Aliyah Bet

Aliyah Bet (עלייה ב', "Aliyah 'B'" – bet being the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet) was the code name given to illegal immigration by Jews, most of whom were refugees escaping from Nazi Germany, and later Holocaust survivors, to Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and 1948, in violation of the restrictions laid out in the British White Paper of 1939, which dramatically increased between 1939 and 1948. With the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948, Jewish displaced persons and refugees from Europe began streaming into the new sovereign state. In modern-day Israel it has also been called by the Hebrew term Ha'apala (הַעְפָּלָה, "Ascension"). The Aliyah Bet is distinguished from the Aliyah Aleph ("Aliyah 'A'", Aleph being the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet) which refers to the limited Jewish immigration permitted by British authorities during the same period. The name Aliya B is also shortened name for Aliya Bilty Legalit (עלייה בלתי-לגאלית, "illegal immigration"). Aftermath of the HolocaustHistory of the Jews during World War II and The Holocaust During Ha'apala, several emissaries from the Yishuv, Jewish partisans, the Jewish Brigade of the British Army, Zionist youth movements and organizations worked together to facilitate the immigration of Jews escaping from Nazi Germany to Mandatory Palestine beyond the established "White Paper" quotas. As the persecution of Jews dramatically intensified in German-occupied Europe during the Nazi era, the urgency driving the immigration also became more acute. Ha'apala occurred in two phases. The first one, from 1934 to 1942, was an effort to enable European Jews to escape Nazi persecution and genocide. The second one, from 1945 to 1948, in a stage known as Bricha ("flight" or "escape"), was an effort to find homes for Jewish survivors of the Nazi crimes (Sh'erit ha-Pletah, "Surviving Remnant") who were among the millions of displaced persons ("DPs") languishing in refugee camps scattered across post-war Europe, primarily located in Allied-occupied Germany and Austria, and Italy.