Stories of Immigration and Absorption

Translated by Peloni

I come from a family of immigrants, half of them illegal immigrants for they broke the British Mandate over Palestine:  My mother arrived through the illegal “Aliyah Bet” immigration from Europe, from the DP (Displaced Persons) Camps after the Second World War. My father arrived to the State of Israel exactly two years after Israel’s rebirth.

My father’s father fought the Nazis in General Anders’ Polish Army, and at the end of the war found himself in Italy, from where he joined his brother in New York. The two brothers lived in Manhattan, one with his wife in Upper East Side and the other with his second wife (the first was murdered during the Holocaust) in Upper West Side, this until the end of their lives.

Even before the Second World War, part of the family on my mother’s side (Edelson, Gordon, …) emigrated to the United States, and today, a hundred years later, the family numbers five generations, an enormous and sprawling tree. My great aunt married the love of her life in Chicago during the Great Depression, and at their wedding a full orchestra played, something that cost five dollars. Since then they wandered westward and settled in Los Angeles.

When young Israel turned to adulthood (in human years), the Israeli part of the family continued on to the United States, where I was born.  My life story is almost entirely in the United States. The only debt I had to repay, according to my grandmother, was military service in the IDF.  My grandmother who survived both the Nazis and the Soviets claimed:  “Even if you were not born, did not live, and will not live in the country, this is your debt and your duty.” That is what she said, and that is how it was.

During my military service, my girlfriend and I were both officers, but in different branches of General Headquarters, and Dagnit was one rank higher than me. When I completed my service and returned to the United States, our paths parted. Three decades later, we met at the opening event of a Christian Media Summit in Jerusalem — I as one of the conference invitees who arrived from about fifty countries, and Dagnit as Director General of the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption among those welcoming us.

Dagnit’s parents belong to the community that immigrated to Israel from India (from them I learned, for example, to eat amba; also the respect to one’s vocation and to public service).  Like Dganit’s and my backgrounds, immigration and absorption are not unusual for any Israeli – for modern Israel is a country made up of an amazing tapestry of people who for two millennia craved to return to their homeland and finally gathered and came.

Several years passed since our encounter, and I just read an article announcing that Dganit had been selected for the position once again, because of her rich experience and the acute need for a functioning ministry, especially due to the increase in Antisemitism around the world in the past two and a half years and the need to be prepared to absorb massive waves of immigrants.

Israel in the past dealt with waves of immigration. The older generations will remember the tent transit-camps, all the communities that arrived from Arab countries from which they were expelled, as well as the Survivors of the inferno that burned everything to the ground in Europe.

The middle generation will remember the Russian immigration (and the development of the city of Rishon LeZion into one of the largest cities in the country because of it, as well as Avigdor Lieberman’s unexpected electoral success; where he reamins to this very day) and the Ethiopian immigration and its unique difficulties.

The younger generation is aware of the immigration from France (after the immigrants bought apartments in Eilat and in the coastal cities, most of them returned to France, knowing that in time of need they would be able to escape comfortably to Israel) and perhaps that from Argentina (which did not quite reach Israel — those fleeing Argentina stopped and became “stuck” in Miami or Spain).

Modern Israel just celebrated its 78th birthday.  If a generation is generally accepted to last 25 years, then three generation-lengths have experienced different groups of immigrants and have dealt differently with each.  There is one common denominator though:  The children born in Israel are all Israelis, and everyone who served in the IDF was forged into a most extraordinary mold and has become an Israeli through and through.

Fighting Antisemitism

If immigration and the birth pangs of absorption are not new to the Israeli landscape, certainly Antisemitism is very well known to every Jew wherever he may be throughout the world.  For very many centuries we have been the scapegoats, experienced persecution and hated simply because we are Jews.

In recent years people in Israel have been very interested in “antisemitism” and in the outbursts that we feel abroad. Like everything in Israel, everyone is an expert in everything, especially in things about which they do not know the first thing.  I cannot forget one of the official delegations that arrived in Los Angeles “to learn” about Antisemitism on the ground. They were not interested to hear, see or learn a thing. They knew everything in advance, before even stepping foot in the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX. When we sat in the yard of a private home in North Beverly Hills with members of the delegation and local hosts, they simply dismissed with contempt the descriptions of what happens in high schools and even elementary schools against Jewish students.  It did not match their idea of “antisemitism” or what they “knew.”  They were so arrogant until the moment the dam burst. Parent after parent confessed what their children experience.

Did anything sink in?

The Israelis came, investigated, were impressed, ignored, and returned full to the brim with old knowledge and impressions that had nothing to do with what is really happening on the ground; all they had before the visit. And what was done with this knowledge? Nothing. Was there continuity to those visits? Of course not. Good money and great effort thrown away without benefit. The main thing was that it was determined — as had been known in advance — that there is “antisemitism” and therefore more and more programs and government offices that do nothing need to be budgeted.

Therefore, when I met Dagnit I asked whether her Ministry had contingency plans for absorbing sudden, massive immigration, one that is not voluntary but forced by circumstances. Dagnit understands contingency plans; like me, she served in the GHQ, and in the IDF one prepares and trains for every scenario. At least that was how it was in our time. I hoped that at minimum, at a certain point she would remember that inquiry of mine, because when something is recorded somewhere in our gray cells, and at another time it is mentioned once again, perhaps even in another context, and once again etc., eventually the person will relate to the issue as though the person had invented it at that very moment.

Years before, I raised exactly the same issue in writing as well as in a chance meeting with the ministry’s Director General and members of his entourage who arrived at the Herzliya Conference. Antisemitism was not very popular then, and the ministry, like every other government office, did not like additional work or ideas that could lead to it.  Most likely I was dismissed as a foreign correspondent who knew not what he was asking (at that time, no one cared about “antisemitism”).

Writers write, report, tell and warn, and nothing is done.  We warned about the preparations of the Radwan Force to invade and conquer the Galilee and beyond, as well as about what looked like tunnels being dug, but this was all dismissed.   Hamas-ISIS implemented the same, as they did a few years ago with the abduction of one Gilad Shalit.  We wrote and warned of the arrival of the Turkish terror flotilla to liberate Gaza, only to sit later at the National Inquiry into the Mavi Marmara and the lynching of Israeli navy seals and hear the Chief of General Staff gives testimony that if he had to do it again, he would act differently.  Likewise in the USA, colleagues of ours went into mosques in NYC and warned about what was taking place there, but nobody bothered to pay attention.  It sounded too crazy, until 9/11 happened.

A day will come when the State of Israel will have to deal with sudden, massive immigration, not voluntary but forced by circumstances, and then Israel will apparently find herself unprepared, as though this were a blow that fell from the skies and was impossible to prepare for or foresee in advance.  As though the signs were not there, and all the warning lights had not flashed with full force for a long time.

On that day, apparently, it will be very unpleasant and uncomfortable. There will be no surplus budgets. There will be no available person-power. There will be no operational plans, contingency plans, training, table-top exercises or past experience. We will need to improvise, invent, innovate, and cope. If the transit tent-camps of the past left the society with a deep scar, imagine what will happen when the Jews of Britain or New York or Los Angeles arrive. (In Los Angeles alone there are about a million Jews and Israelis, and we are spoiled and lazy and not used to hardships.) Without their property. With virtually nothing except their lives.

For those who say, “This is not realistic, this is utterly impossible, this simply will not happen:” The Jews of France also thought so. The Jews of Argentina too. Yes — also all the enlightened Jews in Warsaw (from where my father came) or in Germany a hundred years ago. In 1978 the Israelis in Tehran were evacuated by jumbojets sent by the State of Israel. The Iranian Jews found their way through Italy and England to “Tehrangeles.” Almost all of them left with nothing; only their lives did they manage to save.

Israel is not prepared, as preparations seem to be an unnecessary burden.  This will cost us dearly.

Ari Bussel

May, 2026
Ceasefire of the “The Lion’ Roar” War
Los Angeles, Iyar 5786