What percentage of Polish Jews wanted to emigrate during the interwar era?

[Futurist]

Do we have any idea as to what percentage of Polish Jews wanted to emigrate during the interwar era? Also, what about for other Eastern and Central European countries (in regards to Germany, I'm asking before the Nazis actually came to power there)?

Also, I'm presuming that most Soviet Jews were content living in the Soviet Union until the post-WWII era of anti-Semitism began there, correct?

[wm]

Exaggerating a little, to the US - hundreds of thousands if not millions, to Palestine - almost nobody.

Although it has to be mentioned Ze'ev Jabotinsky promised the Polish Government in 1939 that for weapons and financial support he would evacuate millions Polish Jews to Palestine including the "rabble" - i.e. the poor and the religious Jews.

[Futurist]

Was the idea of creating a Jewish state unappealing to most Jewish Poles?

[wm]

A Jewish state was very appealing, but not the idea of creating it with their own bare hands under constant Arabs' attacks.
Of course many young people would go, the Jabotinsky's Betarists (40,000) would certainly go but it wouldn't be a mass migration.

Even after the war, the majority went to the US and Western countries.

[Futurist]

Makes sense.

Also, by "after the war," you mean after WWI--not after WWII, correct? AFAIK, most surviving Polish Jews after WWII went to Palestine because they had nowhere else to go to.

In addition, after the US closed its doors in 1924, which Western countries remained willing to accept large numbers of Polish Jews?

[Steve]

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article ... orld_War_I

I have had trouble getting the link to work but in case of problems you can find the site by entering - Population and Migration the Yivo Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. The statistics are on page four of four. According to the website about 138,900 Polish Jews emigrated between the wars to Palestine. The USA had been the main destination for European Jews but after 1924 Palestine took over. There is lots of interesting information on European Jewry.

[Futurist]

Yes, I see the data here:

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article ... orld_War_I

It does look like Palestine became a more attractive destination for Polish Jews in the mid-1930s and late 1930s. That said, though, we unfortunately have no way to predict migration trends and migration patterns in a scenario where the Holocaust would have never occurred.

[Sid Guttridge]

I imagine that it rather depended on what opportunities host societies offered for advancement and/or assimilation, how hostile these host societies were at any given moment and what the alternatives were. These all varied with time and place, so I guess there is no hard and fast answer.

It is difficult to quantify the old Jewish farewell, "Next year in Jerusalem", statistically!

Cheers,

Sid.

[wm]

The USA had been the main destination for European Jews but after 1924 Palestine took over.

At that time the US severely restricted all immigration (till 1945) so it means nothing.

[Futurist]

The USA had been the main destination for European Jews but after 1924 Palestine took over.

At that time the US severely restricted all immigration (till 1945) so it means nothing.

Yep--immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe to the US was significantly curtailed by the 1924 Immigration Act.

[Futurist]

Also, off-topic, but was there a lot of Polish-Jewish intermarriage in the interwar era?

[wm]

Very little, mainly among elites which themselves were small.

[Futurist]

This could have significantly changed over time without the Holocaust just like it did in the US and USSR, correct?

[Futurist]

BTW, what about intermarriage between Poles and the surviving Polish Jews in the post-WWII years and decades? After all, I know that, even with the Holocaust, Poland had a relatively sizable Jewish community until the 1960s:

[Georg_S]

Futurist, please provide us the source from where your claim is from. It's basic rules of the AHF

Best regards
Georg