EXPLORING PUSH-PULL FACTORS AFFECTING IRANIAN JEWS’ EMIGRATION TO PALESTINE, 1925-1954; A Social History Approach

Abstract

One of the controversial issues in the twentieth century was the mass immigration of Jews around the world to Palestine/Israel. For the majority of Jews who immigrated from Europe to Palestine/Israel, immigration represented an ideological paradigm constituted by two significant factors, namely race/religion and land. However, for the large proportion of Jews coming from eastern territories, such as Iranian Jews, immigration was mainly a phenomenon affected by conflicts between socio-economic conditions in their countries of origin and those in the destination. The purpose of this study is to investigate the emigration of Iranian Jews to Palestine by relying on a pull-push framework. The study argues that socio-economic turmoil in Iran and the unfavourable economic conditions affecting Jews, along with discrimination against them, were the push factors in their country of origin. Meanwhile, the pull factors in the destination were Palestine’s economic attractiveness, Jews’ need for an increasing Jewish population in Palestine to deal with Arab nations’ sanctions, and the importance of employing an incoming workforce to handle the country’s domestic problems in terms of economy, agriculture, and materials management in the first six years after the establishment of the Israel state.