Aliyah Bet (1933-1948)

Aliyah Bet (Hebrew: עלייה ב׳, "Aliyah 'B'" – bet being the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet) was the code name given to illegal immigration to Mandatory Palestine from 1920 to 1948 by Jews, mostly from Europe. In the 1930s and 1940s, many were refugees escaping from Nazi Germany or other Nazi-controlled countries. In the postwar years, they included Holocaust survivors. The later immigration to Palestine violated restrictions laid out in the British White Paper of 1939, but nonetheless the numbers 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 state in the midst of the 1948 Palestine war. In modern-day Israel, it has also been called by the Hebrew term Ha'apala (Hebrew: הַעְפָּלָה, "Ascension"). Those who underwent Ha'apala are known as Ma'apilim. 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 for Aliya Bilti Legalit (Hebrew: עלייה בלתי־לגאלית, lit. 'illegal immigration').