This may sound a bit overdrawn. but it is hardly that when one considers the expulsion and exclusion of the Jews from the land of Israel until the end of the First World War. their fate in Diaspora for 2.000 years. their ceaseless efforts to retain and revive their spiritual and cultural heritage. their gradual return to Israel. their studied and ingenious attempts toward the creation of a new state. and their remarkable success in the attainment of their longcherished national goal. At the end of World War I. when the British Government was entrusted with the mandate over Palestine. barely onetenth of the people of the country were Jews. the majority were Arabs. But from then on. indefatigable Jewish leaders worked hard and sacrificed much for the increase of Jews in the country. almost wholly by immigration. so that in two decades their number rose to onethird of Palestines total population. about 500.000 of the 1.529.000. Many more thousands had found their way during the last war. so that on the eve of the birth of the new State of Israel in 1948. Jews constituted better than 40 percent of the population.
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immigration