Third Aliyah

The bellwether of the Third Aliyah was the ship SS Ruslan, which arrived at Jaffa Port on December 19, 1919 carrying 671 new immigrants and people returning after being stranded in Europe during the war.

Three secret commitments of Great Britain, substantially contradicting each other, formed the basis for the conflicts that followed thereafter: Among the immigrants of the Second Aliyah (1904–1914) were a few thousand young pioneers influenced by the socialist ideas of Ber Borochov and the concept "religion of labor" by A. D. Gordon.

[2] The Third Aliyah was triggered mainly by the October Revolution in Russia, antisemitic pogroms in Eastern Europe and the Balfour Declaration, and it was hindered by the British quotas.

However, the harsh reality changed their expectations: the bad economic situation of Jews of Eastern Europe, and also the riots, forced many to emigrate to countries which did open their gates—the United States and Western Europe—and to those who had a pioneering impulse and a Zionist recognition, Palestine was suitable as their new home.

Histadrut, the General Labor Federation, was established at this time, the Elected Assembly and the National Council were founded, also Haganah, a clandestine paramilitary organization.

[4] Among the immigrants to Palestine during the Third Aliyah were people who later-on founded the State of Israel, including David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir,[3] and also several prominent activists and intellectuals.