In & Out: Emigration from Palestine from 1945

The story of Israel's foundation has often been told from the perspective of Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel. In this lecture, Ori Yehudai turns this historical narrative on its head, focusing on Jewish out-migration from Palestine and Israel between 1945 and the late 1950s. He will talk about how, despite the dominant view that displaced Jews should settle in the Jewish homeland, many Jews instead saw the country as a site of displacement or a way station to other lands. Highlighting the role of Germany and German Jews in this story, the lecture provides a new perspective on the critical period surrounding the birth of Israel and the post-Holocaust reconstruction of the Jewish world.

This event is part of Many Promised Lands?, LBI's 2026 lecture series covering migration of German-Jewish refugees after 1946.

This programming is made possible through the generous support of the Levi-Thalheimer Fund for Research and Public History.

Ori Yehudai is an Associate Professor of History and Schottenstein Chair in Israel Studies at The Ohio State University. He earned his B.A. from Tel Aviv University and Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago. He is co-editor of the Journal of Israeli History. His research focuses on modern Jewish and Israeli history, with an emphasis on migration and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is the author of Leaving Zion: Jewish Emigration from Palestine and Israel after World War II, which was a finalist in the National Jewish Book Awards (2020).