page_title: Jewish Agency for Israel
section_title: Post-State immigration, settlement, and infrastructure
hierarchical_section_title: Jewish Agency for Israel / History / The Jewish Agency for Israel / Post-State immigration, settlement, and infrastructure
caption_attribution_description: English: 4X-ADN, DC-4 of Near East Air Transport on Airlift of Habbanim Jews from the South Arabian Peninsula, Operation Magic Carpet. With kind help of Marvin Goldman.
context_page_description: The Jewish Agency for Israel is the largest Jewish nonprofit organization in the world. It was established in 1929 as the operative branch of the World Zionist Organization. Its mission is to "ensure that every Jewish person feels an unbreakable bond to one another and to Israel no matter where they live in the world, so that they can continue to play their critical role in our ongoing Jewish story."
  It is best known as the primary organization fostering the immigration and absorption of Jews and their families from the Jewish diaspora into Israel. Since 1948 the Jewish Agency for Israel has brought 3 million immigrants to Israel, and offers them transitional housing in "absorption centers" throughout the country.
  The Jewish Agency played a central role in the founding and the development of the State of Israel. David Ben-Gurion served as the Chairman of its Executive Committee from 1935, and in this capacity on May 14, 1948 he proclaimed independence for the State of Israel. He became Israel's first Prime Minister. In the years before and after the founding of the state, the Jewish Agency oversaw the establishment of about 1,000 towns and villages in Mandate Palestine.
context_section_description: Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Jewish Agency for Israel shifted its focus to facilitating economic development and absorbing immigrants. Organizationally, it changed its structure: The Aliyah Department remained, as well as the Education Department (which promoted Jewish and Zionist education in the diaspora), but the Security and Government Departments were replaced by the Department of Agriculture and Settlement, and by the Israel Department (supporting activities that help vulnerable populations within Israel).
  The Agency's budget in 1948 was IL 32 million; its funding came from Keren Hayesod, the JNF, fund-raising drives, and loans.
  In 1949, the Jewish Agency brought 239,000 Holocaust survivors, from DP camps in Europe and detention camps in Cyprus, to Israel. In the years following Israel's founding, Jews in many Arab countries suffered from violence and persecution, and fled or were driven from their homes. The Agency helped to airlift 49,000 Yemenite Jews to Israel on Operation Magic Carpet, and over the next few years brought hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees to Israel from Northern Africa, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran.
  Between 1948 and 1952, about 700,000 immigrants arrived in the new state. The Jewish Agency helped these immigrants acclimate to Israel and begin to build new lives. It established schools to teach them Hebrew, beginning with Ulpan Etzion in 1949. (The first student to register for Ulpan Etzion was Ephraim Kishon.) It also provided them with food, housing, and vocational training. For a time the construction of new housing could not keep up with demand, and many of the new immigrants were placed in temporary ma'abarot, or transit camps.
  In 1952 the "Zionist Organization-Jewish Agency for Israel Status Law" was passed by the Knesset formalizing the roles of each group. It was agreed that the WZO and the Jewish Agency would continue to supervise Aliyah, absorption, and settlement, while the state would handle all other matters previously dealt with by The Agency including security, education, and employment. Article 4 of the Status Law stipulated that the World Zionist Organization (clarified in Article 3 as "also the Jewish Agency") is an "authorized agency" of the State, establishing its ongoing parastatal rather than purely nongovernmental status.
  In the early years of the state the Jewish Agency aided in the establishment of a variety of different institutions that developed the country's economic and cultural infrastructure. These included El Al, the national airline; Binyanei HaUma, the national theater and cultural center; and museums, agricultural, and land development companies.
  In the years after 1948, the Agency's Department of Agricultural Settlement established an additional 480 new towns and villages throughout Israel. It provided them with equipment, livestock, irrigation infrastructure, and expert guidance. By the late 1960s these towns produced 70% of Israel's total agricultural output.
  The Agency also focused its energies on Jews outside of Israel. The Department for Education and Culture in the Diaspora and the Department of Torah Education and Culture in the Diaspora were created to help replace the loss of centers of Jewish learning destroyed by the Holocaust. They trained Hebrew teachers; sent Israelis abroad to supplement Diaspora schools, camps, and youth organizations; and trained cantors, shochatim (ritual slaughterers) and mohelim (ritual circumcisers) in Diaspora communities.
caption: Yemenite Jews arriving in Israel through Operation Magic Carpet.
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