Land of promise - place of refuge

The publication Land of promise place of refuge addresses the emigration and flight of Austrian Jewish women and men to Palestine by embedding it in the history of the overall Palestine migration since the beginning of the 1920s. It focuses on the cooperation of the Jewish Community, the Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung and the Palestine Office in Vienna, an institution, which barely has been researched so far. Furthermore the book deals with the policies and interests of the British mandatory power and the activities of the Jewish Agency and its associated institutions in Jerusalem. Due to the combination of the rescue of the distressed and persecuted Jews in the Diaspora on the one hand and the realisation of the Zionistic ideas on the other hand the migration to Palestine has always had a `double character`. Compared with other destinations of Jewish migrations Palestine therefore has a special status. Both Herzls vision of the Jewish state and the growing anti-Semitism resulted in an increase of support of the Zionist movement in Europe at the turn of the century. Still, the willingness (not only) of Austrian Jews to emigrate to Palestine had been limited and did not grow until the thirties of the past century, also because other destinations, especially the United States, were more attractive in view of the living conditions. A thorough account of the emigration and flight of Austrian Jewish women and men to Palestine from the 1920s to the 1940s considering also the early (Zionistic) emigration during the Monarchy and the First Republic has been a desideratum to date. Also the history of the Palästina-Amt Vienna and its cooperation with the Jewish Agency for Palestine (the official Jewish representation in Palestine) has hardly ever been touched upon in any detail. Based on a previously unexamined pool of primary sources from various archives the book provides new and detailed findings on the emigration / flight of the Austrian-Jewish population.