Start-up Nation

The law also defines as a Jew “a person who was born of a Jewish mother or has become converted to Judaism.” Citizenship status is also granted to non-Jewish spouses of Jews, to non-Jewish children and grandchildren of Jews, and to their spouses, as well.

In the United States, an individual must wait five years before applying for naturalization (three years if a spouse of a U.S. citizen). U.S. law also requires that an immigrant seeking citizenship demonstrate an ability to understand English and pass a civics exam. Israeli citizenship becomes effective on the day of arrival, no matter what the language spoken by the immigrant, and there are no tests at all.

As David McWilliams describes it, most Israelis speak Hebrew plus another language, which was the only language they spoke upon arrival. In some Israeli towns, he says, “there is a Spanish-language paper published every day in Ladino, the medieval Spanish spoken by Sephardic Jews kicked out of Andalucia by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. . . . In Tel Aviv’s busy Dizengoff Street, old cafés hum with German. The older German immigrants still chat away in Hoch Deutsch—the language of Goethe, Schiller, and Bismarck. . . . Further down the street, you are in little Odessa. Russian signs, Russian food, Russian newspapers, even Russian-language television are now the norm.”¹⁵

Like Shai and Reuven Agassi, there are also millions of Israelis with roots in the Arab Muslim world. At the time of Israeli independence, some five hundred thousand Jews had been living in Arab Muslim countries, with roots going back centuries. But a wave of Arab nationalism swept many of these countries after World War II, along with a wave of pogroms, forcing Jews to flee. Most wound up in Israel.

Crucially, Israel may be the only country that seeks to increase immigration, and not just of people of narrowly defined origins or economic status, as the Ethiopian immigration missions evidence. The job of welcoming and encouraging immigration is a cabinet position with a dedicated ministry behind it. Unlike the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, which maintains as one of its primary responsibilities keeping immigrants out, the Israeli Immigration and Absorption Ministry is solely focused on bringing them in.

If Israelis hear on the radio at the end of the year that immigration was down, this is received as bad news, like reports that there was not enough rainfall that year. During election seasons, candidates for prime minister from different parties frequently pledge to bring in “another million immigrants” during their term.

In addition to the Ethiopian airlifts, this commitment has been repeatedly, and at times dramatically, demonstrated. One such example is Operation Magic Carpet, in which, between 1949 and 1950, the Israeli government secretly airlifted forty-nine thousand Yemenite Jews to Israel in surplus British and American transport planes. These were poverty-stricken Jews, with no means of making their way to Israel on their own. Thousands more did not survive the three-week trek to a British airstrip in Aden.

But perhaps the least-known immigration effort involves post–World War II Romania. About 350,000 Jews resided in Romania in the late 1940s, and although some escaped to Palestine, the Communist government held hostage others who wished to leave. Israel first provided drills and pipes for Romania’s oil industry in exchange for 100,000 exit visas. But beginning in the 1960s, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaus¸escu demanded hard cash to allow Jews to leave the country. Between 1968 and 1989, the Israeli government paid Ceaus¸escu $112,498,800 for the freedom of 40,577 Jews. That comes out to $2,772 per person.

Against this backdrop, the Israeli government has made the chief mission of the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption the integration of immigrants into society. Language training is one of the most urgent and comprehensive priorities for the government. To this day, the ministry organizes free full-immersion Hebrew courses for new immigrants: five hours each day, for at least six months. The government even offers a stipend to help cover living expenses during language training, so newcomers can focus on learning their new language rather than being distracted with trying to make ends meet.