Making Aliyyah: The Long History of Immigration to Israel, Why, When and How Many?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                    

From the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE until modern times, only isolated instances are recorded of group immigration.  For instance, my husband and I did it in 1980 by ourselves.  To make aliyah meant more than to immigrate; it meant to ascend "spiritually" , as one was called up to read the Torah in the synagogue.  It became the word to move to Israel.  

Back in  1121 some 300 Jews went to Palestine from France and England. What was going on in England at the time?  In 1099 the Jewish community in Jerusalem was massacred by the Crusaders.  In 1290 the Jews of England were kicked out;  expulsed.  Those that made Aliyah were smart. By 1306, French Jews were kicked out of that country. 

                                                                         

In 1267, Nahmanides, better known as Moses ben Nahman or the Rambam, made aliyah, followed by groups of disciples. He was the Rabbi of Gerona (Aragon of NE Spain).  He fought against the King trying to convert Jews openly.  Though promised immunity, he wound up being tried for blasphemy and had to leave Spain.  From 1267 he lived in Palestine, where he settled in; Acre, reorganized the Jewish settlement.  

By 1488, Obadiah of Bertinero, Italy made aliyah, also followed by his group of disciples.  He was the 4th of the 12 minor Prophets.  He made the prophecy condemning Edom for refused to help Jerusalem in her hour of calamity,  happening in the period following the destruction of the 1st Temple of 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar.  

1492: The Spanish Inquisition caused many Spanish Sephardi Jews, including the kabbalistic circle of Jews to make Aliyah to  Palestine.  

1564: Joseph Nasi's resettlement attempt brought groups from Italy.  He was  then nephew and son-in-law of Gracia Nasi, born a Marrano (hidden Jew)  in Portugal, fleeing to Italy in 1544 fled to Constantinople in 1554 where he embraced Judaism publicly and married.  

1700:  1,500 Jews arrived from eastern Europe in response to Rabbi Judah Hasid's call, who was Judah Hasid Halevi (1638-1700). He was a Kabbalist,, born in Podolia, a place between Ukraine and Moldova of eastern Europe.  Believing in the imminence of redemption, they set out for Palestine.  After an adventurous journey in which many lost their lives, the group reached Jerusalem in 1700.  Judah Hasid died a few days after his arrival.  His followers were persecuted on suspicion of Sabbataianism, and many returned to Europe.  You can imagine the stories they told.   

Around 1780s, there was a considerable influx of both Hasidim and followers of the Vilna Gaon, otherwise known as Elijah ben Solomon Zalman (1720-1797). He was born in Lithuania.  When he was about 60 years old, he set out all by himself  for Palestine, but returned before he ever got there.  It wasn't as easy as he had thought, evidently.

1850-1880:  These 30 years preceding the BILU, it is estimated that 20,000 to 30,000 Jews settled in Palestine.                                       

1882: Making Aliyah Zionism got to Russian Jews who made aliyah as the first group (1882-1903) from  a Zionistic group.  they started after too many Russian pogroms (group attacks on Jews) 300 families and other smaller groups arrived from Russia, 450 pioneers from Romania and a few dozen from the Yemen.  It is estimated that 25,000 immigrated during this period.  A number also then emigrated.  

1884:  The HOVEVE ZION group tried to coordinate immigration which resulted in the Kattowitz Conference.  The Turkish authorities had created some difficulties, and an increasing number of Agricultural settlements were founded. 

1890:  Persecutions sent thousands of Russian Jews to Palestine, but the number dwindled during the rest of the decade.                 

                                             Land of Milk and Honey

1904-1914:  The 2nd Aliyah were mostly from Russia again.  The Kishinev and Homel pogroms had happened there, driving them out.  Also, the failure of the 1905 Revolution was during this time. Many immigrants were motivated by socialist idealism.  35,000 to 40,000 entered during this period, mainly from Eastern Europe and also the oriental countries,, where life was cheap and so difficult.  As before, there were emigrants as well who found it too hard to live in Palestine, too.  More were now leaving for the USA.  

1914, the start of World War I and the Jewish population in Palestine was 90,000, falling to 50,000 by the end of WWI in 1917.  

The Balfour Declaration gave Jews the impetus to the 3rd Aliyah from 1910 to 1923 of which young people made up the group, made up mostly of members of He-Halutz.

1920, free immigration was permitted to persons with means of a trade;  craftsmen, those joining their families, Talmud students whose upkeep was assured.  A quota was fixed for immigrants whose maintenance was guaranteed by the Zionist Organization.  These regulations were modified  the next year but the principle remained..  Immigration was about 8,000 from 1920 to 1923.  At the end of the period, the country's Jewish population was again about 90,000.                                       

1924-1931:  80,000 more Jews made Aliyah with the great majority coming in1924 and 1925.  They were coming from Poland where Jews suffered from fiscal restrictions.  Many of the newcomers were middle-class, some "capitalists" meaning they were owners of 500 pounds, and this changed later to 1,000 pounds.  

1926-1931: A number left, especially during the 1926 depression, but there were 190,000 Jews in Palestine by 1931.  

1932-1940 The 5th Aliyah fell into 2 periods, from 1932 to 1935 covering the beginning of the Nazi persecutions, which saw 144,000 immigrants and 62,000 in 1935 alone, and was followed by economic prosperity.  During this time, YOUTH ALIYAH was founded. and then from 1936 to 1940, coinciding with the Arab riots and economic depression, when Aliyah was restricted by the mandatory government of England, first for economic, and then later for political reasons.  They were enabling the Arabs to enter Palestine instead of the Jews who they kept out. However, from 1936 to 1938, there were 53,000 immigrants.  In 1939, the MacDonald White Paper recommended that only 75,000 further Jews be allowed admission during the next 5 years and then it would be dependent on Arab agreement.  

However, 36,,000 immigrants entered during the 2nd phase of the 5th Aliyah including 15,000 "illegal" immigrants, meaning without government permits in 1939-1940. These are the years that Jews were in mortal danger in Germany and the rest of Europe, and was when Germany went into Poland and the 2nd World War had started.

                                                                     

 The British, bent on refusing entry to Jews into Palestine, immediately transferred the refugees to another much larger ship docked in Haifa Port, the SS Patria. The Patria was meant to transport them to a British detention camp in Mauritius.  About 3 weeks later the Atlantic arrived, on 24 November. The immediate transfer of around 800 refugees. The next day, when about 850 were still to be transferred over from the Atlantic, there was a huge explosion on the Patria that ripped a gaping hole through the hull, sinking it within about 15 minutes.  Everyone on board was blown into the water. More than 250 were drowned. The remaining 2000, including my aunt and uncle plus 4 year old Zeev and one month old baby Uri, somehow made it onto the quayside. Following this, the British ordered that all the refugees be interned in Atlit, a British detention camp, 12 miles south of Haifa. (The camp is now a museum of the history of illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine and was declared a National Heritage site in 1987.) Their intention was to procure a replacement vessel to take all the refugees to Mauritius. Arranging this took at least a couple of months and during that time — most unexpectedly — the British had a change of heart, ruling that all the Patria survivors would be permitted to remain in Palestine. Good news for the majority, but the 800 or so from the ship, Atlantic who hadn’t transferred onto the Patria, were transported some weeks later to a British detention camp in Mauritius until the end of the war.

                                             

 On December 12, 1941, The Struma set out with 769 Romanian Jews making Aliyah to Palestine. It 

was the last ship to leave, a cattle ship, commissioned by the Irgun.  On the way, they were taken

to Turkey,  who wound up towing them into the Black Sea on February 23,, 1942.  It was the British 

who kept them out of Palestine.  There, the Stuma sunk when a torpedo from a Russian submarine 

hit it.  All died except one person.  .  

                                                                    

Exodus,  Passengers on the deck of the refugee ship Exodus 1947 in Haifa. British 

forces returned them to displaced persons camps in Germany, dramatizing the plight 

of Holocaust survivors attempting to enter Palestine. Haifa, Palestine, July 18, 1947.

The 6th Aliyah of 1941-1947 was a period of struggle against restrictions on immigration.  

Many tragic incidents were recorded of ships carrying Jews and being turned away with

 the  results of death for them, like the EXODUS, PATRIA, STRUMA, and during the 

later years many intending immigration were interned in Cypress. 

 85,000 Jews arrived in this time, of whom 28,000 were "illegal immigrants."  

There were 750,000 Jews in Israel when the state was established on May 14, 1948. 

 Free Jewish immigration was immediately proclaimed and the period of mass Aliyah 

inaugurated.  The survivors of Nazi rule in Central Europe, the internees in Cyprus, 

the Jewries of countries behind the Iron Curtain, and the communities under Arab

 rule, such as Yemen and Iraq were transferred to Israel under the auspices of the 

Jewish Agency's Immigration Department.  Jews have  continued a steady 

immigration since that time again reaching large numbers in the early 1970's and 

since 1989 with mass Aliyah from the USSR.  My husband and I were in the 1980 

group with many Russians, a few Americans, Canadians, English, etc.  It was like a 

smorgasbord of different people who thankfully, spoke English.  The Russians were 

former English teachers, of which their English was as poor as my Hebrew.  We all 

sat in classes together learning Hebrew.  Russians were excellent students.  They 

were used to learning languages.  We Americans were not as good, but we knew our

 English!  

Total immigration figures for the period 1948-1990 were as follows:

1948-101,819  War                 1956-36,324  Sinai War     1964-54,716

1949-239,076                         1957-71,224                      1965-30,736

1950-170,215                         1958-27,082                      1966-15,730

1951-175,129                         1959-23,895                      1967-14,327  Six Day War

1952- 24,369                          1960-24,510                      1968-20,544

1953- 11,326                          1961-47,638                      1969-20,544

1954-18,370                           1962-60,328                      1970-36,750

1955-37,348                           1963-64,634                      1971-41,980

1972-55,888                           1981-12,599                      1990-199,526

1973-54,886                           1982-13,723                      1991-175,000

1974-31,979                           1983-16,906

1975-20,028                           1984-19,984

1976-19,754                           1985-10,642

1977-21,429                           1986- 9,505

1978-26,594                          1987-12,965

1979-37,222                          1988-13,304

1980-20,428                          1989-24,050

We graduated and got a job in Safed in 1981.  While driving up there, our driver pointed to a building on the right side of the road and told us that two weeks before, a bomb had landed in their yard.  I told my dog, Blintz, that we were not in Oregon any more....Yikes.  

Resource:

The New Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podolia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aragon

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/quot-struma-quot-illegal-immigration-ship

The Return to Israel: Making Aliyah; Difficulties By Ship

Nadene Goldfoot                                   
                                                                       

Ending up after 10 months in Haifa in Safed, Israel.
Here's our apartment, car and Blintz, with us all the time.
I taught at the junior high across the street.    

I made Aliyah in September 1980 from Portland, Oregon and landed in Tel Aviv's large airport after our plane made an unscheduled landing in Holland.  We stayed overnight because our plans went askew.  Our destination of the Ulpan was closed due to being on strike.  We managed to be able to stay at a hostel in Tel Aviv where only a young man was on duty who spoke no English, and we spoke no Hebrew as yet.  Because we had been involved in Little Theater in Eastern Oregon at TVCC, we acted out the need for water.  (Oh why hadn't I learned that important word?)  We were given one cup for the 2 of us.  We went outside and found a grocery store, stocked up a basket of food, went to the counter only to find we could not buy a thing because we had no Israeli money.  The next morning I had an interview with the House Mother who gave me a cup of hot tea and cookies, my first food and drink!  I was so grateful.  I had cried that night and wanted to return to Oregon!  I was stuck, had to follow through.  Finally we got a sheroot with a Russian driver who did not know how to drive to Haifa, our destination.  Somehow, we got there.  All this time we had our female German shepherd with us, Blintz, as we wouldn't leave without our "baby." 
                                                  

 Making this decision for Aliyah was not easy.  We had faced my husband going to work at his high school where he taught in Adrian, Oregon, and having comic books distributed there by some anti-Semites.  These comic books were full of lies about Jews, of course.  To top it off, skinheads from Idaho were meeting in my husband's favorite coffee shop where he had attended town meetings, and these out-of-towners were carrying guns.  They were there on a Friday night.  We decided to make Aliyah.  It was time.  

In 70 CE, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans who had looted the 2nd Temple which had been rebuilt in 538 BCE and burned it and the city down; killing everyone or capturing them to become slaves.  Some people managed to escape.  Then from 132 to 135 CE,  the Jewish General Bar Kokhba took back Jerusalem  and held it for those 3 years, killed in battle in 135 CE.  Jews had been barred from entering their capital since that had been King David's capital (1010-970 BCE).  

By 1121 CE, some 300 Jews went to Palestine as it was then called, named by the Romans for Israel's most hated enemies.  They came from France and England.  This return to their land was called, making Aliyah, a "calling up" in which they looked forward to read the Scroll of the Law in a synagogue setting during Shabbat.  

In 1267 Nahmanides (Rambam-Moses Ben Nahman) went to Palestine.  He was followed by a group of disciples.  Rabbi of Gerona (Aragon) in Spain.
In 1488, Obadiah of Bertinoro was followed by groups of disciples, while as a result of the Spanish Inquisition of 1492, many Sephardi Jews, including an important kabbalistic circle, entered the country. Born in Italy.  His journey to Palestine lasted for 2 1/2 yrs., settled in Jerusalem and founded a Yeshiva.  His graphic letters to his father describing his journey and conditions in Palestine are among the classics of Hebrew travel-literature.   
By 1564, Joseph Nasi's resettlement attempt brought groups into the land from Italy. Born a Marrano in Portugal as Joao Miguel, went to Antwerp in 1536, in 1554 in Contantinople to embrace Judaism publicly as Joseph Nasi.  
In 1700, 1500 Jews arrived from Eastern Europe in response to Rabbi Judah Hasid's call.  A Kabbalist, born in Podolia, with 1,500 followers set out for Palestine.  Many lost their lives on the way, reached Jerusalem in 1700, but Judah died a few days after his arrival.  Followers were persecuted on suspicion of Sabbataianism and many returned to Europe.  

In the latter 18th century, there was a considerable influx of both Hasidim and followers of the Vilna Gaon. (Elijah Ben Solomon Zalman) Talmudist, from Lithuania. At age 60 he set out for Palestine but returned before reaching it.   

From 1850 to 1880, the 30 years preceding the BILU, it is estimated that 20,000 to 30,000 Jews settled in Palestine.  
1882-1903: The 1st Aliyah:   Zionism caused an influx who were organized to come in large groups mainly from Russia where Jews were experiencing many pogroms.  They were led by the BILU.  300 families and additional smaller groups arrived from Russia;  450 pioneers from Romania, and a few dozen from the Yemen.  

In 1884, an attempt by the HOVEVE ZION to coordinate immigration resulted in the KATTOWITZ CONFERENCE OF 1884.  The Turkish authorities, part of the Ottoman Empire, made many difficulties for the Jews, but an increasing number of agricultural settlement were founded.  

In 1890, further persecutions against Jews were continuing which sent thousands of Russian Jews to Palestine, but the number dwindled during the rest of the decade.                         

It is estimated that 25,000 Jews immigrated during this First Aliyah, but a number kept on immigrating.

The 2nd Aliyah from 1904-1914 also was made up of Russians when, during this period,  the Kishinev and Homel pogroms and the failure of the 1905 Revolution had been happening.  Many of these newcomers were motivated by socialist idealism.  35,000 to 40,000 Jews entered Palestine during this period, many from Eastern Europe and oriental countries.  A number left the country after a time, but in 1914, the Jewish population was 90,000, falling to 50,000 by the end of World War I.  

The Balfour Declaration gave the impetus to the 3rd Aliyah  from 1919-1923 in which the youthful element predominated.  Members of the HE-HALUTZ took the lead.  By 1920, free immigration was permitted to people with the means of subsistence, craftsmen, those joining their families, and Talmud students whose upkeep was assured, in addition, a quota was fixed for immigrants whose maintenance was guaranteed by the Zionist Organization.  These regulations were modified the next year but the principle didn't change.  Annual immigration figures for 1920 to 1923 averaged 8,000 and at the end of the period, the country's Jewish population was again about 90,000.  (My mother was born in 1913).  

The 4th Aliyah from 1924-1931 (The Great Majority from 1924-1925) brought in 80,000 more. They came from Poland where Jews suffered from fiscal restrictions.  Many of the newcomers were middle-class, some "capitalists"; owners of 500 lbs and later 1,000 lbs.  A number couldn't handle the challenge, especially during  the 1926 depression, but there were 190,000 Jews in Palestine in 1931.  

The 5th Aliyah from 1932-1940 fell into 2 periods: 
     1932-1935:  This was the beginning of the Nazi persecutions when 144,000 immigrants came
     1935:  62,000 immigrants came in this year alone and Palestine had economic prosperity.  YOUTH ALIYAH was founded.  
    1936-1940  was the period of Arab riots and economic depression, when aliyah was restricted by the Mandatory government, first for economic reasons and later for political reasons.  
        1936-1938, there were 53,000 immigrants that entered Palestine. 

1939:  MacDonald White Paper  was issued which recommended that only 75,000 further Jews be allowed admission during the next 5 years and then Aliyah would be dependent on Arab agreement.  
  During this year, 36,000 Jewish immigrants entered during this 2nd phase of the 5th Aliyah which included 15,000 "illlegal" immigrants who came in without government permits between 1939-1940.  

The 6th Aliyah from 1941-1947 was a period of struggle against restrictions on immigration.  Many tragic things happened, like the ship, EXODUS; PATRIA; STRUMA).  During the latter years, many intending immigrants were interned in Cyprus.  85,000 Jews arrived in this time, of whom 28,000 were "illegal immigrants."  
                                                   

June 1940 Patria, ship carried French Jews from France to Haifa.  Despite her new designation Patria remained laid up in Haifa until the beginning of November 1940. In that month the Royal Navy intercepted three chartered ships; the SS Pacific, SS Milos and SS Atlantic, that were carrying Jewish refugees from German-occupied Europe to Palestine. The refugees lacked permits to enter Palestine so the British authorities ordered their deportation to British Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. Refugees from Pacific and Milos had been put aboard Patria, and embarkation of refugees from Atlantic had begun, when on 25 November a bomb planted by a Haganah agent blew a hole in the side of Patria's hull. She listed to that side and sank in 16 minutes, settling on the harbour bed with part of her hull and superstructure above water.

By the time of the attack almost 1,800 refugees had been embarked aboard Patria, along with a crew of 130 and numerous British guards. The majority of those aboard were rescued but 172 were injured and between 260 and 300 were killed. The majority of victims were Jewish refugees but about 50 were crew and British guards; 209 bodies were recovered and buried in Haifa.

1947:  Exodus, ship carried 4,500 Jews from France.  They were turned back to France by the British with the Mandate. The British concluded that the only option was send the Jews to camps in the British-controlled zone of post-war Germany, They realized that returning them to camps in Germany would elicit a public outcry, but Germany was the only territory under their control that could immediately accommodate so many people"Of the 4,500 would-be immigrants to Palestine.   There were only 1,800 remaining in the two Exodus camps by April 1948.  Within a year, over half of the original Exodus 1947 passengers had made other attempts at emigrating to Palestine, which ended in detention in Cyprus. Britain continued to hold the detainees of the Cyprus internment camps until it formally recognized the State of Israel in January 1949, when they were transferred to Israel.
The Struma disaster was the sinking on 24 February 1942 of a ship, MV Struma, that had been trying to take nearly 800 Jewish refugees from Axis-allied Romania to Mandatory Palestine.  It joined that of SS Patria – sunk after Haganah sabotage while laden with Jewish refugees 15 months earlier – as rallying points for the Irgun and Lehi revisionist Zionist clandestine movements, encouraging their violent revolt against the British presence in Palestine.  The deaths were 781 Jewish refugees, 10 crew members (5 Bulgarian, 3 or 4 Jewish, one Hungarian)
                                                       

April 14, 1948 DECLARATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL, 750,000 Jews
  Free Jewish immigration was declared.  The survivors of Nazi slaughter in Cetral Europe;  the internees in Cyprus, the Jews in countries behind the IRON CURTAIN, and Jewish communities under Arab Rule such as Yemen, Iraq were transferred to Israel under the auspices of the Jewish Agency's Immigration Department.  

 In 1970s and since 1989 with mass Aliyah from the USSR, Total immigration figures for the period 1948-1990 were as follows:

1948-101,819;                    1963-64.364;             1978-26,594;
1949-239,076;                    1964-54,716;             1979-37,222;
1950-170,215;                    1965-30,736;             1980-20,428; me
1951-175,129;                    1966-15,730;             1981-12,399;
1952- 24,369;                     1967-14,327;             1982-13,723;
1953- 11,326;                     1968-20,544;             1983-16,906;
1954- 18,370;                     1969-20,544;             1984-19,984;
1955- 37,348;                     1970-36,750;             1985-10,642;
1956- 36,324;                     1971-41,980;             1986- 9,505;
1957- 71,224;                     1972-55,888;             1987-12,965;
1958- 27,082;                     1973-54,886;             1988-13,304;
1959- 23,895;                     1974-31,979;             1989-24,050;
1960-24,510;                      1975-20,028;           1990-199,526;
1961-47,638;                      1976-19754;            1991-175,000;
1962-60,328;                      1977-21,429;   

From 1989 to 2006, 979,000 Russian Jews made Aliyah to Israel.  I had many in my Hebrew class in 1980, even then.  They could not go back to Russia.  Israel helped them financially.  They could not practice Judaism in Russia.  They were not allowed to learn Hebrew in Russia, either.  Many came with Gentile wives.  Many in my class were English teachers-with Russian accents, of course!    That wasn't the total number of Jews that left Gorbachev's USSR.  1.6 million left.  Others probably went to the USA. 
                                                       

 My teacher, Sarah,in Haifa,  had been writing letters to Natan Sharansky, who was in prison.  She tried to teach him Hebrew that way.  Her English was perfect, too. He made Aliyah, and became an Israeli politician, human rights activist and author who, as a refusenik in the Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s, spent nine years in Soviet prisons. He served as Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency from June 2009 to August 2018.    
                                                        

As of 2020, Israel's population is now 8,655,535 which is 0.11% of the total world population.  About 6 million of this number are Jews.  The others are Arabs and others.  The land of Israel had been pared down from the original size when the majority of it on the eastern side of the Jordan River was given to Abdullah from Saudi Arabia  for a state.  Out of this number, 6.8 million are Jews.  Israel's population is made up of 6.8 million Jews (74%), 1.93 million Arabs (21%), and 454,000 non-Arab Christians or adherents of other faiths (5%), the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) said on Sunday.  Israel's current population has reached 9.2 million, including over one-quarter Arabs and other non-Jews, according to official new statistics.
  
 As a reminder, Joshua entered Canaan with 603,730 Jews according to their 2nd census.  They had lost 3,820 along the way besides having many new-borns.  The trek took 40 years.     

Right now the world is experiencing another surge of anti-Semitism.  There are some rabbis who are urging Jews to make Aliyah now, with the advent of the Moshiach's arrival which they feel is very soon, under the circumstances happening and from reading information from their computer using the Bible Code.  
According to official statistics, 28,629 olim arrived in Israel between January and October 2019. Only a decade ago, the number of olim for roughly the same period stood at 17,179.

Yom HaAliyah is an Israeli national holiday celebrated annually according to the Jewish calendar on the tenth of the Hebrew month of Nisan to commemorate the Jewish people entering the Land of Israel as written in the Hebrew Bible, which happened on the tenth of the Hebrew month of Nisan. Wikipedia

Date: Sat, Oct 24, 2020 – Sun, Oct 25, 2020

Observed by: State of Israel

Resource;
The New Standard Jewish Ecyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990s_post-Soviet_aliyah
Letters From Israel, by Nadene Goldfoot; from 1980; letters  to my mother, children

,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Patria_(1913)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Exodus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struma_disaster

World War II's Jews of the Balkan States: Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey and Yugoslavia-Croatia and United Nations

Nadene Goldfoot                          

Haj Amin al Husseini
Muslim Sherif of Jerusalem-appointed by a British Jew
When Britain Held the 30 year Mandate Rule over Palestine, ending in 1948.
He wanted all Jews out of Palestine.  

Usually most Jews of the USA's Ashkenazi ancestors came from the Pale of Settlement, that area that Catherine II of Russia controlled.  She kept Jews in the Pale, transferring Jews from Russia to live there as her country was supposed to be free of Jews.  

The UN had refugee centers for non Jews in the Balkans during WWII, which contrasts the refugee centers for today's Muslims escaping wars from Muslim terrorists such as ISIS and al Qaeda against other Muslims of different Islamic  persuasions.  All this has been causing countries to step in such as Russia and Iran, the USA and a world coalition.  So far, Iraq has fallen and Syria is holding on by a thread with everyone's intervention against his horrific hold on his people.  

Now nice the UN was and acted to help refugees.  How Jews were rounded up to meet their deaths was beyond belief, instead.  
                                                       

              
Bulgaria also had a history of Jews living there since the days of the Romans when they destroyed Jerusalem and their Temple in 70 CE.  By the Middle Ages, they were Christianized, probably the advent of the SPANISH INQUISITION when Jews were forced to  submit to Christianity or leave or be killed.  They continued to show a marked influence of Judaism in their new Christian practices.  

Many Jews fleeing from central Europe with their anti-Semitic acts of slaughter found refuge in Bulgaria in that Middle Age period.  This was the center of Byzantium and their Empire.
                                                           

The queen of Ivan Alexander, Czar of Bulgaria from 1331 to 1355 was the former Jewish lady, THEODORA.  She was the Queen of Constantinople.  
It's a repeat of Queen Esther's experience, being a Jewish queen.  

After Spain's 1492 expulsion of Jews from their country unless they converted to Christianity, Jews moved to Bulgaria and established new Sephardic communities.  Most had moved from Salonica.  Communities from  Sofia, Nicopolis and Pievna became the most important centers.For centuries, the Jews were typical Turkish communities.   
                                                        

Tradition Bulgarian costume

In 1878, the CONGRESS OF BERLIN created a stand of religious equality as a condition.  This was generally observed, not withstanding the persistence of some prejudices, in Bulgaria.  Even during WWII when they were allied with Nazi Germany, the Bulgarian government refused to carry out the German anti-Semitic policies except in what they considered to be minor matters, and the Bulgarian community was the only one in occupied Europe besides Finland, which escaped mass-deportations of Jews to gas chambers and death.                                                

Joachim Von Ribbentrop, Nazi 

                                                      
Also, it should be noted, that the Zionist movement was strong in this country.  
During WWII, some Bulgarian Jews reached safety in 1940. The Nazi "Final Solution" slaughtered Jews.  Jews were deported from Macedonia and Thrace in 1943.  The King of Bulgaria intervened to protect Jews  in 1943.  Negotiations  had begun with the governments of Bulgaria, Hungary and Denmark at the time when the Jews of Poland were boxed in, with the object of starting the evacuation of Jews of these countries by the Nazi, Ribbentrop.  It was in Poland and western Russia that Jews were trapped and had no way to escape.  So were the Jews of Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia by Nazi rule.  The Jews of Denmark, Italy, Bulgaria and Hungary were untouched up to that date.  
  
After 1948, almost the entire community of Jews transferred itself, with the approval of Bulgaria's government, to Israel.  The Jewish population in 1990 was 5,000 remaining Jews out of a former 48,000.
                                                      

The plot to get rid of Jews in WWII with Nazis.

Then why, if things were so good for Jews, were "Bulgarians" part of the WWII refugee program rescued by Middle Eastern countries of Syria, , Egypt, Palestine, numbered in the 10s of thousands reported by the Middle East Relief and Refugees Administration (MERRA)?  Were Jews among these refugees?  Were any taken into Palestine?
                                                        

1941 The Grand Mufti and Hitler in Germany

At the time, it was a Palestinian by the name of Haj Amin al Husseini, the so called Sherif of Jerusalem AKA the Grand Mufti, who made a special trip to Germany to converse with HITLER about us accursed Jews.  He wanted us out of Palestine, and we had always been there.  After 70 CE, things had changed and many were taken by the Romans into Rome, etc, while others had sought refuge in Spain, fleeing such horrible lives of slavery, or being used in coliseums in animal shows where people were eaten, etc. However, Jews had been able to remain.  Jews had always lived there; Mizrachi Jews.   We had Jews returning from the Russian areas by 1880 and moving into Palestine to join those whose ancestors had stayed.  Islam has been an aggressive culture since Mohammad had died in 632, and so many admired Hitler, also an aggressive conqueror.  This is seen in their interest in Nazi literature since then, and their refusal to make peace with Jews of Israel.  
                                                      

Blue lands are the Axis. Look at Europe.  

Hitler was plotting his 3rd Reich!.   "It was April 1941. Hitler and Stalin had already divvied up Poland (containing a large Jewish population), and the Germans had swallowed most of Western Europe. On April 6, 1941, Hitler ordered his Wehrmacht to invade Yugoslavia and Greece, an effort to secure Germany’s flank for the Fuhrer’s upcoming attack on the Soviet Union.  (Note, both countries took by force, Poland, and then Germany turned on Russia.)  
                                                                   

Europeans—largely women and children from Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Turkey and Yugoslavia—fled the onslaught. Where would they go?"  Did the group include Jews? 

The new United Nations (UN) since 1942 had established MERRA (MIDDLE EAST RELIEF & REFUGEES ADMINISTRATION, camps in Syria, Egypt and Palestine.   You can bet your bottom dollar that no Jews were allowed into them.  They were being taken away by the Nazis for extermination.  Middle Easterners were being brain-washed already to rid themselves of Jews.  

                                                                 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt declaring War against Germany

"The name "United Nations", coined by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt was first used in the Declaration by United Nations of 1 January 1942, during the Second World War, when representatives of 26 nations pledged their Governments to continue fighting together against the Axis Powers.." The Axis were those siding with Germany: Italy, Ottoman Empire (Turkey and their Middle East Holdings) and Japan.  

Croatia used to be Yugoslavia.  Jews also lived here since the Roman Times.  Jewish refugees had settled here from the 1492 Spanish Inquisition.  Belgrade and Sarajevo were important Jewish centers where the Sephardi traditions were preserved.  Serbia re-established her independence in the 19th century and treated Jews badly.  They turned around and followed the 1878 dictum towards Jews and their Jewish Problem disappeared.  Then there was a Balkan War before WWI in 1912-13 and former Austrian territories taken after WWI added an Ashkenazi group of Jews to their lands. In WWII the Germans supported by Bosnian Moslems and led by Haj Amin al Husseini, carried out deportations and massacres big-time.  After the war, only 10,500 Jews out of 72,000 Jews were left alive in Yugoslavia.  8,000 of them had immigrated to Israel after 1948.  The remaining Jewish population in 1990 was 4,800.  I see most countries with remaining Jews would have been an older population, feeling unable to handle newer conditions of language and work and homes.  The Italian General in Croatia refused to hand over Jews in his zone to the German army.  4 days later, some Mussolini's subordinates had been influenced by by opposition in the Vatican to the German-style anti-Semitism.  No Jews were deported from Italy to the death camps until after the fall of Mussolini and the German occupation of Northern Italy in 1943.  Deportations to Birkenau continued.  There they gassed in the last week of September 1942 several hundred from Slovakia.  

Greece had been in contact with Jews since Biblical times and some Jews had lived there since by 2nd century BCE.  Synagogues were built there were found by Paul, the apostle of the New Testament.  Jews in the Byzantine Empire suffered terribly with attempts at enforcing wholesale conversion on them from the 7th century onward.  The Spanish Inquisition of 1492 and refugees from Spain overwhelmed the local communities and became entirely Sephardi in culture.  Only in CORFU was an original Greek rite of prayer preserved.  Salonica attracted more Jewish settlers, and other seaports was also selected for new Jewish communities.  Athens was a city with anti-Semitic attacks happening.  Salonica in 1912 was captured and under Greek rule and held one of the largest Jewish communities.  Populations between Greece and Turkey was exchanged.  Wholesale deportations of Jews occurred in 1941.  Many towns lost 90% of their Jewish population.  Taken away were 60,332 out of 76,420 Jews.  Salonica was left with 1,100 Jews.  Over 2,000 Greek Jews immigrated to Israel after 1948.  The Jewish population of Greece in 1990 was 4,875.  My neighbor in Haifa was a Greek Jewess who looked just like Sofia Loren only smaller.  Beautiful lady that she was, she and her young husband who was in the IDF had offered to board my German shepherd for me while I studied Hebrew in the Ulpan.  In 1944 on September 25th, the Chief Rabbi of Athens escaped from the capital disguised as a peasant and reached Thessaly and relative security.  There, Rabbi Barzilai encourage Greek Jews to join the partisans ar go into hiding.  He worked with the Greek partisans to arrange for more than 600 Greek Jews to be smuggled by boat across the Aegean Sea to safety of neutral Turkey.  In return, the Jews smuggled boots and money by sea to the Greek resistance.  

                                                                   

Jew of Ottoman Empire

Turkey, home of the Ottoman Empire, is part of Asia Minor.  A synagogue was built there in 1326 in the MIddle Ages.  Later, from their conquest, many other Jewish communities were part of this Empire as Salonica was captured in 1430 and Constantinople in 1453.  The Spanish Inquitision of 1942 caused the Ottoman Empire to open their doors to the Jews of Spain and later for the Jewish Portugal and other land.  Jews became favored people!  They had become the valuable trading and artisan element and were a counterpoint to the potentially disloyal Christian minorities.  Istanbul (now Constantinople), Adrianople, Smyrna (Izmir) and Salonica became the intellectual centers of Sephardi Jewry.  

Palestine was part of the Turkish Empire from 1517 till the end of WWI in 1917.  So was Egypt, Yemen, Iraq, etc.  Sultans applied their normal Moslem code against the Jews but were not really strict about it in every country.  That was that Jews were 2nd class citizens and had to pay a tax to really stay alive.  When WWI ended the Ottoman Empire in 1917was over,  and before that when Jews were entering Palestine from 1880 onward, the attitude  of the empire had started to change for the worse.  The book, THE SETTLERS, by Meyer Levin, describes the Jews return to Palestine in 1880 and onward in an exciting novel of 832 pages detailing it so well you'll feel you were there.  

It's good that the UN helped out the Christian European refugees, but what did they do for the Jews who lost their 6 million lives?  Not a thing.  The USA turned away thousands of Jewish refugees.  The excuse used was that we could threaten National Security.  They said we might be Nazi spies.  If anyone ever knew what was happening in German from the middle 30s onward, they would NOT say such dumb things. 
                                                           
My uncle escaped Germany in May 1939, one of the last Jews to get out alive.  The attacks on Jews had become horrific.  He had spent time in a center later to be one of the gas chambers as a 21 year old walking his cow to his father's slaughter house to become sausage.  As a Jews, we aren't cruel to animals, just the opposite.  Our kosher laws include how to kill the animals without any pain involved, or even without the cow's knowledge of what will happen to them.   It was an idiodic excuse used to put a Jew in a horrible prison and torture him, which is what happened.  "“I think the fear was genuine, but misplaced,” Friedman said. “That is, none of the Jewish refugees who arrived in the United States has ever been found to have done anything in the interest of the Nazis. They fled them. They didn’t want to help them.”

                                                         

Most notoriously, in June 1939, the German ocean liner St. Louis and its 937 passengers, almost all Jewish, were turned away from the port of Miami, forcing the ship to return to Europe; more than a quarter died in the Holocaust. My uncle missed boarding this fatal ship by one month, fleeingin the SS Washington, instead in May 1939. 

Jews were turned back on the ship, St. Louis and not allowed to land.  They were forced to return to Europe and them most died in the gas chambers.  

Patria with Jewish refugees that made it to Haifa,
was blown up  on November 25, 1940

As I read, the UN never helped the Jews.  It was the Jews who had to help themselves, as no one else did.  400,000 Jews of Warsaw and 2 million and more under German rule in November 1940 had no means of escaping death.  Jewish refugees from central Europe had reached Slovakia earlier and went by ship down the Danube River to the Black Sea and got to Palestine. Warsaw's Jews in late November faced the perils of the ghetto, and 1,771 of them, arrivals from  Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, had reached Haifa (Palestine) on 2 tramp steamers, the MILOS and the PACIFIC.  About 3 days later, the Atlantic appeard.  There refugess did not have valid certificates for Palestine.  The Brits were the law there. The Brits ordered them to transfer to another 4th boat, the PATRIA for deportation to go to the Indian Island of Mauritius.  On November 25th, during the transferring from ship to ship, a few Jews who were determined to stay, tried to keep the ship there by disabling the Patria to prevent it from sailing.   They misjudged their work, and the ship sunk with 250 refugees drowned in their efforts.  In the meantime, German propaganda was growing by leaps and bounds.    Remember, the Brits were told by the League of Nations to assist the Jews in creating the Jewish Homeland.  They held the 30 year mandate for Palestine.  Instead, they were known to be assisting Arabs to enter and kept Jews out at a time of their greatest peril.  

We've always had to depend on ourselves.  The same has happened with Israel.  It's a little country that has done the fighting themselves.  How great it's been when there have been people who have helped with arms, etc.  

This is why Israel is the Jewish Homeland.  "The Land of Israel was always regarded by Jews as the Jewish homeland. After its establishment in 1948, the State of Israel adopted the 1950 Law of Return restoring Israel as the Jewish homeland and making it the place of refuge for Jewish refugees at the time and into the future. This law was intended to encourage Jews to return to their homeland in Israel."  It took from the time of WWI of 1914- 1917 till 1948 to get this to happen.  

Resource:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

THE HOLOCAUST-A HISTORY OF THE JEWS OF EUROPE DURING THE 2ND WORLD WAR, BY MARTIN GILBERT

https://anonhq.com/rare-photos-european-refugee-camps-syria-height-world-war-ii/?fbclid=IwAR1mTdKFXIA7BB8ahvyWRLZwjMj-74jbvGg_5F2EWyDJ4XDzvMrZyRJQXtk

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/how-middle-easterners-treated-european-refugees-during-wwii

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Mandate_for_Palestine_(legal_instrument)

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Axis-Powers
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/us-government-turned-away-thousands-jewish-refugees-fearing-they-were-nazi-spies-180957324/
 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/us-government-turned-away-thousands-jewish-refugees-fearing-they-were-nazi-spies-180957324/#Fj95TtITKqKAzOWu.99
https://thinkprogress.org/america-turned-away-jewish-refugees-because-some-were-feared-to-be-nazi-agents-b3f3524b182d/
https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/about/final-solution-beginning/baltic-states.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Mandate_for_Palestine_(legal_instrument)
and Romania: http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2019/02/16/this-day-in-history-feburary-16-2019/