Immigration and Ethnicity in Israel / Pa

This seminar will focus on migration patterns, both voluntary and forced, of Jews and Palestinians to and from Israel/Palestine from the late 19th century until the present. These migration patterns of different national and ethnic groups have been informing the social, political and economic dynamics in the State of Israel, as well as the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

We first discuss Jewish immigration in the pre-state period (before 1948), Palestinian forced migration in the 1948 and 1967 wars, Jewish immigration to Israel until the 1967 war, and migration of Jews and non-Jews (including labor migrants and refugees) during the post-1967 period. In this context, we will analyze the ethnic/racial and national cleavages – between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews and between Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel –that have been developing in Israel since 1948 and before. 

In addition, we will discuss Israel’s ‘migration’ into the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967 and the ramifications of such population movement on the Palestinian and Israeli societies. Finally, we will discuss Jewish emigration from Israel,focusing on the number of emigrants and the question of the brain drain from contemporary Israel.