TURKEY’S JEWS AND THEIR IMMIGRATION TO ISRAEL

What is it about?

The current study gives an historical account of Jewish migration from Turkey to Israel. It examines not only the specificity of the movement in terms of size, scope, group characteristics of the immigrants and push/pull factors that motivate migration, but also the legislative and administrative measures taken by both countries in handling the movement of thousands from one to another. This examination is in three parts. In the first, background information is presented on Jewish emigration from Turkey to Palestine prior to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, and mainly focuses on the early years of modern Turkey which were marked by a nation-building process at national level and by the rise of Nazism and anti-Semitism in Europe at international level. The second part depicts the period after 1948 until today in two separate periods, since the mass migration of 1948–51 (the great wave)5 is different in both size and character from subsequent migrations to Israel. It gives a general description of the actors, factors and conditions involved both in the great wave and the ensuing migrations. In the third part of the study focuses on the question of how Turkey and Israel dealt with the immigration of Jews from Turkey to Israel, summarizing the legislative changes and administrative measures taken by Turkey and Israel that affected the status of migrants.

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Why is it important?

The migration of Jews from Turkey to Israel is the second largest mass emigration movement out of Turkey, the first being labour migration to Europe.3 The largest mass emigration of minorities from Turkey was that of the Greeks during the Turkish–Greek population exchanges of the early 1920s. However, the emigration of the Jews was not part of a government-mandated population exchange. On the contrary, the Jews immigrated to Israel of their own free will. Despite this prominent characteristic, the mass migration of Jews to Israel has failed to attract significant attention either from the perspective of policy-making or of social science, as shown by the paucity of studies on the subject. Even in terms of official documentation on the scope of migration from Turkey to Israel, the more concrete and reliable data come from Israeli sources, which can be interpreted as a natural consequence of Israel being founded by Jewish immigration (aliya)4 from all over the world. On the Turkish side, as a sending country, there is a scarcity of official documentation of Jewish emigration.