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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Israel
Index
Immigration has always been a serious Israeli concern, as
evidenced by the ministerial rank given to the chief official in
charge of immigration and the absorption of immigrants. Various
institutions and programs have helped integrate immigrants into
Israeli society. Perhaps the most ubiquitous is the
ulpan
(pl., ulpanim--Glossary), or intensive Hebrew language
school. Some ulpanim were funded by municipalities, others
by the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Ministry of Immigrant
Absorption, or the Jewish Agency. Because they were heavily
subsidized, ulpanim were free or charged only nominal fees
to new immigrants. Some were residential, offering dormitory-like
accommodations with board. They were mainly intended for single
immigrants and offered half-day instruction in a course that lasted
six months. The municipal ulpanim offered less intensive
night classes. Many kibbutzim also ran ulpanim, which
combined half-day language instruction with a half day's labor on
the kibbutz. In the late 1970s, when immigration to Israel was
high, about 23,000 individuals were enrolled in some sort of
ulpan.
The merkaz klita, or absorption center, was developed in
the late 1960s to accommodate the increased immigration that
occurred between 1969 and 1975 of relatively well-off and educated
Jews from the West, particularly from the United States. These
centers combined the ulpan with long-term (often exceeding
one year) accommodation for families. With representatives of all
the major ministries ideally on hand or on call, these centers were
supposed to cushion the entry of the new immigrant into Israeli
society. They were a far cry from the often squalid transition
camps of the 1950s, a fact that did not go unnoticed by many
Oriental Jews. In the late 1970s, at the height of immigration from
the United States, there were more than twenty-five absorption
centers housing almost 4,000 new immigrants. Taking all the forms
of such immigrant-absorption institutions together--centers,
hostels (for families without children) and residential
ulpanim--almost 10,000 persons were living in some form of
them in early 1976. As of 1988 the occupancy had declined, as had
Western immigration to Israel.
Data as of December 1988
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