Settling with RASSCO: Transfer Paths of the German Aliyah to Palestine-Eretz Israel (1933-1948)

Israel, Zionism and Diaspora, Religion and Knowledge

Researchers Dr. Ines Sonder, Dr. Ing. Joachim Trezib
Duration: DFG-Grant (2016–2021), publication: 2023

The Rural and Suburban Settlement Company (RASSCO) had been founded by the Jewish Agency in 1934 with the aim of settling Jewish emigrants from Germany in Mandatory Palestine in so-called middle-class settlements: former academics, lawyers and merchants were thus "resettled" here as farmers. During this period, RASSCO acted within the framework of the Haavara Transfer (1933), an agreement between the Jewish Agency, the Zionist Association for Germany, and the Reich Ministry of Economics that has received criticism from various sides.

The first part of the study focuses on the institutional history of RASSCO in the context of the Haavara Transfer, as well as its efforts as the first construction company to develop a settlement model for middle-class immigrants from Germany, which was a novelty in Zionist settlement practice in Palestine at the time, as this was where immigrants invested their private capital. 

In the second part, the first four RASSCO agricultural middle-class settlements Kfar Shmaryahu (1936), Sde Warburg (1938), Shavei Zion (1938) and Beth Yizchak (1939), as well as the garden suburb Kiryat Bialik B in Haifa Bay (1936) are presented. In addition to the structural development of the first decades, the focus is also on the founding families from Germany and portraits of individual fates. The interdisciplinary project closes a research gap in the building history of Israel and takes up a new facet of German-Jewish immigration in Palestine in the context of the Fifth Aliyah ("Yeckes research"), which has not been examined before.

Publications on the topic (selection)

Sonder, Ines; Trezib, Joachim Nicolas: Mit RASSCO siedeln. Transferwege der Deutschen Alija nach Palästina–Erez Israel (1933–1948). Berlin/Leipzig: Hentrich & Hentrich, 2023. www.hentrichhentrich.de/buch-mit-rassco-siedeln.html

Sonder, Ines; Trezib, Joachim Nicolas: Erkaufte Heimat. Die RASSCO und die Ansiedlung der Deutschen Alija in Erez Israel (1933–1948), in: ZRGG 70, 1 (2018), p. 1–28.

Sonder, Ines; Trezib, Joachim Nicolas: The Rassco and the Settlement of the Fifth Aliyah: Pre-State and Early State Middle Class Settlement and its Relevance for Public Housing in Eretz Israel, in: Israel Studies 24,1 (2019), p. 1–23.