Israel's Shaar Ha’aliya Camp through the Lens of COVID-19: Does the History of Quarantine Matter?

Abstract

Israel's Shaar Ha'aliya Camp through the Lens of COVID-19:Does the History of Quarantine Matter? Rhona Seidelman (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Immigrants at Shaar Ha'aliya, with the barbed wire fence behind them. Source: Central Zionist Archive, NKH/405834. [End Page 113] The quarantine at Shaar Ha'aliya was controversial from the start. Opened in March 1949 off the coast of Haifa, Shaar Ha'aliya was Israel's central immigration processing camp, akin to Ellis Island, during the period of Israel's post-1948 mass immigration. Between May 1948 and January 1952, nearly 700,000 people moved to Israel, doubling the population of the country in only a few short years.1 In that time, over 400,000 of the country's immigrants went through Shaar Ha'aliya.2 Although in various stages of Israel's first years there were other controlled immigration centers, Shaar Ha'aliya was the only central processing camp. What sets it apart is its size, the diversity of its population—people who came from countries as different as France, Poland, Austria, Morocco, Iraq, and Yemen3—and the critical role it played in shaping the Israeli people during the country's formative years. A historic site of Jewish migration, Shaar Ha'aliya stands alone in Israeli history. A Breached Fence, Immigrant Protest, and a "Broader Applicability" of Quarantine Soon after the establishment of Shaar Ha'aliya, people both in and outside of Israel were involved in a discussion of its function and perception as a quarantine. The idea that this central port of arrival for Jewish immigrants to the Jewish state could be a quarantine was a volatile issue that led to strained, impassioned debate. The criticism and anger were focused on the barbed wire fence that surrounded the camp. People criticizing the fence were upset at the imagery of such a structure that, in the aftermath of the Holocaust, made this place—which was supposed to be a space of welcoming and homecoming—look like European displaced persons and concentration camps. People defending the fence repeatedly emphasized that it was necessary to maintain a quarantine which, they argued, was itself a crucial public health measure that protected the larger society from the diseases that immigrants were carrying. In my book Under Quarantine: Immigrants and Disease at Israel's Gate, I explore the problems with the public health defense of Shaar Ha'aliya's enclosure.4 I focus on the evident contradiction in the fact that neither the barbed wire fence nor the police guard actually prevented people from coming in and out of the camp. Officially, immigrants were forbidden to leave the camp until they had completed their medical exam, so the main entrance was off-limits to them for the duration of their stay. However, crawling under the barbed wire [End Page 114] to get in and out of the camp allowed the immigrants the freedom to largely go on with their lives. They went into the nearby city of Haifa looking for entertainment and jobs. They visited friends and family, and they bought products on the black market. In many cases, they simply returned to the camp later in the day, once again crawling under the barbed wire. This situation led one official to admit, "In theory the camp is closed, but in reality it is open to all."5 Moreover, the main ailments found and tracked in Shaar Ha'aliya were trachoma, tuberculosis, syphilis, head lice, and scabies.6 None of these were deemed "quarantinable" in Israel at the time.7 The Shaar Ha'aliya administration knew that the breaches were a regular occurrence, but they did not see them as evidence that the quarantine was failing nor that the barbed wire fence and police should be removed. Instead, they continued to insist that quarantine was necessary to protect the rest of the country from diseases the immigrants were carrying. And so I raise the question: how could the same people who knew that the quarantine was ineffectual still insist that it was medically necessary? Quarantine, understood broadly, is a cross-cultural act of separation that has been used as a means...