Bridging myth and reality: The absorption of She'erit Hapletah in Eretz Yisrael, 1945-48

From the end of the Second World War in May 1945 until the founding of the State of Israel in May 1948, some 70,000 immigrants-mainly Holocaust survivors-set sail for the shores of Palestine. 1 Two-and-a-half thousand of the illegal immigrants successfully evaded the British man-hunt and entered the Promised Land; 4,500 passengers on the famous immigrant ship Exodus were returned to Germany; 52,000 illegal immigrants were deported to the Cyprus detention camps. The remaining 11,000 individuals were apprehended