Coming from a variety of cultures with many different customs. they needed help to integrate themselves into the social and cultural climate of their new home. To provide all this in so brief a span of time seemed truly impossible and yet this Herculean task was accomplished. Plans were drafted by numerous governmental and semigovernmental agencies and resources. energies and manpower channelled into absorbing the immigrants into the already strained economic fabric of Israel. At first the immigrants were taken into reception centers and transitional camps where immediate survival needs were met but they were dependent upon continued assistance. In 1954. a new policy was instituted. called "From Ship to Settlement." This made provision for the new immigrants to be sent upon arrival to specific settlements and development areas where housing had been prepared and work was available. To these settlements came doctors and nurses. teachers and technicians. agricultural advisers and irrigation specialists. social workers and numbers of other skilled specialists to help in the process of adaptation. Young Israelis sacrificed their individual ambitions to aid the immigrants to establish themselves. Old pioneers who had long earned the right to rest from their labors worked again to give the newcomers the benefits of their experience. Today there is hardly a transitional camp left in Israel.
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immigrants