Immigrants and Immigration in Israeli Children's Literature.

Abstract

Millions of people have immigrated to Israel throughout the 1900s and before. Immigration waves are considered the most important social, political, and economical turning points in the history of Israel. This study analyzes the content of Israeli children's books dealing with immigrants and immigration to determine the image of immigrants and immigration, the realism of the image, and the attitudes of children's book authors toward this subject. More than 30 Hebrew children's books with immigrant problems as the central theme were analyzed. Approximately one-half the books were published during the 1980s, more than one-third (n=11) in the 1990s and 16% (n=5) in the 1970s. Three books described purely positive, idealistic attitudes on the part of the settled population. The study concluded that: (1) the children described in the books immigrated to Israel from different countries around the world; (2) the negative attitude toward immigrants characterized almost all periods of immigration to Israel; (3) ambivalent feelings toward immigrants; (4) all books included the message that negative attitudes toward immigrants stem from biases and prejudice, and are wrong; and (5) immigrants who remained steadfast and struggled against the environment and conditions finally overcame the obstacles and were successfully absorbed into the new country. (Contains 21 references.)