Preliminary Programme

Wed 12 April
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    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Thu 13 April
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    14.00 - 16.00
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Fri 14 April
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Sat 15 April
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Wednesday 12 April 2023 08.30 - 10.30
N-1 ORA10 Experiencing Migration via Ego Documents
C33 (Z)
Network: Oral History Chair: Sylvie Fogel-Bijaoui
Organizers: Deborah Bernstein, Talia Pfefferman Discussant: Sylvie Fogel-Bijaoui
Liat Alon : Modernity, Migration and the Family Ego-Documents and the 'Aliya' from Egypt to Israel
Over the period between the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and the Six Days war in 1967, two thirds of the Jewish community in Egypt resettled in Israel. Arriving under different circumstances and for different reasons, the newcomers had to find ways to respond successfully to the ... (Show more)
Over the period between the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and the Six Days war in 1967, two thirds of the Jewish community in Egypt resettled in Israel. Arriving under different circumstances and for different reasons, the newcomers had to find ways to respond successfully to the challenges immigration presented.
Exploring an array of ego-documents, including life stories, oral testimonials and transcribed account, this paper will trace back the newcomers' daily experiences, coping mechanisms, and multiplicity of considerations taken into account in their decision-making process. Analyzing the new information gleaned from the immigrants' accounts-from-"below", the paper will point to the centrality of the family and the roles it fulfilled during this period of rapid and all-encompassing transition.
It will also challenge a still-prevalent understanding of the family as a traditional social construct curtailing progress and modernization. Contrarily, the ego documents will point to the vitality of the family and kinship networks in allowing, containing and enhancing the immigrants' adaptation to the new economic and social realities in Israel, providing both a framework of reference and a support system.
Finally, exploring the under-researched history of Egyptian Jews in Israel, the information emerging from the ego-documents will challenge the analyses of the immigrant experience as explained in the Israeli national, Zionist and formal narratives, and offer an alternative lens by which to describe and explain it. (Show less)

Deborah Bernstein, Talia Pfefferman : Nationalism and Class in Times of Migration: Letters of Friendship among Immigrating Youth to Palestine, 1920's
Close friendships which were maintained via letter writing during and after immigration provided the young immigrants, each according to his.her character, inclinations and circumstances, with a space in which to express their continual deliberations and doubts regarding their identity and life course within a national, and class context.
This ... (Show more)
Close friendships which were maintained via letter writing during and after immigration provided the young immigrants, each according to his.her character, inclinations and circumstances, with a space in which to express their continual deliberations and doubts regarding their identity and life course within a national, and class context.
This paper focuses on personal letters sent by two young men, Jewish immigrants from Poland in the 1920s. to a close female friend, herself born in Palestine to immigrant parents. The letters express the impressions, experience, disaffection and future aspirations of the writers, elements which are not always apparent in the primary sources used to study immigration. The letters also highlight the importance of friendship during the turmoil of immigration.
Both writers use their correspondence to scrutinize, ponder on, or articulate ideas, feelings and thoughts concerning their life path. However, comparing the letters of the two young men, who shared a number of common features at their point of departure, suggests different trajectories which characterized the experience of immigrants at that time, and possibly also later.
While both came from the middle classes, they carved different routs for themselves. One of the writers, Hushi, formed and constantly maintained a socialist class orientation, leading him to become a prominent local leader of the socialist labour movement. The second writer, Milek, arrived at Palestine with a strong affiliation to collectivist notions. In his letters he shares with his female friend the process of estrangement from these ideas, turning towards a bourgeoise identity, formed during a journey back to Europe for studying medicine.
The Jewish settlement in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel and during statehood, was and is a society of immigrants epitomized by nation building process. In this context, the letters depict national and class identity formation, indicating that while the national identity is consistent and common to both writers, the class identity unfolds in multiple formations. The correspondences also point to the salience of ego documents in formulating immigrants' identities. (Show less)

Bat-Zion Klorman-Eraqi : Yemeni Jewish Immigrants in Mandate Palestine Preserving their Friendships in a Changing Environment
This paper examines Hebrew writings by young people, women and men, members of the Yemeni Jewish community that emigrated from Yemen and settled in Palestine in the late 1900s and early 1910. The work examines letters written by a number of friends who arrived in Palestine at infancy, or were ... (Show more)
This paper examines Hebrew writings by young people, women and men, members of the Yemeni Jewish community that emigrated from Yemen and settled in Palestine in the late 1900s and early 1910. The work examines letters written by a number of friends who arrived in Palestine at infancy, or were born there soon after immigration. All grew up in designated neighborhoods located nearby colonies (Moshavot), which were established by better off Ashkenazi Jews. Every one had to work since childhood in order to help their families, and none completed elementary school. Nevertheless, their writings is fluent and appealing. The letters they sent to each other discuss personal matters, leisure activities and work experiences. The correspondence covers the local space of the neighborhood and the space of broader Palestine where the young writers traveled in search for a job.
During the Mandate period (1920-1948) the hegemonic Jewish society, and then its historiographers, had not considered the Yemeni immigrants as equal participants in the Zionist enterprise, but perceived them as an auxiliary work force for the Zionist Project. Thus, Jewish historiography has been scarcely interested in the societal life of these marginalized Yemenis and or in their aspirations. The aim of this paper is to uncover the social concerns and dilemmas of a historically neglected sector of the Yishuv society from its distinct perspective. The presentation will deal with issues, such as daily life, youth activity, keeping old traditions along with adopting modern values, ethnic and class differences. I propose that the writers’ narratives represent the complicated transition from values and practices of their traditional and religious community to the ideas and ways of a modern society.
Finally, my discussion suggests that writing letters assisted in maintaining the young writers’ friendship and cohesion, even created a sort of a writing community. The writers shared their thoughts on private experiences and beyond and supported each other in dealing with problems, both within their community and elsewhere. Therefore, this paper sheds light on the complex fabric of the Jewish immigrant society in Palestine and widen the view of its particulars. (Show less)

Esther Meir-Glitzenstein : Nationalism, Family and Personal Life, Shifts in the World of a Young Jewish Woman Immigrant from Iraq to Palestine-Israel in the Late 1940s.
The national-Zionist narrative, interpreting Jewish history, conveys Zionism as a movement which saved the Jews of Muslim countries from a 'bitter' exile, one of persecution and humiliation. Zionism Is also portrayed as liberating the Jewish woman from ignorance, gendered enslavement and subordination within the family according to the segregative regulation ... (Show more)
The national-Zionist narrative, interpreting Jewish history, conveys Zionism as a movement which saved the Jews of Muslim countries from a 'bitter' exile, one of persecution and humiliation. Zionism Is also portrayed as liberating the Jewish woman from ignorance, gendered enslavement and subordination within the family according to the segregative regulation prevailing in Muslim countries. Accordingly, Zionism Granted the Jewish female immigrant from Muslim countries personal freedom which included education, the right of employment and the right to choose her male partner. The story of Hatun Morad, later to be called Shoshana, born in Basra Iraq in 1930, initially exemplified this narrative, while the ego documents accompanying her story, reveal complex contradictions and variations. Hatun-Shoshana was a member of the illegal Z youth movement in Iraq, escaped from home when her parents tried to marry her off against her will, secretly entered Palestine, joined the collective kibbutz, where she met and married her beloved, without her parents' consent.

All along she corresponded with her parents, her brother, and close friends from the youth movement, and with her beloved when he was enlisted in the Israeli army during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. She also wrote a diary in which she expressed her views on various issues. These documents highlight her personal experiences, giving us a unique insight into the life and world of a young female immigrant. We learn of her reactions to the contradictions between the patterns of behavior of the traditional Jewish society in Iraq and those of the revolutionary experiment of the kibbutz, as well as contradictions within each of these different social worlds.

Critical reading of these ego documents reveals complex social relations which challenge the Zionist narrative, highlighting processes of change among urban Jews in Iraq since the mid-19th century, and the relations between the two as they affected immigration to Israel-Palestine. (Show less)



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