The Push and Pull of Immigration

Rabbi Melanie Aron

November 2, 2002

In America the streets are paved with gold. That image of America as the golden land has attracted millions of immigrants to this country over the years. America as a land of freedom and opportunity was the pull that drew immigrants from all around the world, including many of our parents, grandparents and great grandparents. Along with all that was attractive about America, which pulled the immigrants here, there was also the push of difficult conditions in the lands in which they were living. Poverty, as in Ireland and Eastern Europe at the turn of the century and in many parts of the world today, lack of freedom, still true unfortunately today, and for Jews, the particular scourge of Anti-Semitism -- caused millions of people to leave their homes. The hope that things would be better here was a motivator, but so were conditions in the old country.

For the Jewish community, the pogroms in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th century, prompted the largest migration of Jews in all of Jewish history, ultimately bringing 2 and a half million Jews to America in the years between 1890 and the closing of American immigration after World War I. Other Jews leaving Eastern Europe chose to move to Israel, then part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, or to the growing Jewish communities in Argentina and other parts of the Americas.

In Jewish history there have been many great migrations. Samantha mentioned the migration of Sephardic Jewry. Following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, Sephardic Jews spread out throughout the Mediterranean world. Spain had been one of the centers of Jewish life at that time, a place where Jews had flourished for a thousand years, and so the expulsion was like an earthquake in the Jewish world, with its effects reverberating for many generations. The first Jews to come to America, arriving in New Amsterdam in 1654, were refugees from that great expulsion, part of a community which had made its way to Brazil fleeing the Inquisition, only to have the Inquisition follow them to the new world.

Another great migration of Jews took place in the years around the founding of the state of Israel. Many of us are familiar with the plight of the Holocaust survivors in the years following World War II. When the remnant that survived Hitler's slaughter returned to their homes in Europe, they found that they were not welcome. In Poland and in other countries there were even pogroms, communities rising up against the small number of Jews trying to return to their homes and resume their lives, and killing them. Hearing about these events many of these refugees decided to go to Israel. There was pull from the vision of a Jewish homeland, but also significantly there was the push of their lack of welcome in Europe.

An even greater migration of Jews which took place at this same time was the movement of Jews from Arab Countries to Israel in the years 1948-1952. In the years immediately following Israel's independence, about 900,000 Jews were expelled or otherwise encouraged to leave Arab countries with about 600,000 of them ending up in Israel. The other 300,000 went primarily to France, to the United States and to countries in South America. The largest number of these refugees came from Iraq, Egypt, Libya and Syria where the expulsions were most harsh but there were also major immigrations from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and from Iran. Morocco for example, which in 1948 had a Jewish community of 265,000, now has a remnant of just under 6,000 Jews. Iraq, which was home to a flourishing community of 150,000 Jews in 1948, is estimated to have about 100 Jews remaining. Similarly Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, which had flourishing Jewish communities, now each have 200 or less Jews. It is estimated that in being forced to leave, these Jewish refugees from Arab countries left behind about $30 million in assets. They came to Israel when it was a struggling new nation with food shortages and rationing, and often experienced a hard life. Yet, unlike Arab refugees of 1948 who ended up in Jordan and Egypt and Lebanon, these Jewish refugees were accepted and made citizens and not put in permanent refuge camps.

What does all this talk of the pulls and pushes of immigration, have to do with our Torah portion this week? We usually think of Rebekah being drawn to marry Isaac, perhaps out of a youthful sense of adventure or the romance of going off to a distant place. But the rabbinic commentaries on the Torah speak of another possibility. Perhaps she was not only being pulled but also pushed. They note that her brother Laban was a most unsavory character. He was a scoundrel and a cheat and the Midrashic source Bereishit Rabbah, reads even worse into the mysterious appearances and disappearance of his father Bethuel in the text. Bethuel as Rebekah's father should have been the one to whom the servant Eliezer speaks about her fate, and not her brother Laban. Midrash Rabbah suggests a home environment filled with abuse even molestation. Perhaps what Rebekah really wanted more than anything to get away from her home environment and that was the push which caused her to say yes to Eliezer's request and to agree to leave immediately.

Pushed or pulled we Jews have traveled great distances. Yet we have always carried with us our Jewish heritage. Samantha I pray that for you too, Jewish tradition and a love of Torah will be with you on all your life's journeys.