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Israel
The Ulpan and Merkaz Klita
Immigration has always been a serious Israeli concern, as evidenced
by the ministerial rank given to the chief official in charge
of immigration and the absorption of immigrants. Various institutions
and programs have helped integrate immigrants into Israeli society.
Perhaps the most ubiquitous is the ulpan (pl., ulpanim--Glossary),
or intensive Hebrew language school. Some ulpanim were
funded by municipalities, others by the Ministry of Education
and Culture, the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, or the Jewish
Agency. Because they were heavily subsidized, ulpanim
were free or charged only nominal fees to new immigrants. Some
were residential, offering dormitory-like accommodations with
board. They were mainly intended for single immigrants and offered
half-day instruction in a course that lasted six months. The municipal
ulpanim offered less intensive night classes. Many kibbutzim
also ran ulpanim, which combined half-day language instruction
with a half day's labor on the kibbutz. In the late 1970s, when
immigration to Israel was high, about 23,000 individuals were
enrolled in some sort of ulpan.
The merkaz klita, or absorption center, was developed
in the late 1960s to accommodate the increased immigration that
occurred between 1969 and 1975 of relatively well-off and educated
Jews from the West, particularly from the United States. These
centers combined the ulpan with long-term (often exceeding
one year) accommodation for families. With representatives of
all the major ministries ideally on hand or on call, these centers
were supposed to cushion the entry of the new immigrant into Israeli
society. They were a far cry from the often squalid transition
camps of the 1950s, a fact that did not go unnoticed by many Oriental
Jews. In the late 1970s, at the height of immigration from the
United States, there were more than twenty-five absorption centers
housing almost 4,000 new immigrants. Taking all the forms of such
immigrant-absorption institutions together--centers, hostels (for
families without children) and residential ulpanim--almost
10,000 persons were living in some form of them in early 1976.
As of 1988 the occupancy had declined, as had Western immigration
to Israel.
Data as of December 1988
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