvueli, also complained about the low caliber of the immigrants arriving in Palestine. In a letter to the Zionist Executive’s Aliya Department, he wrote that some problematic immigrants who had arrived in Haifa had caused problems for the bureau: “Z. H. of Kharkov, 37, a metalworker, came from Berlin on May 25 on the Gastin with a certificate from us. Almost the entire time he was here he was physically and mentally ill, creating scandals in our office, demanding that we send him back abroad or bring his wife and children here.” Of N. S. from Białystok, aged fifty-two, Shvueli wrote, “a blacksmith, sickly and weak. . . . He and his wife are sick most of the time. They don’t want to leave their lodgings unless we give them 15 Egyptian pounds.” And Y. N., a mechanic from Poland, “is a very coarse person. There is no limit to his demands of us. He says he is weak and cannot work.”30 Shvueli placed the blame for the selection of undesirable immigrants on the Palestine Offices:

We accuse the Palestine Offices abroad of not paying attention to the quality of the people they are sending to Palestine or to their state of health. The matter has already reached the ears of high-ranking government officials. In a recent conversation with the local governor, the undersigned stressed the great responsibility that the Zionist Executive is taking upon itself with respect to immigrants coming with certificates issued to it by the government. I particularly criticized the Palestine Office in Warsaw, which according to reports that I have received is not at all picky about the human material that it sends to Palestine.31

The Palestine Office in Warsaw had a hard time implementing the Zionist Executive’s policy but did try to send to Palestine only those who could adjust to conditions and strike roots there. Tables 4.1 and 4.2 summarize the office’s activity in November and December 1921.

Table 4.1 shows that 40 percent of people who contacted the office registered as candidates for aliya, and 80 percent of those registered were approved by the Palestine Office. Of 1,015 visa applications received by the consul, 88 percent were approved. A total of 1,266 people left Poland—that is, more than the number of applications approved by the consul. Apparently, these people had been approved earlier in the year but only left for Palestine in November or December.

Source: CZA, S6, file 338/2.

* Including some applicants approved by the Warsaw office in previous months.

** Including some who received visas in previous months.

The distribution by sex and age in table 4.2 shows that the Palestine Office carefully chose candidates in an effort to implement the Zionist and British immigration policies and to send young people to Palestine. Roughly 80 percent of the visa recipients were male, and 70 percent were aged thirty or under. The preference for men made it harder for women to receive visas. The reasons for the gender preference included a rash of preconceived notions about the difficulty women had adjusting to the new country, compared with men’s good ability to adjust. “For the most part, women who immigrate imagine that the country is prepared to employ them as soon as they arrive in Palestine; many women come to Palestine in order to help their families by sending back money.” But their initial encounter with the country was harsh and disappointing. “As soon as they arrive [they] encounter the unique conditions of our country. They are driven to despair in their very first days in Palestine and come close to a state of physical and mental decline.”32

Source: CZA, S6, file 338/2.

The case of Yona Shapiro of Jerusalem illustrates the difficulty women had getting travel papers and the preference for men in the issuance of aliya authorizations. Shapiro had received permission for her mother to come and wanted her sister’s daughter to accompany the woman on the arduous journey, but she knew her niece had little chance of being approved for aliya. “Please pay more attention to my request this time and try to fulfill it as quickly as possible. The matter is as follows: I received a government permit for my mother a while back and sent it to her, but she cannot set out on what would be such a long, difficult journey for her. For this reason I wanted my sister’s daughter to travel with her, but . . . what can I do? It is harder for young women to get permits as the number of certificates for them is much more limited than for young men.”33

Shapiro therefore asked for a certificate for her brother, “who wants to come with my mother. I wrote to the department asking them to help me and my mother by sending my brother a certificate, if possible before Purim, so she can come here for Passover when the sea voyage is not difficult. . . . I would be very grateful if my mother could travel together with my brother and come to Palestine for Passover.”34

In 1922, a total of 3,053 people immigrated to Palestine from Poland: 2,577 adults and 476 children. Of these, 46 percent were female and 54 percent were male. Ten percent of the immigrants were between the ages of fifteen and twenty; 49 percent were between sixteen and thirty; 17 percent were between thirty-one and fifty; and 24 percent were under fifteen or over fifty. Altogether, 2,532 applicants to the Palestine Office (83%) received visas “on the basis of invitations (request documents) from relatives,” and 322 (11%) had “entry certificates from the Zionist Executive.” The remainder were persons of means, professionals, tourists, and returning residents. Approximately 84 percent of the immigrants sailed to Palestine via Vienna and Trieste on ships belonging to the Lloyd Triestino company; the other 16 percent sailed via Romania. A total of 1,001 were Russian nationals, and 2,052 were Polish nationals.35 A representative of the Palestine Office summed up his considerations for selecting the “human material” as follows:

A glance at these lists proves that, with the restrictions on aliya, immigrants dependent on others for their livelihood in Palestine outnumber those with a trade and workers seeking to build up the country through their work, although the latter are the most desirable immigrants from our Palestinian perspective. Our information work gave us a basis for registering only those prospective immigrants who had a chance of managing in Palestine and of obtaining an immigration permit, whether by invitation from relatives in Palestine or with a certificate from the Zionist Executive. We used these certificates without exception to approve expert tradesmen who, based on our knowledge, will be able to get by in Palestine.36

According to the Palestine Office in Warsaw, the office also handled immigration arrangements for Jews from Russia: “In the past half year three hundred halutzim have come here from Russia and Ukraine on the instructions of Hechalutz in order to immigrate to Palestine.”37 The Russian nationals reached Warsaw when Palestine was still open to immigration and the directors of the office thought they would be able to continue on to Palestine. The British immigration ordinance enacted after the riots of 1921 made it hard for those halutzim to obtain entry visas, and the Warsaw office had to take care of them. “We managed, with great difficulty, to set them up in the area of Poland and find them short-term jobs. Now the situation has become worse: the Polish government is starting to take practical measures against letting in people from Russia and even against allowing those who arrived here as much as half a year ago to stay.” The Palestine Office took care of those halutzim and helped them for fear that they would be sent back to Russia. There, “without a doubt severe punishment awaits them for fleeing here, because they are all young and most of them had jobs and responsible work that they left when they fled for their lives.”38 The directors of the office asked the Zionist Executive to help obtain visas for the three hundred halutzim from Russia who were stuck in Warsaw.

An immigrant shelter was established in Warsaw with funds from the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). It had eleven large, spacious rooms and sixty beds. The shelter was run according to clear, strict rules, and residents were expected to comply with its schedule: the maximum stay in the shelter was two weeks; residents were responsible for the items in the house; they were expected to make their beds by eight o’clock, after which they were not allowed in the bedrooms until eight in the evening except during lunchtime; the residents in each room had to choose a supervisor who would be in charge of tidying, cleaning, opening, and closing the room, and in the end would return the key to shelter management. Breakfast was served from eight thirty to ten, lunch from two to four, and supper from seven to nine. Eating was permitted in the dining room only, and lights-out was at eleven o’clock.39

Constantinople

The Constantinople office was the most complicated of all the Palestine Offices. Unlike the others, it handled hardly any local applicants for immigration. The city’s proximity to the port of Odessa brought (along with halutzim and olim) thousands of Jewish refugees from the terror of the Ukrainian civil war seeking to go to Palestine and elsewhere, including the United States, Canada, and Argentina. Many of the refugees needed material and emotional assistance while waiting for entry permits, and often they became a burden on the local Jewish community. The initiative to establish a local office that would help the refugees was taken by Russian Zionists living in Constantinople who had seen the plight of their fellow countrymen in the city.

In June 1920, Russian Zionists in Constantinople founded the aliya committee, headed by Ze’ev Tiomkin. “Immigration to Palestine via Constantinople is increasing from day to day and taking on the form of real migration,” Tiomkin wrote to the Zionist Commission. He noted that hundreds of halutzim were thronging Constantinople from Crimea, Bessarabia, Bulgaria, Romania, and even Iran, and there was no one to help them overcome the bureaucratic obstacles to leaving Constantinople and entering Palestine:

Regarding Palestine, there was no institution here dealing with immigration, supporting them initially, and making it easier for them to continue on their way. . . . Consequently, the Russian Zionists living in Constantinople decided, together with local elements, to quickly rectify this urgent situation. At a general meeting to which representatives of various organizations were invited, the decision was made to form an aliya committee in Constantinople. Its aims would be to establish a migration station, offer material and moral support, provide medical assistance, arrange visas and fares for the journey, make arrangements for lodging, and offer reading and Arabic lessons.40

The establishment of the aliya committee was a welcome gesture of goodwill on the part of public figures to help the olim, immigrants, and refugees in the city. However, the committee had a hard time helping them due to a dearth of material and financial means. Tiomkin hung his hopes on the Zionist Commission and appealed several times to Ussishkin for assistance, but the money did not arrive: “For about two months now, we have been fighting for our existence here under the worst conditions. For several days the halutzim who have been suffering here for half a year have had no bread to put in their mouths. And now that we have received visas for some of them, we have no way to send them because we have no [money] to pay for the ticket.”41

The aliya committee’s work in its first year was rife with difficulties, including that of fulfilling the requests of the Jews who had come to Constantinople en route to Palestine. Many letters and memos were sent to the Zionist Commission complaining about the dysfunction of the aliya committee and its inability to help: “We know of cases in which immigrants slept on the beach, in the open air, because no home had yet been found for them.”42 After a home was found, it turned out to be unlivable and too small to hold its residents. “Single immigrants are being put up in general hotels. Dormitories of a Jewish school in a Constantinople suburb are now being used as such a hotel. There are about 250 people in four rooms. In addition to singles they have put . . . a few families with small children there as well.” The wait in the apartments the committee rented was unpleasant: “It is hard to describe the unsanitary conditions in this apartment: There is no sign of any furniture in the house, such as beds, tables, or chairs. They sleep, eat, and work on the filthiest floor.” Moreover, the rent that the committee charged turned out to be much higher than the going rate and wiped out the immigrants’ funds: “It goes without saying that the apartments rented with the help of aliya committee workers should cost the immigrants less than if the immigrants living in them, who are not familiar with the city and its language, rented them on their own.”43

Complaints were heard about the storage of the immigrants’ belongings in a special warehouse rented by the committee, but the main complaints were directed against Tiomkin and the obstacles he placed in the way of people seeking to go to Palestine. “The director of the aliya committee, Dr. Ze’ev Tiomkin, has a preconceived notion that each and every immigrant, without exception, is a cheat and a schnorrer. Often he doesn’t let the immigrants express what they want, interrupts them, and orders them to get out.” The complainers were also astonished by Tiomkin’s attitude toward Zionism, which they described as “very strange.” They stated, “He asks almost every one of the immigrants why he is traveling to Palestine; it would be better to go to America; what will you do there in Palestine?”44

Placing obstacles in the way of the immigrants in Constantinople was part of the Zionist movement’s immigration policy, and Tiomkin was acting in accordance with his instructions from Menachem Ussishkin. In early October, Ussishkin asked Tiomkin to be sure to send only physically and mentally healthy immigrants to Palestine and to prevent the weak and unfit from going. According to Ussishkin, the Jews in Constantinople were unsuited for settling Palestine and had become a burden on the Yishuv institutions: “When you send immigrants here, check over and over again that those coming to Palestine are mentally and physically healthy enough. Because the recent arrivals include some who are very defective and not at all capable of settling in Palestine. Even one percent who aren’t good are enough to ruin many good ones.”45 Tiomkin agreed. He replied, “The aliya committee in Constantinople gives due attention to examining the immigrants to Palestine. Since its very first day it has examined the immigrants thoroughly both physically and mentally before they are sent to Palestine.”46 Indeed, the letter of complaint to the Zionist Commission gives the impression that Tiomkin questioned, examined, and interrogated prospective immigrants and was careful to send only those who fit the required profile.

The issue of suitable candidates for immigration was of paramount concern to the Palestine Offices, which found themselves between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, the aliya bureau expected them to conduct thorough, meticulous examinations of the immigrants, but on the other, they were subjected to incessant pressure from the applicants to authorize their immigration. Although the offices generally complied with the aliya bureau’s demands, they could not always withstand the pressure and sometimes sent people who did not fit the preferred Zionist profile.

The cooperation between the aliya committee and the Jerusalem aliya bureau with respect to the desirability of certain immigrants caused tension with the JDC in Constantinople. Because the aliya committee lacked the necessary financial means and because Tiomkin was not getting financial assistance from the Zionist Executive, he asked the JDC for assistance. The JDC agreed and did indeed fund the committee’s work, but sending only healthy young people to Palestine ran counter to JDC policy, which sought a solution for all Jewish refugees in the city.47

The Constantinople aliya committee was officially designated a coastal Palestine Office in late 1920. In March 1921, after Tiomkin’s visit to London, it was declared a central Palestine Office. In 1921, Dr. Kalb, director of the local JDC office at the time, took over from Tiomkin. Jewish refugees who had fled to Odessa had arrived in nearby Constantinople during and after the pogroms in Ukraine and told Dr. Kalb what was happening in their country. On June 13, 1919, he published his impressions in Hapoel Hatzair, based on the testimonies he had heard. “In brutality and terror, the recent pogroms in Ukraine have surpassed the pogroms in the days of the Czarist government in Russia,” Dr. Kalb wrote. “Men and old people, children and women, were slaughtered; no one was left alive. Not content with mere robbery, the murderers perpetrated a general massacre. Their aim was to annihilate Jewish communities wherever they went. Tens of thousands were wounded or killed. The slaughter was conspicuous for its unheard-of brutality and unbelievable tortures.”48

Refugees thronged the aliya bureau, seeking to go to Palestine, though many did not even want to go there at all; they were hoping to go to the United States, Canada, or Argentina. They only chose Palestine when it became clear to them that they had no chance of going to America: “It often happens that people cannot go to America because of the quota, because they lack sufficient means, or due to someone sick in the family, etc. On the other hand the ICA does not consider them suitable for Argentinian colonization and so does not give them its full support, or (as I was told by the director of the ICA) the Canadian government makes certain demands regarding immigrants’ fitness for working the land. In such a case, the person concludes that the only place for him is Palestine.”49

Because Constantinople had become a temporary place of refuge for many Jews who had fled the terror of the pogroms in Ukraine, the Palestine Office had no choice but to deal with the refugees. For these people, Palestine was a default on which their lives depended. The Palestine Office workers found themselves in constant tension between a growing stream of refugees longing to reach Palestine and the Aliya Department’s demand that only halutzim who worked in agriculture be sent there. Many “peddlers, restaurant owners, and owners of soda fountains” were sent from Constantinople to Palestine, while the “productive element” sent was smaller than anticipated, to the displeasure of the Aliya Department.50

The large refugee population in the city dictated the Palestine Office’s working methods, which differed from those of the offices in Europe. Most migrants arrived in Constantinople without aliya permits, stayed in the city for a long time, and were a heavy burden on the local Jewish community. The office obtained entry visas for Palestine, negotiated with the British consul, arranged for medical exams, and purchased tickets for the voyage on the immigrants’ behalf.51 It even found them jobs and trained them to work the land in Palestine.

In 1911, the ICA purchased a large tract of land about twenty kilometers from Constantinople to house Jews. The colony, known as Mesila Hadasha (“new track”), was just one of several Jewish agricultural colonies founded by the ICA; others were in North and South America.52 In 1919, Yosef Trumpeldor of Hechalutz signed a contract with ICA management to train halutzim at the colony before they moved to Palestine.53 In the 1920s, Mesila Hadasha took in young halutzim, who worked there in agriculture and prepared for life in Palestine. “In recent years the Mesila Hadasha colony has been the place where the halutzim cluster during their stay in Constantinople. Now the halutzim are working in the forest there and pulling up roots. The Palestine Office and the Hechalutz office are currently busy with a broad, systematic work plan for the halutzim in this colony. They have already started implementing the plan for setting up a mixed farm that can employ a number of halutzim; they will train there to work in Palestine and will earn their livelihood there during the time they have to stay in Constantinople.”54

Halutzim who underwent agricultural training in the colony were sent to Palestine, but many of the thousands of refugees and migrants in Constantinople had no solution to their plight. Aside from the inherent difficulties of aiding the masses who thronged the Palestine Office, political instability in Turkey hampered orderly work vis-à-vis the authorities. The years after World War I were marked by political upheaval and governmental instability; this directly affected the work of the office, which had to deal with several government authorities rather than just one. Only in October 1923, after Mustafa Kemal Atatürk deposed the sultan and declared the establishment of the Turkish republic, was political stability restored, after which the issue of refugees seeking to immigrate to Palestine was gradually resolved.

The Palestine Offices in Warsaw, Vienna, Trieste, and Constantinople bore the burden of immigration to Palestine and formed a crucial link in such migration in the 1920s. For this reason, the Zionist movement invested great effort in creating a multibranched, hierarchical immigration apparatus capable of implementing an effective, selective policy that would serve the strategic goals of the Zionist movement. Their primary task was to carry out the immigration policy of the aliya bureau and Mandatory government while assisting Jewish migrants. Because these two needs did not always overlap, the Palestine Offices were constantly in crisis. The difficulty of maneuvering between the migrants’ expectations and demands and those of the Zionist Executive created tension for the directors of the aliya bureaus in Jaffa and Haifa and for the heads of the Palestine Offices.

In March 1925, a conference of Palestine Offices was held in Jerusalem, with the participation of eleven representatives of the central offices in Europe; one representative of World Hechalutz; and the directors of the aliya bureaus in Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem. These officials working in Palestine and abroad discussed the difficulties and challenges of making arrangements for immigration and sending Jews to Palestine. At the end of the conference several fundamental decisions were made that affected the work of the offices. The most important of them concerned British policy on immigration to Palestine. “The conference expresses its distress that the present immigration laws are preventing the Palestine Offices from bringing to Palestine those agricultural elements and tradesmen capable of increasing the productivity of the developing Yishuv in Palestine. The conference unanimously calls on the Zionist Executive to take measures to immediately repeal the present immigration rules that were introduced after the events of May 1921.”55

The conference participants declared that the immigration regulations “hinder the Palestine Offices in the fulfillment of their duty to organize immigration, cause resentment of the Mandatory government and the Jewish Agency within Jewish society, and undermine the foundations of trust in the Zionist movement and its operator in Palestine.”56 A motion was introduced urging the Zionist Executive to “pay as much attention as possible in distributing certificates to the Jewish refugees who remain on European shores to how well they meet the country’s needs.”57 Another resolution made at the conference was as follows: “In approving certificates, special attention shall be paid to those trained by Hechalutz and to others educated in the spirit of productive work.”58

The Palestine Offices also had to contend with distrust on the part of the consuls and their repeated allegations that the heads of the offices were not complying with the immigration laws enacted by the Mandatory government. At a meeting held in the Palestine Office in Warsaw, Joshua Gordon stated that “an atmosphere of distrust” had developed. The Mandatory government, he said, “has informed us that some intolerable things are being done in the offices. If we do not set things to rights, the Palestine Offices will be stripped of their privileges.”59 Gordon provided a few examples that he claimed had embarrassed the Zionist Executive. For instance, a Persian family had gone from Constantinople to Warsaw and applied for immigration permits for Palestine, but the supposed family members included a Yiddish-speaking Polish girl. In another case, a “daughter” was just five years younger than her “mother.” Some Jews tried to blackmail the Palestine Office, threatening that if they didn’t get what they deserved, they would inform the consul of the widespread forgery of travel papers in Warsaw, Constantinople, and other Palestine Offices. This triangle of forces, whose vertices were the Zionist Executive, the consuls, and the immigrants, made the offices’ work highly sensitive and complex and directly influenced immigration to Palestine in the 1920s.

The Bureaucracy of Immigration

The bureaucratic procedures that Jewish applicants went through to obtain the necessary travel papers for immigration, as described in the following pages, relates to the activity of the Palestine Office in Warsaw in 1925. The Warsaw office was one of the most important and busiest offices in Europe, with thousands of Jewish migrants passing through. The procedures instituted there, which were implemented in all the Palestine Offices in Europe, give us an indication of the complexity of the procedure for obtaining travel documents and entry permits for Palestine.

Prospective immigrants seeking the papers and authorizations needed to leave their countries of origin and enter Palestine had to meet criteria set both by the Mandatory government and by the Zionist movement. The bureaucratic procedure took a long time and cost money, and at the end of it their applications were either accepted or rejected. The procedure for obtaining the travel documents and entry permit can be divided into two parts: meeting the Mandatory government’s requirements and meeting the requirements of the Aliya Department of the Zionist Executive.

The first step was to ask the Palestine Office to determine whether one qualified to immigrate. Office workers started the process of obtaining an entry visa to Palestine only after having ascertained that the candidate had a good chance of getting it. Anyone who had capital of ₤500 was asked to show it in cash or property. Machinery, work tools, merchandise, and other valuables were considered, but only as a certain percentage of the total capital, and for no more than ₤100. Those in category E, who had written invitations from people already in Palestine, could receive a visa without delay, but the visa was valid for only a year; in order to extend it, they had to contact the immigration office of the Mandatory government in Palestine.60 Women whose fiancés were in Palestine were asked to bring “for inspection . . . the most recent letters (with the envelopes from Palestine) that they had received from their fiancés. Without this they will not be given the visa.”61

Immigrating to Palestine with a certificate was a complicated process. Twice a year the Zionist Executive gave the central Palestine Offices a certain number of these certificates:

On the basis of these entry permits and in accordance with the instructions received from time to time in this regard from the Zionist Executive in Palestine, the Aliya Office approves workers with a trade who are well developed physically, and can manage in Palestine and adjust to all the harsh living conditions of workers there. Visas based on certificates are issued only to those aged 18 to 35, [or] in special cases, with authorization from the government of Palestine, up to 45 years of age. The passports of certificate holders must state the trade on the basis of which their immigration certificate is approved. Those authorized to immigrate based on certificates can bring their families with them (wives, sons under age 18, and daughters). Sons aged 18 and over and parents are not included in the immigrant’s family for a certificate.62

To qualify for travel papers from the Palestine Office (in Warsaw) under any of the categories, a candidate had to submit a questionnaire that had been approved by the local office, along with a photograph and Jewish National Fund stamp. Questionnaires of prospective immigrants from eastern Galicia were handled by the Palestine Office in Lwów, those from western Galicia by the Cracow office, and those from Lithuania by the office in Vilna. Applications for an immigrant certificate were discussed at meetings of the office in the order in which the questionnaires were received. Applications submitted directly to the central Palestine Office and not sent via the district office in accordance with the rules were not accepted.

Those whose applications for immigration certificates were approved were asked to apply to the government office in their district for a Polish passport. Each also had to get a certificate of good conduct from the police, approval from the tax authorities, and a document from the army. Young men of military age needed a special exit permit from the Polish district headquarters for conscription and reserve duty (Powiatowa Komenda Uzupełnień, or PKU). Passports were free to applicants who had a special permit to migrate to Palestine from the government emigration office in Warsaw. To obtain such a permit, the candidate had to show the central Palestine Office “a certificate stating that he earns his living by manual labor in a certain trade (zaświadczenie pracy), a certificate of poverty (zaświadczenie ubostwa), or a document proving that he does not work and has no income but rather is dependent on support from relatives.”63 The passport application form was signed by all members of the family seeking to emigrate. By law, children aged sixteen and over needed their own passports.

Palestine residents who had gone to Poland on a British passport containing a Polish visa could return to Palestine without a British visa; instead, they needed a transit visa issued at the central Palestine Office in Warsaw. If the person wanted to return to Palestine after the passport had expired, he or she would be issued a new visa, but only after the British consul in Warsaw had received authorization from the Mandatory government in Palestine. Residents of Palestine who had gone to Poland on a Polish passport containing a Palestine government stamp reading “has permission to remain in Palestine in perpetuity” or “good for returning before the expiry date of this document” could return to Palestine without a British visa. Tourists could enter Palestine only with Polish (or other foreign) passports. They had to present a sum of money sufficient for the trip to Palestine and back and their itinerary in Palestine. The visas were issued for a period of three months.

After obtaining a passport, the candidate had to undergo inspection by the Mandatory government of Palestine. The inspections took place at the Palestine Office in Warsaw on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and applicants had to come on the day and at the time assigned to them. “Immigrants must come for inspection together with their wives and children who are traveling with them and must bring the proper papers.”64 In some cases a married couple was asked to bring a ketuba or official marriage certificate. In order to get a visa, each candidate (which included children up to age sixteen) had to bring to the Palestine Office a passport, medical certification of good health, three passport photographs, and about two and a half pounds sterling for the visa and entry tax to be paid to the Mandatory government (children up to sixteen paid an entry tax of ten shillings).65 On inspection days, the central office in Warsaw was extremely busy, with prospective migrants from throughout Poland waiting their turn.

A wonderful historical source that gives us an idea of how crowded and busy the Palestine Offices were is a children’s story titled “He-Halutz ha-Katan” (The little pioneer). The story, published in installments in the youth newspaper Shibolim, which came out in Warsaw in the 1920s, is told from the point of view of David’l, an immigrant boy. David’l sends letters to the editor, each of which describes another stage of the immigration process: deciding to emigrate, waiting one’s turn at the local aliya office, traveling to Trieste, boarding the ship, and sailing to Palestine. David’l’s exuberance and optimism are reminiscent of Mottel the cantor’s son in the novel by Sholem Aleichem.

This is how David’l describes his parents’ decision to go to Palestine for Zionist reasons: “Well, we are going to Palestine. All of us: my parents, my two little brothers, Shmuel Yona and Naftalke, and the youngest of us all, my sister Rochele. In addition to our family, a big group of halutzim are going. These are young men and women going to Palestine to work the land, build roads, drain swamps—in short, to do all the extensive work that the Jewish people has to do in Palestine.”

The journey begins with waiting for the clerk at the crowded district Palestine Office in a small Polish city. “Meanwhile we go every day to the Palestine Office, where the clerks prepare the paperwork for the visas. The office is Jewish and all the clerks there are Jews, and they occasionally even speak Hebrew. But it is hard to get up to the clerks because the entire building is packed with such a huge crowd that there is no room. Everyone is pushed and shoved to where the clerk sits, because everyone wants to be among the first to get the necessary information. We all crowd together from nine in the morning until lunchtime.”66 This was the applicants’ experience: long lines; tiring waits; and prying, draining interviews.

Although the immigration arrangements were supposed to be made through the Palestine Offices, some people set out without the necessary paperwork or with the wrong papers. These people became a burden on the coastal offices, which were expected to help them straighten out their status. “We note favorably the excellent attitude of the Polish consul in Trieste, who, thanks to our intervention, has put order in disordered passports.” In exceptional cases the consul even waived the consular fees. There were also cases of immigrants with forged visas. The office workers helped “those wretches who had fallen victim to exploiters of immigrants to return to their country. In a few cases we were able to straighten things out and obtain legal visas for the immigrants.”67

Once the visa had been issued, all the bureaucratic preparations were complete, and the immigrants were told to start getting ready for the trip: purchasing tickets for the ship and arranging transport of their belongings to the port in Palestine.

Medical Examinations

Jews seeking to immigrate to Palestine underwent thorough medical exams at the Palestine Offices in Europe before a decision was made as to their future; they were also examined on the way and when they arrived in Palestine. These exams became a standard, familiar procedure. Before World War I, immigrants to the United States had undergone three medical exams: the first was done at one of the border stations between Germany and the Russian Empire; the second was done by the shipping company in the port city before they sailed; and the third was conducted when they arrived at Ellis Island. Most Jews crossed the Russian border illegally and were therefore only examined twice. The medical exam done in the port city on behalf of the shipping company was strict because immigrants found to be sick were not permitted to enter the United States and had to return to the port of departure at the shipping company’s expense. To avoid unnecessary expenses, the companies tried to take only immigrants whose chances of being admitted to the United States were high.

The medical exam at Ellis Island started as soon as the new arrivals entered the immigration station, after they had placed their belongings in the entrance hall and walked up the steps to the registration hall. Doctors stood next to the long lines and on the peripheral balcony above them, observing the people waiting in line, watching their behavior and how they conducted themselves, and looking for signs of illness or other physical or mental problems. Each immigrant’s eyelids were raised to check for trachoma. Boys and men were examined by male doctors; the exam included looking at the sex organ and crotch area in search of signs of sexually transmitted diseases and to rule out a hernia. Girls and women were examined by female doctors; their exams were not as invasive as those of the men, unless they were suspected of having a sexually transmitted disease. Immigrants who were found to be sick or problematic in some way had a chalk mark placed on their lapels and were taken for an additional physical or mental exam in a side room before it was decided whether to send them back to their country of origin or let them stay in America.68

Like immigrants to the United States, those to Palestine also underwent thorough medical exams as a condition for obtaining travel papers and entering the country. Because the Zionist Executive was looking for a specific type of immigrant, the doctors were given clear criteria for deciding who was fit to immigrate and who was condemned to stay behind. An essential criterion in addition to good physical and mental health was the immigrant’s suitability for living conditions in Palestine. “The harsh conditions in Palestine demand tremendous effort from all new immigrants during their acclimation. Even those trained to withstand the many dangers anticipated to the immigrants’ health suffer somewhat from the change in climate and endemic diseases.” Therefore, a candidate for immigration whose “state of health cannot withstand the special hardships in Palestine and [who cannot] earn a living under these conditions necessarily becomes a heavy burden on the Zionist Organization and the general public.”69

The doctors were asked to conduct thorough medical exams and get an impression of the applicants’ physical and mental condition in order to spot the weak, disabled, and ill in advance. The Zionist Executive held the doctors responsible for the caliber of Jews arriving in Palestine. The instructions to the doctors were clear: “The exam must be practical, thorough, and free of all sentimentality. The Palestine Office doctors bear a tough moral responsibility for the tremendous loss caused, both to the country and to the immigrants themselves, if they neglect this requirement.”70

Prospective immigrants were divided into three medical categories: Category A comprised healthy people with no physical defect “or affliction, who are fit to do the hardest work under poor conditions, and who are not under 18 years of age or over 45.” Candidates in category B were not in perfect health but, as “master workers (in a craft or spiritual work),” were classified as skilled tradesmen who would not endanger the health of those around them, and they had a chance of finding permanent work in Palestine. This category included wives and children, provided they were in good health. Candidates in category C were rejected immediately and were not allowed to immigrate on medical or psychological grounds; these included tuberculosis, heart or kidney disease, a tendency to “diarrhea and chronic intestinal inflammation,” and “the mentally disturbed, especially cases of melancholia and mental illness, epilepsy and dimwittedness.” The doctors were instructed to identify not only the ill but also those who were “weak with no conspicuous organic defect.” Those who appeared to be unable to cope with the conditions of the country were rejected out of hand. “One must always pay attention to the constant physical strain required of workers under the conditions of the country and the little resistance of the weak to malaria, typhus, dysentery, and other illnesses of the stomach and intestines.”71

Although the Palestine Office doctors followed the instructions they had received from the Zionist Executive, sometimes immigrants who did not meet the criteria were sent to Palestine. “Many times we drew the Palestine Offices’ attention to the fact that the medical exam had not been performed by the Palestine Office doctor with the most elementary precision. Various chronically ill immigrants and even complete invalids have managed to get consent from the Palestine Office to immigrate to Palestine.”72

The Zionist Executive in Palestine was outraged about sick and unfit immigrants being sent there: “We have a list of hundreds of immigrants who came to Palestine while sick and cannot manage at work by any means due to their state of health.”73 S. R., for example, arrived on the Campidoglio in February 1922 with an advanced case of tuberculosis. He was hospitalized in Haifa for a few weeks until he passed away. R. D., age twenty-two, arrived in January 1923 from Ukraine; she, too, was hospitalized: “She lies there all the time and there is no hope of her being able to do physical labor in the coming months. Her subsistence in Palestine will always be a burden on the public institutions. She has no relatives in Palestine.”74

When Tiomkin took over as head of the Palestine Office in Constantinople, he was aware of the problems with medical exams and the absence of a clear, straightforward policy regarding fitness for immigration. “One of the most important questions regarding aliya, which until today has not received special attention from the offices dealing with immigration, is the matter of the immigrants’ health and their examination before they go to Palestine.” Tiomkin claimed, “To this day there is no permanent language on this subject and there are no fixed rules governing the functioning of all the offices dealing with aliya.” He called for order and logic “with respect to the medical exams for the immigrants and having the same order and the same language in all the immigration centers. . . . We have to try to ensure that the few who do immigrate to Palestine are at least physically and mentally healthy so that they can bring benefit and blessing to the land. The Palestine Offices should pay attention to this question and adopt measures to regularize the examinations of the immigrants in the future.”75

The medical exam was a crucial step in immigration to Palestine, and the Palestine Office doctors had tremendous power in that they could prevent people from going. Six Jewish doctors worked in the Palestine Office in Warsaw. Most of them were from religious families and had acquired their education and medical training in Europe.76 An interesting biographical detail that emerges from Katvan and Davidovitch’s studies is that the Zionist doctors had been army doctors during World War I; that experience had shaped their professional identities. They had worked in a system that selected candidates for military service and had to decide on the conscripts’ fitness for combat. According to Katvan and Davidovitch, a close connection is discernible between the doctors’ work for the Palestine Office and their experience in the military. The examinations of prospective soldiers and of prospective immigrants were similar: the Palestine Office doctors were asked to assess candidates’ fitness for immigration in terms of their physical strength and their suitability for settlement in Palestine and not only to determine whether they were carrying any infectious diseases.77

The medical exams were a fundamental issue in immigration, reflecting the complex dilemmas faced by Zionist immigration policymakers and the practical and utilitarian impacts of these dilemmas. The doctors came under incessant, heavy pressure from everyone involved in immigration: the British government pressured them to implement the policy stipulated in the law; the aliya bureau oversaw their work out of concern about the entry of undesirable elements; the heads of the Palestine Offices in Europe, who were directly responsible for sending people to Palestine, watched them from up close; and the applicants themselves contended with them in various ways and sometimes even tried to deceive them.

Dr. Mordechai Lansky at the Palestine Office in Warsaw felt the pressure firsthand on a daily basis: “Everyone will understand that a huge responsibility has been placed on the Palestine Office doctors abroad—to keep back those immigrants whose health would prevent them from fulfilling their difficult task in Palestine properly.”78 Lansky, himself a Zionist, understood the importance of the medical exam and considered it an essential condition for the success of the Zionist enterprise: “Anyone who cares about Palestine will acknowledge that the country’s development depends to a large extent on the caliber of the human material entering. If the new immigrants whom history has charged with the lofty task and burden of building the country with their own hands are truly prepared for their destiny, both spiritually and in terms of their health, we can hope that their efforts will be blessed. But woe to us if we ignore this aspect and let admission to Palestine be like a ball played with by random fate.”79

The doctors not only served as gatekeepers for public health; they also filtered out candidates who were “unfit” in terms of employability or even politics and were influenced by the intervention of the aliya bureau in Jerusalem.80 Because most of the doctors were Zionists, there was tension between their ideological and political views and the medical ethics they had sworn to uphold. On more than one occasion, doctors were accused of succumbing to partisan pressures and giving medical approval to applicants who belonged to the right party or taking advantage of their work in the Palestine Office to make some money on the side. Such allegations led to the dismissal of two doctors in the 1920s: Dr. Meir Pecker, who was fired after having been accused of corruption (even though an investigation found him not guilty), and his replacement Dr. Mordechai Lansky, mentioned above, who was accused of not being meticulous enough in his medical exams and sending sick immigrants to Palestine.81

Once official arrangements had been completed and tickets for the sea voyage had been purchased, immigrants were sent a telegram telling them when to go to Warsaw to pick up their travel papers and tickets. Each needed a passport, immigration certificate from the British government or invitation from relatives in Palestine, immigration certificate and payment vouchers from the Palestine Office, tickets for the train and ship, British government form 39, a voucher for the entry tax, an application to the immigrant houses in Palestine (if the person was destitute or had no family there), medical authorization, two photographs, and a declaration that the person was going to Palestine on his or her own responsibility.82

Next, they had to make their way to the port of Constanţa or Trieste. The Palestine Office reserved one railroad car for the immigrants and another for their belongings. A representative of the office escorted them to the Romanian or Austrian border. At the Romanian border another escort waited for them from the Palestine Office in Cernăuți; at the Austrian border they were awaited by an escort from the Vienna office. The new escorts took over responsibility for the group after being given the immigrants’ passports, and they accompanied them to the port of departure. Immigrants traveling on their own handled their own arrangements for taking the train to the port of departure.83

The heads of the Palestine Offices not only had to deal with the medical and psychological problems of candidates who were deemed unfit for life in Palestine; they also had to contend with Jews with dubious moral backgrounds—criminals and scoundrels—who wanted to go there. Their arrival in Palestine caused tension between Mandatory officials and the aliya bureau directors; moreover, future problems that might be caused by such immigrants were liable to cast aspersions on the Zionist enterprise, jeopardizing its success. When the immigration ordinance took effect, Sheinkin demanded that the aliya bureaus in Vienna, Trieste, Constantinople, Kishinev, Warsaw, and Crimea be especially careful in selecting immigrants for Palestine.

Along with the groups of halutzim—who excel in their dedication to our cause in general and to our land and working the land in particular—and along with ordinary, honest families, a number of people who are not decent people—thugs, rowdies, and layabouts—have come to Palestine with your assistance. Such people steal from their fellows while still en route and then in the immigrant houses here. Some of them get drunk here on wine and look for all sorts of excuses not to go to work, instead boldly demanding blankets from the community funds with the use of threats. Please, please do not do anything to help make the journey possible or facilitate it for people who have not brought you a certificate of loyalty and good conduct from the Zionist committee in their place of residence or from the committee of the organization to which they belong. We must not be lenient in this regard because our lives depend on it.84

The director of the Haifa aliya bureau also complained about two young “pioneers” who went to Palestine and were subsequently found to be prostitutes. On March 23, 1926, the sisters, Malka and Chana, arrived from Danzig on the Britannia. At passport control in Jaffa port, they claimed that they had been accused of forging Polish banknotes and that their father had therefore smuggled them to Danzig so that they could move to Palestine. After disembarking in Haifa, they “went to Tel Aviv, where they wanted to be—according to them—and from there they went to Haifa, where they managed on their own. Now they are prostitutes and give themselves to Arabs for money. . . . I think such ‘pioneers’ should be deported, and if you approve this action I will contact the police on the matter.”85

The Cost of Immigration to Palestine

Immigration to Palestine, as to any other destination, involved numerous expenses: a fee to the Palestine Office for handling the application; train fare (usually third class); the cost of food and lodging while waiting for the ship to sail; fees for loading the baggage onto the ship and unloading it in Palestine; the fare for the sea voyage (usually fourth class); the cost of food for the six-day sea voyage to Palestine; entry taxes in Palestine; and unanticipated expenses along the way.86 In addition, the immigrants had to pay for entry visas to the countries they passed through on their way to the port of departure. The Yugoslavian visa, for instance, was generally issued on the train to Trieste, but in addition, there was a fee for simply crossing the country. To pass through Italy, the immigrants had to pay a border-crossing tax and an additional fee for an Italian visa.87

The estimation is that the cost of the journey to the immigrant was 190,000 Polish marka, equivalent to ₤73 in the 1920s (₤4,200 today).88 A family of six would have had to pay an estimated 1.1 million Polish marka, equal to ₤426 (₤25,000 today). Due to high inflation in Poland and the decline in the value of the currency (which grew weaker by the day), it is hard to estimate the purchasing power of the Polish currency, but few prospective immigrants had the money needed for the journey. Many needed loans, which they requested from relatives or the Palestine Offices. The candidates from the youth movements were destitute, and their travel to Palestine had to be financed almost in full.

Immigration in the imperial era, before World War I, was easier and less expensive. The Jews of the Russian Empire sailed for Palestine from Odessa, whereas the Jews of Galicia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire sailed from Trieste. It was relatively simple to reach the ports of departure, and there was no need to cross international borders. After World War I, the process became much more expensive. Crossing the European continent between the two world wars involved passing through new nation-states, and about a quarter of the cost of immigration went to paying for visas, border crossings, and the various travel papers.89

The Palestine Offices helped the immigrants obtain the necessary documents and even covered some of the expenses of their journey. At a conference of Palestine Offices held in Jerusalem in March 1925, the heads of the offices complained that the entry tax and the British visa fee accounted for a sizable portion of the immigrants’ travel expenses and that it was a heavy burden on the halutzim, the workers, and the aliya budget. They called on the Zionist Executive to reduce the fees and help create sources of income to support halutzim from various countries.90

In some cases, immigrants set out without sufficient funds and appealed to the Palestine Office for assistance. These requests, too, were a burden on the office. “Recently there have been numerous cases in which immigrants to Palestine left Poland without enough money to cover the costs of their journey, ignoring our warnings and requirements in this regard.” They asked the Palestine Office in Vienna to help. “We hereby announce that any such request to the Palestine Office in Vienna will be rejected and immigrants who leave Poland without sufficient money for the costs of the journey will have to remain in Vienna and not continue on their way. It should be noted that there have even been cases in which immigrants stated before setting out that they had the necessary sum and they signed this statement, and then when they reached Vienna they denied it.”91

A calculation of the cost of immigration to Palestine and conversion of this cost into present-day sums indicates that it was an expensive undertaking and that ordinary immigrants had genuine difficulty raising the money. Most immigrants in category A (certificate recipients) had limited or no means. In the absence of financial assistance, many applicants had no choice but to give up on going to Palestine, despite having received aliya certificates and completed all the bureaucratic arrangements for the journey. These delays and cancellations caused great suffering to the applicants and were a source of tremendous discomfiture to the Zionist Executive, which had obtained the certificates but was unable to use them.

The Voyage to Palestine

As the sky turned gray, the ship neared the shores of Haifa. Shortly thereafter, a pink wreath appeared on the eastern fringes. Ahead of us we saw Mt. Carmel, adorned here and there with green groves, and with white houses in the middle. The sea devoured the golden sand dunes, with the bunches of tall palm trees jutting out from them. . . . The ship sailed along the coast. On the horizon, mountains turned black. Clusters of lights sparkled from towns. As we neared Jaffa, the wind brought with it the fragrant scent of orange blossoms.92

The big, old, dirty ship that had become filthy during the voyage, with its three hundred fifty passengers, dropped anchor in the sea of Jaffa. It was the beginning of winter. The sea lay quiet and still, as if oil had been poured on it, and lots of boats, big and small alike, with oars and with sails, plied its waters. None of them touched the ship or even came near it. As if it were defiled, as if they were ostracizing it. This was an immigrant ship. . . . The three hundred fifty immigrants, gaunt, hungry, and dirty, with skinny faces, wearing wrinkled, worn-out, filthy clothing and loaded down with parcels, burst forth out of the black arms of the ship’s cabins below.93

This is how the arrival on the shores of Palestine is described in the memoirs of people of the Third Aliya and in a 1925 children’s story by Moshe Smilansky. According to the memoirs, written many years later, the newcomers, who had not yet entered the country, were captivated by the coastline of Jaffa and Haifa as seen from the deck of the ship. Standing on the deck, they smelled the citrus blossoms (even though the ships anchored about a kilometer from land) and they looked out at the Carmel range and the Hadar neighborhood of Haifa. They saw the mosques and homes of Jaffa, with their Muslim architectural style that differed so greatly from the familiar European landscape. In the memoirs of Ya’akov Midrashi and his fellows, they were lost children returning to their ancestral homeland. By returning to the land and embarking on a life of farming, they sought to re-create themselves as new, healthy Jews coming to build Palestine and to be transformed by it. Their journey to Palestine was a modern version of the return to Zion by a nation that had been exiled and returned home, been exiled again, and was now returning a second time after two thousand years.

In Moshe Smilansky’s children’s story, there is no coastline or scent of citrus blossoms. The immigrants were crammed into the belly of a stifling, rickety ship. They were dirty, hungry, and dressed in patched-up rags. When they went onto the deck, they “looked at the city that lay on the shore, stretched out their hands to it, prayed, and begged to be redeemed from captivity.”94 For them the voyage was not a return to Zion but an escape from economic hardship, persecution, and pogroms to a land of refuge.

The Jews’ return to agriculture and to working the land, and in later years to the sea as well, was one of the cornerstones of Zionist ideology. At the inception of the Zionist movement, the sea was not perceived as having any inherent national significance. Beginning in the 1930s, however, a change occurred in the Zionist movement’s attitude toward the sea: it gradually became a “Jewish sea,” as various national projects and experiences imprinted it with Zionist meaning. The historian Maoz Azaryahu has shown how the sea became an integral part of everyday life for the people of Tel Aviv during the Mandate period and how their attitude toward it changed over time.95

As Tel Aviv grew during the 1920s, its homes and streets reached the shore, which became an attraction and a place for leisure activities and amusement. For eastern European Jews who were experiencing the Mediterranean climate for the first time, the beach was something special, refreshing, and completely new. Bathing in the sea became an integral part of how the eastern European immigrants spent their free time, especially on the Sabbath and festivals.96 According to Azaryahu, the beach embodied the tension between secularism and tradition and between the New Yishuv and the Old Yishuv. Going to the beach on the Sabbath (rather than to the synagogue) was not just fun; it was a statement of principle that the emerging society in Palestine was new and different from that in Europe.97

Azaryahu has additional examples of the nationalization of the sea, both commercial and ideological, on behalf of Zionism. In 1924, an American Jewish group established the American Palestine Line, which operated a fixed route between New York and Palestine and brought a ship flying a Zionist flag to Haifa for the first time; that same year, a Sea Scouts youth movement was founded for Palestinian Jews. The General Federation of Jewish Labour inaugurated water sports competitions in 1928. Private entrepreneurs—aware of the sea’s economic potential—bought ships and fishing boats.98 A significant milestone in turning the sea into an integral part of the Zionist space was the opening of the port of Tel Aviv in 1936. Though small and of limited capacity, the port was “Hebrew” (i.e., Jewish run) and was a proud symbol of the integration of the sea into the geography of national revival.99

The historian Joachim Schlör saw the sea as a tool with which to track the migration experience of Jews from Germany in the 1930s. Based on diaries, memoirs, and photographs, Schlör reconstructed the voyage to Palestine from the point of view of the Jews fleeing Nazi Germany and their encounter with the local population in Palestine.100 When they arrived in Tel Aviv, they changed the face of the city, detaching it from Arab Jaffa and turning it into a Jewish coastal city with a vibrant promenade and a bustling shoreline. The sea was a place to bathe and have fun but also a symbolic boundary separating the Jewish and Arab populations.

Kobi Cohen-Hattab’s comprehensive book Ha-Mahpekha ha-Yamit (Maritime revolution) reinforces the distinctions made earlier by Azaryahu and Schlör. Cohen-Hattab argues that the Yishuv’s conquest of the sea was not just part of an economic and occupational conflict between groups with common interests but also part of the national struggle for Palestine. The ports, Jewish seafaring, fishing communities, and maritime training strengthened the Yishuv and, along with labor and security, became integral parts of the formation of the new Jew, the “man of the land and sea,” that the Zionist movement wanted to create in its image.101

Whereas Azaryahu, Schlör, and Cohen-Hattab address the various aspects of the sea in the emerging Zionist ideology and outlook, for most ordinary Jewish immigrants the sea had a single, prosaic meaning: it was an obstacle to be crossed as safely and quickly as possible. Many were preoccupied with day-to-day problems, the hardships of the journey, and fears regarding the future. For them, the ship was merely an efficient though uncomfortable vehicle taking them from one port to another one at the far end of the Mediterranean Basin.

The voyage from the European ports to Palestine lasted about a week. During this time, an interesting dynamic developed among the passengers who had come together, completely at random, on board the ship. They included families and single people, women and men, religious and secular Jews, ardent Zionists, and refugees fleeing Europe to the only country that would take them. They all shared a space where they slept, ate, prayed, talked, and argued before arriving in Palestine and going their separate ways. The gap between the heroic image of the return to Zion and the rough, taxing journey by land and by sea demonstrates the complexity of migration in general and immigration to Palestine in particular.

Before boarding the ship, the immigrants had to go through inspections and an identification process. “Before sailing, the olim receive tickets from us for the ship, which we obtain from Lloyd Triestino in exchange for the appropriate vouchers.”102 Their particulars were recorded in an orderly, precise manner at the Palestine Office at the request of the Zionist Executive so that information could be provided to family members asking about them while they were en route. The passengers underwent another medical exam on the ship, while the Palestine Office obtained exit permits for them from the local police.

Dealing with the immigrants’ belongings was one of the most complicated issues of all for the coastal Palestine Offices. Each person was permitted to send three items weighing one hundred kilograms each. They were supposed to pack their belongings in such a way that they could be opened by border-control officials. Each item had a tag with the immigrant’s name and address and the city from which he or she was sailing to Palestine.103 When they reached Palestine, immigrants picked up their belongings from the aliya bureau in Jaffa or Haifa.

In their first few years, the Palestine Offices were not set up to handle the immigrants’ baggage. This service was provided by the Jewish Company for Travel and Cargo Transport to Palestine—Ma’avirim. The company, which had branches in the major Jewish centers, acted as a broker between the Palestine Office and both the railway offices in Europe and the shipping companies whose vessels plied the Mediterranean. Its representatives were in contact with the Palestine Offices, and they negotiated with the management of the European railroads and the shipping companies over fares and cargo transport costs. Ma’avirim ran into financial difficulties in its first year and asked the American Jewish judge Louis Marshall to help it find an investor in the United States. “Although less than a year has passed since we embarked on our activity, we can state that we have achieved a lot with respect to the technical management of immigration to Palestine, and this has given us a good name. All the more so, as we are motivated by Zionism and are working in cooperation with the Palestine Office in Vienna and the other offices in the various cities where we have branches.”104

Despite describing its motivations as Zionist, Ma’avirim was a private company that worked with but not under the Zionist Organization. Therefore, the company sought financing from wealthy Jewish investors. “Due to our poor financial situation, our Jewish brethren outside Palestine must fortify us. We stress explicitly that this is not a donation but an interest-bearing financial investment with full securities. Capital may be placed at our disposal either through a loan or through membership in the company. As far as we are concerned, the minimum participation is 1,000 Krone, but we leave it to you to suggest a minimum.”105

There were many complaints about Ma’avirim; these were passed on to the Zionist Executive in Jerusalem and to the Palestine Offices. Passengers complained that they were being overcharged for sending their belongings to Palestine. They complained about lost property, about being given incorrect information, and about costs that turned out to be higher than necessary. Ma’avirim was, as stated, a private company whose owners were aware of the economic potential of immigration. But in its dealings with the immigrants, it created the impression that it was an integral part of the aliya bureau. On numerous occasions, immigrants’ complaints were directed to the Palestine Offices even though these offices had no commercial relationship with the company. “We would like to draw your attention to a stumbling block in the way of immigrants bound for Palestine in the form of the Ma’avirim transport and travel company,” the director of the Mizrachi labor bureau in Palestine wrote to the Zionist Commission. “According to what people abroad are hearing, this company declares itself a Zionist company whose stated goal is to facilitate the journey and the transport of cargo to Palestine. The immigrants hand over their parcels to Ma’avirim with complete trust, and when they arrive in Palestine most of the immigrants complain bitterly about the Ma’avirim management. Obtaining their belongings from the company usually involves shouting, quarrels, and legal action.”106

The aliya bureaus in Palestine received many letters of complaint about the company, and an investigation they conducted found that the complaints were justified: the company was exploiting their dependence in the name of the Zionist idea and was stealing their money. It was therefore decided that the Palestine Offices would take over cargo transport arrangements as an integral part of their work with the immigrants:

The resolutions adopted by Zionist congresses against the private Jewish cargo transport companies were worded especially sharply in 1924. We must admit that there were grounds to all the allegations against these companies, as the facts have proven in the course of time. As a result of these resolutions, all the Palestine Offices have taken on the task of transporting the immigrants and their belongings. The job is always done devotedly and accurately, so the immigrants put their complete trust in the Palestine Offices to transport them and their belongings. This has put an end to all the immigrants’ complaints about late, poor-quality, irresponsible shipments—complaints that in previous years marked a dismal chapter in the history of Jewish immigration to Palestine.107

From then on, the aliya process was in the hands of the Zionist Executive and under the watchful eye of the aliya bureau in Jerusalem from start to finish. From the moment people decided to emigrate until they arrived in Palestine, they received advice and assistance from sources authorized by the Zionist Executive. Private and foreign individuals and companies had no access to them, and every stage of migration was overseen and monitored.

The immigrants traveled to Palestine to settle there, and they brought with them everything they could to help them in their new lives in the new land. The letters of complaint to the Aliya Department in Jerusalem from passengers who had lost their luggage give us a glimpse into the contents of their cargo. Immigrants were asked to sew onto each piece of luggage a piece of white fabric stating their names and parcel numbers. After depositing their belongings at the port of departure, they would receive vouchers. The belongings of immigrants who sailed on the deck of the ship were usually packed in baskets rather than suitcases. Yisrael Keller arrived in Palestine with three parcels: “2 big baskets sewn with a piece of cloth and tied with ropes, 1 small box with iron bands. Around it is written the name.” Michael Gartenberg arrived with a package of pillows and a bicycle. Nota Goloboti brought three parcels: the first containing pillows, the second underwear, and the third various tools. His name was written on each of them, and “all are bound with iron bands.” Batya Gurwitz brought a sewing machine wrapped in fabric and a box with her name written on a piece of white fabric near the top. Yehuda Stab brought three parcels: one big basket, a package of pillows and duvets, and a box containing tools.108 The most common items among their belongings seem to have been pillows and duvets, which may have been better suited to the European winter than to the hot Middle Eastern climate.

But the significance of the bedding went deeper than their simple function. In the late nineteenth century, the Russian economist Andrei Pavlovich Subbotin published his book V cherte evreiskoi osedlosti (In the Jewish Pale of Settlement). The first part of the book came out in 1888, and the second in 1890. Subbotin crossed the Pale of Settlement from north to south. He stopped in cities and towns, visited Jewish neighborhoods, entered the homes of Jews, and described them and their lives without embellishment and without sparing his readers any detail. Among other things, Subbotin described the furniture and the bedding: “But the height of glory is the bed, with a big feather duvet and a pile of pillows. As a rule, the Jews love to have lots of junk (bebekhes) and glory in abundant bedding.”109 Subbotin added that when Jews married off their daughters, pillows and bedding were important components of their dowries. “And those pillows, being the main luxuries, are what is confiscated in other towns from those who fail to make their regular payments to the community, and they are kept as a guarantee until payment is made.”110 Thus, it comes as no surprise that the immigrants brought with them to Palestine the pillows, duvets, and other bedding that attested to their financial status and were a major component of the young women’s dowries.

Some people brought housewares and valuables. Ida Levin, whom we will meet again in the next chapter, brought gold jewelry, but it was stolen from her while she was undergoing disinfection. Chaim Lederman brought silverware and kitchen items: “Dear Sir, I am writing to you with a request. On Tuesday, August 4, I arrived on the Romania and I lost one parcel containing the following items: two small silver spoons, three phials with medicaments, cups and bowls, and other food and objects that I will not specify. The parcel is made of straw and tied with a thick rope. Please inform the Jerusalem aliya bureau if this parcel is found and send it to the Jerusalem aliya bureau for me.”111

In the 1920s, ships from fourteen companies visited the shores of Palestine each week. The ten main ones were Lloyd Triestino, Società Italiana di Servizi Marittimi (SITMAR), Serviciul Maritim Român (SMR), Messageries Maritimes, Deutsche Orient-Linie, the Khedivial Mail Line, the National Greek Line, Les Affrêtteurs Réunis, Lloyd Royal Belge, and the Fabre Line.112

The two most active companies, and those preferred by the Jewish migrants, were Lloyd Triestino, which sailed from Trieste to Palestine every Friday at one o’clock in the afternoon, and SMR, which sailed from Constanţa on Fridays at five o’clock in the evening once every three weeks.113 Conditions on both companies’ ships in the first half of the 1920s were dreadful: “There is no place to sleep, there is no place to bathe, and the lavatories are unspeakably bad, not meeting the minimal laws of any country.”114 In many respects conditions were particularly bad for women, who had to share the bathrooms and sleeping quarters with men.115 In the absence of suitable living quarters, passengers spent most of their days on deck. “It should be added that there is nowhere for people to sleep, and the passengers spend entire nights sitting in rented chairs. They cannot change their clothes for days and nights on end.”116 Another problem concerned the provision of food during the voyage. The shipping companies did not provide meals; passengers had to buy provisions for the voyage at the port of departure and wherever the ship anchored on the way to Palestine. Those who did not stock up or whose provisions ran out or spoiled went hungry and needed the assistance of their fellow passengers. In the children’s story published in Shibolim, David’l the immigrant describes to his friends back in Warsaw (the children reading the newspaper) the conditions on the sea voyage to Palestine:

A day after we left Venice, our ship started wobbling a bit because the sea was much stormier than it had been until then. Many of the people who were with us became sick at that point; their heads were spinning like wheels and all their insides felt as though they were turning over. My father gave them a few of the lemons that we had brought with us from Trieste, on my mother’s instructions. Although we weren’t affected by this sickness, we were cold at night while lying on the bedding that we spread out for ourselves on the deck of the ship. Reb Baruch-Noach the Caucasian, who had promised to prepare us for the heat in Palestine, almost froze one night when there was a constant drizzle and he was lying on the thin blanket that he had spread out as bedding at one edge of the ship. So we started going down into the belly of the ship at night, to the engine room, where the clattering engines emitted tremendous heat. The sailors and the ship’s officers didn’t stop us from warming ourselves up by the machines; they knew that we passengers were miserable and couldn’t afford to pay a lot of money for the warm ship’s cabins where the rich passengers stayed.117

There were two reasons for the terrible conditions. The first was the quality of the ships. Some were cargo ships that had been hastily converted into passenger ships after World War I and were unsuitable for carrying people. The second reason was that the shipping companies tried to maximize profits by selling too many tickets, despite the shortage of space on board: “One of the main reasons seems to be that tickets are being sold to halutzim in numbers that exceed the ships’ capacity. We must use all possible means to prevent . . . such crowding of the halutzim traveling on Lloyd ships. We have been informed by [the people in] Palestine that many of the halutzim coming from Trieste are arriving in Palestine broken and ill, and this seems to be mainly because of conditions during their voyage on the Lloyd ships.”118

The passengers’ poor physical condition due to the terrible hygiene on board was of grave concern to the heads of the aliya bureau. They were worried that the immigrants would not be in good enough health after the six-day voyage to pass the medical exams conducted by the Mandatory government and that the British doctors would not let them into the country:

The laws regarding disinfection on the shores of Palestine, which the immigrants find so annoying, are based on conditions during the voyage. Because of these unsanitary conditions, Jewish immigrants to Palestine have acquired a reputation for being unclean. This is the basis for the attitude of the authorities and the ship’s officers toward them. Because in practice there is no fourth class, and instead they set up the deck as a place to sleep, the passengers in the other classes have complained about the Jewish passengers. Hence the shipping company’s attitude towards these passengers, which is by no means respectful.119

Zionist officials were worried about Mandatory government officials even seeing the immigrants on the ships. Their concern was that the passengers’ appearance—exhausted and dirty from the voyage—might cast the Zionist enterprise in an undignified light and be detrimental to national pride. “On multiple occasions I have heard from people coming to escort the olim to the shore that the disembarkation process degrades us and the Jewish people.” While waiting for British officials after the ship dropped anchor off the shores of Palestine, passengers pushed one another, “and sometimes even [pushed] women and hapless infants, without looking to see whom they were shoving. The screams reached the high heavens. Of course, this did not induce the sailors on the ship to treat the Jewish immigrants politely and respectfully.”120 The newcomers to the country were often a source of embarrassment and worry for Zionist officials.

However, Lloyd Triestino also had complaints about the Zionist Executive representatives and the Jewish immigrants. Letters of complaint from the shipping company indicate that the reality was complex and not one sided: some passengers dishonestly obtained discounts to which they were not entitled, broke the rules, and bribed sailors. The “customer” that the Palestine Offices had promised the shipping companies was not necessarily a quiet, pleasant passenger but rather a demanding, stubborn, undisciplined one.

Since last year Lloyd Triestino has been showing signs of extreme annoyance with us. . . . They continue to complain that affluent people are using the immigrant discount [and] that tourists are using the discount as well. Our passengers buy tickets for the deck and then think to obtain good cabins by bribing sailors on the ship. We heard these complaints all the time, but especially when our Trieste office had to renew the contract. Everyone heard that Lloyd Triestino was considering not renewing our contract [unless] we agreed to exclude categories A and B from the discount recipients.121

To improve conditions, the Palestine Offices negotiated with the shipping companies and signed contracts with them requiring certain changes. Lloyd Triestino (and other shipping companies), aware of the economic potential of immigration to Palestine, tried to compromise with them. There was an American precedent of which the Zionist Organization was aware, and it sought to reach a contractual agreement with the shipping companies with similar terms.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the US Congress had enacted a series of laws requiring shipping companies to provide passengers with decent, more humane conditions. The purpose of these laws was to protect immigrants from the high-handedness of the shipping companies during the long voyage from Europe to America. The laws limited the number of immigrants on the ships and required the shipping companies to provide passengers with suitable food and reasonable living conditions. Because the companies did not always obey the laws and sometimes violated passengers’ rights, the American immigration authorities sent undercover agents posing as immigrants to inspect conditions on board.122

The Zionist movement, too, sought to require the shipping companies to improve conditions, but it was aware of its limitations. “We have to remember that conditions on the voyage to America also evolved somewhat. At first they were completely inhumane, and only by exerting its power was the American government able to bring conditions up to a level that met minimum standards.”123 Unlike the US Congress, which had the power to enforce its laws, the Zionist Executive had no means of pressuring the companies. The volume of immigration to Palestine was much smaller than that of transatlantic migration. “Unfortunately, we do not even have the power to influence the ships’ sailing schedule, much less conditions on the voyage. We can achieve this only through successful commercial tactics that will empower us to make demands of the companies.”124

Despite the problems and limitations, on April 28, 1921, the Zionist Executive signed a contract with Lloyd Triestino, with rules for the voyage to Palestine that included improved conditions. The company agreed to have a Jewish ship’s doctor and undertook to enforce the rules of the emigration authorities in Trieste regarding sanitary conditions. The company also agreed to provide each passenger with a bed and blanket (two blankets during the cold months), and no passenger was to be placed below the water line. A telegraph system was to be installed on board and arrangements made for kosher food to be sold at affordable prices. Furthermore, the contract stated that if a ship did not sail on schedule, the shipping company would assume responsibility for meeting all the passengers’ needs until the next voyage. The duration of the voyage, according to the contract, was to be 144 hours (six days), except in cases of delays due to bad weather, force majeure, or any other factor not dependent on the company’s goodwill. In addition, Lloyd Triestino agreed to give the heads of the Zionist movement or someone of their choice a free cabin for every twenty cabins booked and three free tickets for every hundred tickets purchased by the Zionist Organization. Zionist representatives would be allowed to inspect conditions on board, speak with passengers, and make sure that the company was abiding by its commitments.125

In September 1923, as the expiration date of its contract with the Zionist Organization drew near, Lloyd Triestino sent a representative to a meeting of Palestine Office representatives in Carlsbad to renew the contract.126 Dramatic changes were taking place in Jewish migration routes, and the Italian shipping company was concerned about a drop in profits. The increased flow of emigration from Poland (and neighboring countries) had gradually turned Constanţa into the Zionist Organization’s main port of departure, and the Palestine Offices in Warsaw and Romania had signed contracts with the Romanian shipping company SMR and with the Fabre Line. The renewal of the contract with Lloyd Triestino was a good opportunity to demand further improvements in conditions on the voyage. To maintain its position as a leading shipping company, Lloyd Triestino offered perks and discounted fares and substantially improved conditions on board its ships. The company also made three ships—the Carniolia, the Gianicolo, and the Trento—available exclusively to the Zionist Organization and for the first time inaugurated a direct route between Trieste and Palestine without a stop at Alexandria on the way; that stop had been a source of tremendous hardship for the passengers.

Ships bound for Palestine played host to a fascinating six-day encounter that replicated the life that passengers could expect in Palestine: tensions between religious and secular passengers and between ideological Zionists (olim and halutzim) and ordinary immigrants and refugees migrating due to physical distress; social solidarity and shared fate but also apathy and selfishness; political awareness and ad hoc aid committees established during the voyage for the immigrants; and even a newspaper that documented the voyage to Palestine for reasons of historical consciousness. Life together on board the ship, with the intense relationships among the passengers, was thus a microcosm of Jewish life in Palestine.

The voyage of the Ruslan is an interesting test case of the social dynamic that developed en route from Odessa to Palestine. The encounter between the halutzim and Zionist activists and the refugees is particularly interesting considering the different motivations that brought the two groups to Palestine. The first group was migrating for ideological reasons; the second group included survivors of the pogroms who were fleeing Ukraine. The prolonged voyage, which lasted about a month, was a golden opportunity for the Zionists to win over their fellow passengers to the Zionist ideology and to prepare them mentally for their arrival in Palestine. No longer a mere passenger ship taking olim, immigrants, exiles, and refugees to Palestine, the Ruslan became a center for Zionist indoctrination. The Zionist passengers created a humor publication entitled Tevat Noah (Noah’s ark), devoted to “affairs of the ‘prisoners’ on board the Ruslan.” Its editor, the journalist and humorist Chaim Katznelson, set out its goals in the introduction:

The ship’s committee, in view of its great concern for making the voyage pleasant for the passengers—the same committee that will be making all the nice, pleasing arrangements on our ship, the same committee that made sure that each and every passenger would have a special place to sit and lie down and that no one would suffer “thirst for water and hunger for bread,” the same committee that has worked hard to ensure that we do not spend even one extra hour en route—has also arranged for the publication of a newspaper on board, so that the refugees know what is happening in our world and so that the Jews know what the committee has done for them. Let us, then, be grateful to the committee for all the good and the kindness that it is doing for us.127

By drawing a parallel with Noah’s ark, Katznelson associated the Ruslan with the biblical account of salvation from the flood as well as the return to Zion, Cyrus’s declaration, and the Exodus from Egypt. “In the year one thousand eight hundred fifty since the destruction, the Lord caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp. . . . The heavens are the heavens of the Lord, but the earth He gave to men, and He has commanded us to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whosoever there is among you of all His people, a survivor and refugee—may the Lord his God be with him—let him go up to build the house of the Lord God of Israel.”128 Katznelson also tried to spark a discussion about the renewal of Jewish immigration to Palestine and to explain to the refugees and immigrants the historic importance of the event in which they were taking part. “In order for things to be more or less clear to every reader, we find it necessary to explain the history of this aliya in brief.” He coined the phrase “Third Aliya” and explained its history succinctly:

During the war a certain number of Palestine residents were in Russia and could not return to Palestine. Once it became known that the British had conquered Palestine, these people started trying to get permission to return home. This was very difficult vis-à-vis both the British authorities and the Russian authorities. . . . Along with these people came large numbers of those who yearned for the Land. It was as hard as the parting of the Red Sea. They spent almost an entire year looking for a suitable ship until they finally found the Ruslan. The ship’s owners undertook to transport six hundred fifty people, although there was really only room on board for half that. The crowding on the ship was inestimable and led to many complaints. In addition, the ship spent twice as long [as it was supposed to] en route. . . . As a result the provisions that the passengers had prepared for themselves ran out and they anticipated that they would go hungry.129

Despite the terrible conditions during the voyage and “all the trials and tribulations that the passengers suffered, for the most part an elevated mood prevailed and they spent most of their time on singing and dancing, lectures and speeches.”130 The newspaper, written during the voyage in late 1919 in the middle of the civil war, is a fascinating document that shows how immigrants and refugees could be converted to Zionism even before they reached Palestine. However, this was an exceptional voyage, with a group of passengers who belonged to the Zionist aristocracy. On most voyages, no satirical newspapers were published, and passengers did not rub elbows with Zionists who had such a well-developed historical consciousness. For most ordinary immigrants, the voyage was one more hurdle to be crossed on their way to the new land.

On one voyage of the Lloyd Triestino ship Trento, a group of passengers organized to protest the poor conditions on board. The hunger and crowding during the six-day voyage had brought them together and given them common cause. The Trento passengers decided to form a committee that would present their claims and would thereby help future passengers as well. They chose a chair, a deputy chair, a secretary, and committee members to represent all the passengers. This committee organized the immigrants’ complaints in a memorandum, which they sent to the heads of the aliya bureau in Jerusalem after arriving in Palestine. “The ship’s committee . . . in submitting this memorandum, has set itself the goal of highlighting the negative aspects of the institutions and companies involved in aliya and demanding that the top authorities of the Zionist Organization use the necessary financial means to remove, as soon as possible, all obstacles in the way of the masses immigrating to Palestine, who are encountering various stumbling blocks every step of the way.”131

The passengers criticized the terrible service provided by Ma’avirim and protested the Palestine Offices’ dependence on the company. “This company must do its important job. It is providing both the halutzim and the immigrants to Palestine with incorrect, untrue information in order to exploit them as they cross borders and travel by rail, as well as while transporting their cargo and belongings by land and by sea.”132 The ship’s passengers shared their stories and hardships with the committee, including examples of how Ma’avirim had deceived them and stolen their money. But the dreadful conditions on board the Trento were the passengers’ greatest hardship. This ship, built in 1901, had been used as a hospital ship during World War I and had never been converted properly into a passenger ship. “On our ship, the Trento, there are 250 people crowded into the lower part of the ship, which has a maximum capacity of 100 people.” The belly of the ship was dark, the “atmosphere suffocating,” and there were “coal remnants” present. Passengers who wanted to go up on deck to breathe fresh air were turned back by the sailors. “In addition, there is our prickly relationship with the ship’s officers, who regard us hostilely and bar us from various parts of the deck.”133 Given all these factors, the committee asked the Jerusalem aliya bureau to make the following changes in the immigration procedure:

1. Having all institutions and companies involved in aliya provide correct information;
2. [Obtaining] a report on the spending of money paid to Ma’avirim;
3. Giving groups immigrating to Palestine special railroad cars to send cargoes directly from place to place together with their owners;
4. Sending an escort and having Ma’avirim fulfill all of its commitments;
5. Setting a maximum number of passengers for the ship in accordance with feasibility and the ship’s normal capacity;
6. Providing the most basic hygienic conditions on board the ship;
7. Resolving the dispute between the Palestine Office and Ma’avirim in Trieste.134

The memorandum from the Trento ship’s committee is interesting not only for the description of the voyage from the immigrants’ perspective but also because of the initiative to organize and establish an actual committee. Even before they arrived in Palestine and became immersed in political activity and life there, they had already formed a committee to protect the interests of a group of Jews who had come together by chance on a ship bound for Palestine. The immigrants’ expectation that the Zionist institutions would take care of them made immigration to Palestine different from immigration to any of the Jews’ other destinations. Jews bound for Palestine relied on the Zionist institutions to handle all arrangements for the voyage. Whenever problems arose (even if they were entirely the immigrants’ responsibility), the address for their complaints was the Zionist Executive and the people in charge of it. These expectations, which had developed in Europe or during the sea voyage to Palestine, would remain with the immigrants throughout their lives in Palestine.

The ship was also a place for activism for the religious olim in the Mizrachi movement. They regarded the voyage as an excellent opportunity to spread their religious-Zionist ideology and especially to promote Sabbath observance, both on the ship and afterward in Palestine. “While still on the ship, every member of our movement should feel this great event in his life: He has a privilege that Moses and Aaron did not have. He has the privilege of seeing the wonderful, longed-for land.”135 Like Chaim Katznelson, the Mizrachi olim associated aliya with biblical accounts and extolled the great privilege they had of settling in the Land of Israel. They were tasked with uniting and organizing during the voyage, demonstrating their presence and conducting political activities: “From the very first steps of the journey, we must all call attention to our organization. All of our members traveling on the ship must join together in one group as the Mizrachi convoy . . . and conduct conversations and lectures about the doings and developments in the world of Mizrachi.”136

Beyond politics, however, Mizrachi members saw it as their responsibility to make the voyage more Jewish and more religiously meaningful for the other passengers as well. “Our members crossing the sea en route to our land are duty bound to take action, get others active, and influence others as well.” To this end, they were asked to act in several ways:

Public prayer: “Our members must make sure that public prayer services are held three times a day in the designated place.” Mizrachi members were requested not “to pray by themselves but rather to fulfill the mitzvah of public prayer, thereby setting an example for others.” Torah study: “There is no better place for public Torah study than the ship. There are no annoying interruptions, and the entire day is at your disposal. Between the heavens and the sea, the sound of Torah must be heard every day while the ship sails.” Kosher food: Members were to make sure there was kosher food available because the passengers included “many of our brethren who are repulsed by nonkosher foods that dull body and soul alike.” Because “traveling to our land should uplift the soul so as to elevate and sanctify life,” Mizrachi members were duty bound “to exert widespread influence on the passengers, suitably and appropriately, to eat only in a kosher kitchen.” Sabbath observance: “Promoting the cause of the sanctity of the Sabbath, the nation’s queen and its glory, should begin during the voyage, while on the ship, before our brethren set foot onto our holy land.” Mizrachi asked its members to turn the voyage into a public-relations campaign among the passengers on behalf of the Sabbath, emphasizing its importance both on the ship and in life in Palestine. “Our members must be the influencers and must explain what the Sabbath was for us in exile: the mother who sustained us throughout the generations and in all times. . . . Many of the Sabbath desecrators in Palestine lack knowledge about how valuable the Sabbath is to our national existence, and it is important, while still on board the ship, for every Jew to hear about the essence and value of the Sabbath. To this end, on the Sabbath our members who are traveling should organize a Sabbath party that will sanctify the Sabbath among the Jews.”137

The issue of kosher food on Palestine-bound ships was of great concern to Mizrachi. The organization put a great deal of effort into convincing the aliya bureau of the importance of the matter and even negotiated on its own with the shipping companies to make the ships’ kitchens kosher. Representatives of the movement were sent to the ports of departure, visited the ships, and inspected the kashrut arrangements. The difficulties they encountered were twofold: stocking the ship with kosher food in the port of departure and arranging for workers who would run a kosher kitchen on the voyage itself. “We reiterate again and again that so long as we have not ensured the quality of the slaughtering, inspection, and porging of the meat in Trieste and the kashrut arrangements on the ship itself . . . we will not take any responsibility and in any case will not provide support to the cooks and inspectors.”138 The insistence on kashrut on the ships was not only intended to make the voyage to Palestine easier for the religious passengers; it was also a matter of principle that reflected the Mizrachi movement’s desire to give life in Palestine a religious character in accordance with its beliefs. Achieving this aim began with making the ships’ kitchens kosher and ensuring mitzvah observance during the voyage: “Let it be clear to you: The Mizrachi Federation is an organization of Orthodox Jews that sees to it that the building of the country and the life of the Jewish people in general are consistent with the spirit of the Torah. Based on this outlook, we have agreed to take on kashrut supervision on the ships and assume the expenses this entails.”139

The Zionist Organization recognized the importance of kashrut on board the ships, but it could not afford to pay for a kashrut supervisor and staff of Jewish cooks. Therefore, Mizrachi informed the Zionist Organization in late August 1926 of its decision, passed at the movement’s world conference in Antwerp at the beginning of the month, to support kashrut supervisors, cooks, and other workers for the kosher kitchens on the Lloyd Triestino ships and the Dacia (belonging to SMR).140 Mizrachi chose to send Rabbi Yehuda Leib Fishman, a member of the Mizrachi World Center who was in Romania at the time, on the Dacia to study conditions on the voyage up close. To this end they asked to “immediately telegraph their representative in Constanţa with instructions to try to obtain a ticket for the Dacia for Rabbi Fishman, who, as the representative of Mizrachi, will be able to investigate kashrut matters there and on the ship.”141

In December 1926, the Mizrachi movement sent out a notice to all immigrants, the Hebrew-language press, and the Yiddish press in Europe about the state of kashrut on the ships:

The aliya department of the Mizrachi World Center in Jerusalem hereby announces that of the three ships Trento, Carniolia, and Gianicolo, belonging to Lloyd Triestino and sailing directly from Trieste to the shores of Palestine, only two, the Trento and the Carniolia, have kosher kitchens under the supervision of Mizrachi. The third ship, the Gianicolo, has no kosher kitchen. The Mizrachi aliya department considers itself duty bound to declare and warn that none of the Fabre Line ships that come to Palestine or the fast Lloyd Triestino ships on the Trieste-Alexandria route have absolutely kosher kitchens. On the SMR ship Dacia, too, which sails from Constanţa to Palestine, the kitchen is not considered kosher. Negotiations over the appointment of a kashrut supervisor and arrangements for a kosher kitchen on that ship are still in progress, being conducted through the Zionist Executive in Palestine.142

When World War I ended, Jewish immigration to Palestine resumed, and tens of thousands of olim, immigrants, and refugees attempted to go there. The Zionist movement prepared for the new arrivals and assumed responsibility for organizing migration, both in Palestine and in Europe. Within a short time, the movement had established a well-ordered hierarchy of Palestine Offices that implemented the Zionist and British immigration policy and helped Jews reach Palestine. The establishment of these offices in almost every place in the world from which Jews were immigrating to Palestine can give us an idea of the impressive organizational ability of the Zionist leadership, which succeeded in implementing the resolutions adopted at the various Zionist conferences and congresses and served as the leading player in building up the country.

The Palestine Offices handled all aspects of immigration: obtaining entry visas to Palestine and preparing travel papers, scheduling interviews with the British consuls, conducting medical exams for prospective immigrants, sending their belongings to Palestine, escorting them to the ports of departure and solving problems that arose on the way, negotiating with the shipping companies over conditions on the voyage, and purchasing tickets for the trains and ships. Were it not for the Palestine Offices, it is doubtful whether one hundred thousand Jewish immigrants would have reached Palestine in the first decade of the Mandate. These offices enabled the Zionist movement to oversee the immigration process fully and closely from start to finish. The aliya bureau ensured compliance with the Zionist and British immigration policy. In addition, through direct, close contact with the heads of the Palestine Offices, it learned about the difficulties and challenges they had to deal with following the changes in the immigration laws and the political and social changes in Europe.

From the bureaucracy of immigration, organization and management of immigration, its costs, and the actual bringing of immigrants, an effort was made (sometimes overtly and sometimes behind the scenes) to lend the journey an ideological Zionist hue. In almost every stage of the journey, the Zionist Executive attempted to influence the composition of the immigrant population, both by giving preference in the distribution of entry permits to certain applicants over others and by inculcating Zionist principles in the immigrants while they waited to make the journey and on the ships themselves. Its aim in all this was to prepare them for life in Palestine and ensure that they would build up the country and be transformed by it.