ABSTRACT
The relative unity manifested by the Yishuv’s political parties and institutions regarding rescue aliya should not be construed as indicating agreement on anything but the broadest national consensus. Immigration has always been seen as one of the central elements of Zionist thought. Although the Yishuv’s leaders looked forward to tapping the potential of the new wave of aliya, absorption posed a problem in the economic and the socio-cultural position of new immigrants. The majority of the Yishuv’s population was religiously inobservant but had developed a Zionist Jewish culture that emphasized the Hebrew language and used elements of the Jewish past to form what may be termed a civil religion. A new phase in the history of Ha-Zohar enthusiastically supported the boycott; others notably the German Zionists and their organization in Palestine (HOG) began in the summer of 1935. HOG presented a memorandum to the Nineteenth Zionist Congress whose main points dealt with organizational issues relating to work for increased aliya.
