Avi Picard

ABSTRACT In mainstream scholarship, David Ben-Gurion is described as one of the main supporters and primary advocates of the policy of encouraging mass Jewish immigration to Israel (aliya) in the 1950s. The Zionist movement had two different motives for supporting aliya: Diaspora Jews’ need for a safe haven (which would require mass aliya), and the need to build a solid and stable Jewish society in mandatory Palestine/Israel (which would require selective aliya). When Ben-Gurion, in the 1940s, came to favour mass aliya, he did so because of the immigrants’ potential contribution to the attainment of statehood and then the independent state. In the first years after independence, when entire communities immigrated to Israel, they included old and infirm people who did not fit the image of the pioneers of pre-state aliya. Nevertheless, for Ben-Gurion, their demographic contribution outweighed the burden of their absorption. By 1952, he had changed his mind and became one of the strongest supporters of selective immigration. He continued to support selectivity even when, in 1955, the safety of Moroccan Jews and their freedom to emigrate was in jeopardy. Ben-Gurion's attitude to aliya from Morocco, in the shadow of the Czech-Egyptian arms deal, reflected his priority – a strong and secure Israel.

ABSTRACT Absorbing the immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa in Israel was one of the Israeli education system’s important tasks. This article deals with the way the National Religious schools treated these new immigrants and their descendants, known as Oriental Jews, Mizrahi Jews, or “Mizrahim.” The differences between Mizrahi Jews and Ashkenazi Jews (those of European ancestry) were related to differences in religious traditions, academic level, and religious observance. Educators imposed the Ashkenazi tradition on Mizrahi pupils. This created social tension and alienated Mizrahi pupils from the system. On the other side, Ashkenazi pupils who had difficulties with the heterogeneous educational environment left the public system and enrolled in more religious schools, which had a much smaller percentage of Mizrahi pupils. This segregation was even more common at the high school level. Ashkenazim attended yeshiva high schools, while Mizrahi pupils went to regular high schools. Small changes were evident by the 1990s. By that time, more Mizrahi pupils were attending the elite yeshivot, and the public system adopted a more multicultural attitude and included the Mizrahi tradition as well.

ABSTRACT:During Israel’s first decades, conflict between immigrants from Islamic countries and the Israeli establishment focused on questions regarding equality. The immigrants protested against discrimination in the labor market, against poor housing conditions, and against police brutality. The question of Mizrahi culture and identity was barely mentioned. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, the ethnic discourse in Israel shifted from economic issues to cultural issues. Different groups challenged the school curriculum, asking for more attention to the history and literature of Jews from Islamic countries. Mizrahi music started to develop on the fringe of the Israeli musical scene and moved slowly into the mainstream. Political parties (Tami and Shas) identified with Mizrahi identity and emphasizing it, started to appear and to achieve success. This article provides examples of the expression of identity and culture in different fields and analyzes the causes of this change.

The Jewish communities of Tunisia and Morocco were among the largest Jewish communities in the Islamic world, and remained in their countries of origin longer than the other Jewish communities (with one exception - Iran). By the twenty-first century, however, they had all but disappeared. This article describes the different stages of the liquidation of these communities.

In mainstream scholarship, David Ben-Gurion is described as one of the main supporters and primary advocates of the policy of encouraging mass Jewish immigration to Israel (aliya) in the 1950s. The Zionist movement had two different motives for supporting aliya: Diaspora Jews’ need for a safe haven (which would require mass aliya), and the need to build a solid and stable Jewish society in mandatory Palestine/Israel (which would require selective aliya). When Ben-Gurion, in the 1940s, came to favor mass aliya, he did so because of the immigrants potential contribution to the attainment of statehood and then the independent state. In the first years after independence, when entire communities immigrated to Israel, they included old and infirm people who did not fit the image of the pioneers of pre-state aliya. Nevertheless, for Ben-Gurion, their demographic contribution outweighed the burden of their absorption. By 1952, he had changed his mind and became one of the strongest support...

In the years 1954-1956, Israel adopted a new policy of immigration absorption – the "Ship to Village plan". This policy aimed to send new immigrants directly to their final destination – a settlement in Israel's geographical periphery. The majority of these immigrants were North African Jews. The Israeli government lacked the huge resources needed for this project. Therefore, a fundraising campaign was launched among American Jews. The article deals with the outcome of this campaign and gives some explanation for its poor results. Among them are the sensitivity of the French Colonial authorities to talk regarding the end of their rule; the attitude among some American Jews that Jews should be loyal to their country of residence and especially the poor image of North African Jews in the eyes of American Jews.

The Shas party is a phenomenon in Israel’s political arena.  A party that represent a small section of society succeeded in a decade in becoming one of the major forces in Israeli politics and succeeded in keeping this position for more then a decade since then. Further more, Shas is describe and represented as an Ultra-Orthodox (Hardi) party, while the majority of its voters are not like that.
In trying to solve this puzzle, political analysts have tended to focus on circumstantial explanations. But these explanations can be easily refuted, and the need for a different explanation for each election suggests that something deeper is at work. Social activists ascribe Shas’s success to the social services it provides, from formal and informal education to hot meals for the poor. But this cannot explain the dimensions of Shas’s support. Other explanations dealt with Shas as representing National identity.
This article will argue that Shas has gained its support due to its cultural agenda. The culture of Jews from Moslem countries was discriminated against and denied for a long time in Israel. The descendants of Jews from Moslem countries, who immigrated in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the MIzrachim, are over represented in the lower classes of Israel’s socio-economic scale. One aspect of this representation is the cultural issue. Those second class Israelis were ashamed of their parents’ culture and heritage. In voting for Sh
as they found a remedy to their feeling of inferiority. Focusing on the tradition of Sephardic Jewry, Shas empowers a lot of Israelis from Sephardic origin. Shas gives pride where there was humiliation and it’s touching the most painful and longlasting aspect of the Sephardic-Ashkenazi tension in Israel.

The article offers an in-depth examination of interethnic relations in Israel, based on two concepts defined by Yaron Tzur: the colonial order and the national order.
The colonial order, also known as Orientalism, not only expresses the superiority of Europeans over non-Europeans, it also generates a multi-level hierarchy of groups. This hierarchy,could also be found among the Jewish people and particularly in the feelings of superiority among European Jews over non-European Jews. The different levels in the hierarchy can also be identified internally among European Jews and also among Mizrahi Jews. These hierarchies were based on the same criteria, namely proximity to European culture. Mizrahi Jews who had Westernized adopted the Europeans' condescending attitude towards Mizrahi Jews who had not.
I also discuss the opposing effect of the Zionist movement as a generator of the national order, which emphasizes what is common to members of the Jewish people. Its thrust was opposite to that of the colonial order which focused on what divides rather than what unifies. Various texts written over the years have emphasized this aspect of interethnic relations.
The attitude of the Zionist movement and the Israeli establishment to Mizrahi Jews stemmed from these opposing trends, which produced the melting pot policy that was central during the early days of the State. Contrary to the impression created after the fact, the cultural melting pot was not met with resistance by the majority of Mizrahi immigrants. They viewed Westernization in a positive light, whether it occurred in Baghdad, Casablanca, or Israel.

יחסה של התנועה הציונית ליהודי ארצות האִסלאם נובע משני הלכי רוח שהתקיימו בעולם במאה העשרים – הסדר הקולוניאלי והסדר הלאומי.
הסדר הקולוניאלי התבסס על העליונות של התרבות האירופית ובני התרבות האירופית על מי שאינם 'בני תרבות', 'ילידים' בלשון התקופה הקולוניאלית או העידן הקולוניאלי.
הסדר הלאומי הדגיש שזהות לאומית היא מרכיב הזהות המרכזי ושבני הלאום מתגברים על הבדלי המעמד, הדת והלשון ביניהם כדי להיות חלק מאותו לאום.
הלכי רוח אלו יצרו מצד אחד הייררכייה שבנויה על מידת הקִרבה לתרבות אירופה, ומצד אחר – סולידריות שבנויה על זהות יהודית משותפת.
במקומות רבים ובצמתים רבים נאלצה התנועה הציונית להכריע בין ההייררכייה, לסולדיריות. צמתים אלו מתוארים במאמר בהרחבה, והשיקולים השונים והדילמות השונות שליוו את מקבלי ההחלטות מנותחים לפי תפיסות עולם מנוגדות אלו.
גם המבטים השונים שנבעו מהלכי רוח אלו, ובאים לידי ביטוי בטקסטים רבים, נובעים מהלכי רוח מנוגדים אלו. לעתים אפשר לראות טקסט שבבסיסו מבט מתנשא פרי הסדר הקולוניאלי. לעתים אפשר לראות טקסט שבבסיסו התעלמות מהמבט המתנשא וכל כולו סולידריות לאומית. לעתים אפשר לזהות טקסט ששתי נקודות המבט שזורות בו – סולידריות והתנשאות.

Two organizing frameworks shaped the Zionist approach toward the Jews from Islamic countries: the colonial order and the national order. With respect to the former, European culture was viewed as the superior civilization, and therefore Europeans and their descendants felt a kind of superiority over the members of other societies, who they referred to as “natives”. Unlike the colonial order, the national order emphasized that national identity should be the most important component in the identity of nation-members and that it dominates differences like class, religion, language, etc. 
These two frameworks collided within Zionism, the Jewish nationalist movement. They created a hierarchy between Jews of European origin and Jews from non-European origins, based on the colonial order. At the same time, they created solidarity based on the national order. The article describes the historical moments at which hierarchy and solidarity collided and discusses the dilemmas that arose in each case, the  various decisions arrived at and the justification given to these decisions.

The development towns are prominent not only in number; they also occupy a central place in the Israeli discourse, because of their history and their social, cultural, and symbolic status. The term "development town" was created after they had been planned and founded as new urban centers in development areas during the first 15 years of the state of Israel. The term and its character have undergone changes, so that different authorities, institutions, and government ministries define them. The article begins with a review of the decision to found the development towns, the stages of populating them, the development of means of employment there, their symbolic meaning, and their image in the Israeli discourse. This serves as the background for a discussion of the need to identify the cultural heritage assets remaining in the development towns that represent their history and their characteristics. The purpose of identifying them is to encourage decision makers to recognize the historical value of these heritage assets and, in some cases, to reveal the spirit and image of the place, and to include them in the development plans of those cities still known as "development towns."

In mainstream scholarship, David Ben-Gurion is described as one of the main supporters and primary advocates of the policy of encouraging mass Jewish immigration to Israel (aliya) in the 1950s.
The Zionist movement had two different motives for supporting aliya: Diaspora Jews’ need for a safe haven (which would require mass aliya), and the need to build a solid and stable Jewish society in mandatory Palestine/Israel (which would require selective aliya).
When Ben-Gurion, in the 1940s, came to favor mass aliya, he did so because of the immigrants potential contribution to the attainment of statehood and then the independent state.
In the first years after independence, when entire communities immigrated to Israel, they included old and infirm people who did not fit the image of the pioneers of pre-state aliya. Nevertheless, for Ben-Gurion, their demographic contribution outweighed the burden of their absorption. By 1952, he had changed his mind and became one of the strongest supporters of selective immigration. He continued to support selectivity even when, in 1955, the safety of Moroccan Jews and their freedom to emigrate was in jeopardy. Ben-Gurion’s attitude to aliya from Morocco, in the shadow of the Czech-Egyptian arms deal, reflected his priority—a strong and secure Israel.

Absorbing the immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa in Israel was one of the Israeli education system’s important tasks. This article deals with the way the National Religious schools treated these new immigrants and their descendants, known as Oriental Jews, Mizrahi Jews, or “Mizrahim.” The differences between Mizrahi Jews and Ashkenazi Jews (those of European ancestry) were related to differences in religious traditions, academic level, and religious observance. Educators imposed the Ashkenazi tradition on Mizrahi pupils. This created social tension and alienated Mizrahi pupils from the system. On the other side, Ashkenazi pupils who had difficulties with the heterogeneous educational environment left the public system and enrolled in more religious schools, which had a much smaller percentage of Mizrahi pupils. This segregation was even more common at the high school level. Ashkenazim attended yeshiva high schools, while Mizrahi pupils went to regular high schools. Small changes were evident by the 1990s. By that time, more Mizrahi pupils were attending the elite yeshivot, and the public system adopted a more multicultural attitude and included the Mizrahi tradition as well.

During Israel’s first years, a large settlement plan was implemented along the new borders established in the War of Independence.
The settlement movement, which included the establishment of hundreds of new rural settlements (Moshavim) and dozens of new towns, was implemented to serve the interest of the new state. Diplomacy, security, economy and ideology were the main drivers of the urgent need to settle the remote areas of the country.
This national mission was intended for the military and the alumni of youth movements. However, very few veteran Israelis were willing to volunteer for this duty. As a result, the settlement plan was mostly carried out by new immigrants arriving in Israel en masse at that time.
Among the different immigrants groups, the Jews from Islamic countries were highly represented in the new settlements, and especially in the settlements located in remote areas. North African Jews, the most represented sub-group in the new settlements, were resettled under anew absorption policy in place when they immigrated – the “ship to village” policy.
The settlement project dramatically changed the dispersion pattern of the Jewish population of Israel. While only 0.9% of the Jewish population resided in the southern district in 1948, its share grew to 8% by 1961. Another, less dramatic, change took place in the northern district, which grew from 7.4% in 1948 to 10.1% by 1961. Thanks to the new development towns populated by new immigrants, the urban population outside of the three big cities (Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa) rose from 18% in 1948 to 47.4% in 1961.
Despite taking part in a national pioneering mission, the new settlers received very little prestige in the broader society and little credit in the collective memory.

During Israel’s first decades, conflict between immigrants from Islamic countries and the Israeli establishment focused on questions regarding equality. The immigrants protested against discrimination in the labor market, against poor housing conditions, and against police brutality. The question of Mizrahi culture and identity was barely mentioned. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, the ethnic discourse in Israel shifted from economic issues to cultural issues. Different groups challenged the school curriculum, asking for more attention to the history and literature of Jews from Islamic countries. Mizrahi music started to develop on the fringe of the Israeli musical scene and moved slowly into the mainstream. Political parties (Tami and Shas) identified with Mizrahi identity and emphasizing it, started to appear and to achieve success. This article provides examples of the expression of identity and culture in different fields and analyzes the causes of this change.

For political, security, and economic reasons, the Israeli periphery became the object of extensive population-growth efforts in the first decade of the state. Because the longtime residents of the country and the immigrants who arrived in the mass immigration of 1948–1951 were unwilling to live there, it was primarily the North African immigrants who began arriving in 1954 who were directed to the periphery. Under the new “ship to Village” absorption policy, the newcomers were taken directly to peripheral regions, without any way stations, and the pace of immigration was made contingent on the pace of construction. Steering the immigrants directly to the periphery required full control of the Jewish Agency apparatus from registration for immigration in North Africa, through arrival at the port in Israel, to the trip straight to the moshav or development town.
The new policy focused on the Jews of North Africa, not only due to the timing of their arrival but also to traits attributed specifically to North African Jews, such as willingness to live in rural areas. When immigration from eastern Europe resumed in late 1956, the absorption policy was changed.
The urban localities founded in the periphery, known as “development towns,” were mainly intended to create a population mass in the periphery and had no economic function for their surroundings. Their relations with the older rural settlements nearby and their low prestige turned their residents into the socioeconomic fringes of Israeli society, and they remained so for a long time.

The attitude of the resident in Israel vis-à-vis Jews from Moslem countries was influenced by opposite perspectives – reservation and solidarity. In the fifties Haaretz took the position that immigration of North African Jews should be restricted. The newspaper stressed ‘reservation’ over ‘solidarity’, fearful of mass immigration.
This is demonstrated in a analysis of a series of articles published in 1953 by the reporter, Amos Elon. The series, reviewed here, shows his emphasis on how different North African Jews were; how he saw their wish to immigrate more as a way to improve their living standard then to avoid security worries; and why Israel should suspend this immigration.
Haaretz’s over all position, and this series especially, provoked strong reactions. Elon’s writing became an example of a hostile reporting of North African Jews.
Different from other segments of Israeli society, Haaretz stuck to its stand-offish position toward North African Jews, even during a successful immigration wave caused by destabilization of the Jews’ security situation there.

The Shas party is a phenomenon in Israel’s political arena.  A party that represent a small section of society succeeded in a decade in becoming one of the major forces in Israeli politics and succeeded in keeping this position for more then a decade since then. Further more, Shas is describe and represented as an Ultra-Orthodox (Hardi) party, while the majority of its voters are not like that.
In trying to solve this puzzle, political analysts have tended to focus on circumstantial explanations. But these explanations can be easily refuted, and the need for a different explanation for each election suggests that something deeper is at work. Social activists ascribe Shas’s success to the social services it provides, from formal and informal education to hot meals for the poor. But this cannot explain the dimensions of Shas’s support. Other explanations dealt with Shas as representing National identity.
This article will argue that Shas has gained its support due to its cultural agenda. The culture of Jews from Moslem countries was discriminated against and denied for a long time in Israel. The descendants of Jews from Moslem countries, who immigrated in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the MIzrachim, are over represented in the lower classes of Israel’s socio-economic scale. One aspect of this representation is the cultural issue. Those second class Israelis were ashamed of their parents’ culture and heritage. In voting for Shas they found a remedy to their feeling of inferiority. Focusing on the tradition of Sephardic Jewry, Shas empowers a lot of Israelis from Sephardic origin. Shas gives pride where there was humiliation and it’s touching the most painful and longlasting aspect of the Sephardic-Ashkenazi tension in Israel.

This paper focuses on the policy of population dispersion and the plan that transferred new Jewish immigrants from North Africa to settlements in Israel's periphery during the mid 1950's.
Populating the frontier was a national task. The lack of candidates among old-timers contributed to ideas of sending new immigrants to those areas. The first wave of immigrants, immediately after Israel's independence, came at such a speed that a direct connection to population dispersion was almost impossible. The transit camps, created as temporary accommodation for the immigrants in populated area of the country, became permanent.
With the second wave of immigration, a policy of directing the immigrants to the frontier was adopted. This policy required tight control on the immigrants and a very efficient process. This second wave of immigrants included mostly north African Jews. However, this policy was abandoned when East-European Jews immigrated to Israel.  The population dispersion of the 1950's shaped Israel's spatial gaps, and had long lasting influence on the creation of an ethnic gap in Israel.

The discussion about the ethnic gap between Ashkenazy and Mizrahi Jews in Israel is usually detached from the discussion about the tension between religious and secular Jews. However, those two internal Israeli conflicts are closely related.
Religious identity in Israel divided the society and was one of the forces that shaped Israel's political arena. The question of religious identity among European Jews was clear. A dichotomy between observance and non-observance defined which camp each individual belongs to. The process of secularization among Mizrahi Jews was different, and there was no clear distinction between religious and non-religious there.
The large immigration of Jews from Muslim countries challenged the Israeli system, particularly the education system. The habits and way of life of Mizrahi youth fit well with neither the religious schools nor the secular schools. The problem was especially difficult in Youth Aliyah institutions, where teens that immigrated without their parents were educated. The article elaborates on the difficulties that those young immigrants faced in the existing religious and secular institutions. The article also focuses on the development of a third stream - the traditional stream - which offered a solution to the religious identity of North African Youth.

In the years 1954-1956, Israel adopted a new policy of immigration absorption – the "Ship to Village plan". This policy aimed to send new immigrants directly to their final destination – a settlement in Israel's geographical periphery. The majority of these immigrants were North African Jews.
The Israeli government lacked the huge resources needed for this project. Therefore, a fundraising campaign was launched among American Jews. The article deals with the outcome of this campaign and gives some explanation for its poor results. Among them are the sensitivity of the French Colonial authorities to talk regarding the end of their rule; the attitude among some American Jews that Jews should be loyal to their country of residence and especially the poor image of North African Jews in the eyes of American Jews.

The paper analyze the health aspects of the selective immigration policy, during the 1950’s  and show the connection between health, social control and ethnic issues.
In the early years of the State of Israel, when the country was being inundated by immigrants from Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, many of the immigrants and prospective immigrants were in poor health. The heavy burden on the state, as well as other needs, resulted in a policy of immigration restrictions, which were applied mainly in North Africa in the first half of the 1950s. In addition to medical considerations and extreme tension between the professional and political echelons, the factors affecting the immigration restrictions included social considerations such as the complex relations between the Jews of Islamic countries and the young State of Israel and the prevailing tension between the needs of the state and the needs of Diaspora Jewry.

תפקידה החברתי של הוראת ההיסטוריה של יהודי ארצות האיסלם במערכת החינוך
(2019)הרצאה בכנס האגודה הישראלית לחקר תולדות החינוך – בין רב תרבותיות לזהות
אבי פיקאר / המחלקה ללימודי א"י, אוניברסיטת בר אילן

מקומה של ההיסטוריה של יהודי ארצות האיסלם בדורות האחרונים בתוכנית הלימוד הישראלית היא שאלת בעלת משמעות חברתית. השינויים שהחברה הישראלית עברה במהלך השנים, עליית הרב תרבותיות ועליית שאלות של זהות השפיעו על המקום שניתן לפרק זה בהיסטוריה. ההרצאה המוצעת תסקור את ההתפתחויות שהיו בנושא בשנות ה-70 וה-80 ואת הרקע להם.
התפיסה שהתרבות האירופאית היא תרבות מתקדמת, נכונה וראויה הייתה שגורה ומקובלת בעת שקמה התנועה הציונית ובעשורים הראשונים של המדינה, הן על יהודים באירופה והן על חלק לא מבוטל של יהודי ארצות האסלאם. מבחינה זו היה מקומם של יהודי ארצות האיסלם בדורות האחרונים בלימודי ההיסטוריה די שולי. קיימות עדויות לא מעטות של תלמידים מאותם שנים שחשו שסיפור הוריהם וסביהם איננו חלק מהאתוס המכונן של החברה בה הם חיים, בשונה מההיסטוריה של עמיתיהם יוצאי אירופה.
היעדר התייחסות לתולדות יהודי ארצות האיסלם נבע גם משיעורם השולי בעם היהודי במאות ה-19 וה-20 (10%) וגם מהתפיסה שעיקר ההתרחשות העולמית התרחש באירופה.
עד שנות השבעים עיקר המגע של האקדמיה הישראלית עם יהודי ארצות האסלאם התמקד בחקר הפולקלור או במחקר סוציולוגי-אנתרופולוגי שנועד במידה רבה לסייע לממסד בתהליך הקליטה של המזרחים. ההיסטוריה והספרות של יהודי ארצות האסלאם היו ידועות במידה מועטה בלבד. היעדר מחקר אקדמי על יהודי ארצות האיסלם הביא לכך שגם במערכת החינוך לא היו חומרי לימוד בנושא וההיסטוריה של כמחצית מתלמידי ישראל זכתה למעט מאד התייחסות בתוכנית הלימוד הרשמית.
בנוסף למתחים חברתיים על רקע כלכלי, הדבר הגביר את תחושת הניכור של תלמידים שהוריהם עלו מארצות האיסלם (מזרחיים).  פעילים חברתיים, פוליטיקאים מזרחיים ומחנכים העלו את הנושא לדיון והצביעו על צורך דחוף לייצר מחקר על מורשת יהדות המזרח ולהכניסו לתכנית הלימוד.
בשלהי שנות ה-70 הוקם המרכז לשילוב מורשת יהדות המזרח. מרכז זה עסק בכתיבת מחקרים ופירסומם, בהפקת תוכניות לימוד וביצירת חומרי לימוד לבתי ספר.
חלקה של יהדות ארצות האיסלם בלימוד ההיסטוריה בבית הספר – גדל.
האידאולוגיה שעמדה מאחורי המרכז התבטאה בין השאר במושג 'שילוב', הווי אומר שמורשת יהדות המזרח היא חלק מהסיפור הכללי של היהודים ושל הציונות
עצם קיומו של המרכז העיד על רוח רב תרבותית שהחלה לנשוב בחברה הישראלית. השאלה העדתית, שעד אז התמקדה בעיקר בסוגיה של אי שוויון במשאבים, הפכה גם לשאלה של זהות.

The main theory that justified and explain the establishment of Development Towns in Israel is the Central Place Theory.
According to this theory, Development Towns in Israel, which were built between 1949 and 1964, were urban settlement that served as center for the surrounding rural settlements. These towns were founded in an area with many Moshavim or Kibbutzim, and served as the place for services, commerce, culture and administration for the region. They were planned by city planners based on the theory and on the lack of this stratum of district city in Israel.
However, four towns that were established in this period and were part of the development towns, had no surrounding rural area. The towns of Mitzpe Ramon, Yerucham, Dimona and Arad were built in a desert area with almost no agricultural settlements or any other settlements surrounding them.
What was the justification for building those towns? Some sources describe them as miner towns. There were some phosphate mines in the Negev and other resources like the Dead Sea works. The desert towns were describe as places for the workers in these industries.
However, looking at the History of the towns, the problem of unemployment is mention frequently as the main problem since the towns were founded, with Arad as the exceptional case. The town's population was not the workers of the mines industry.
The proposed paper will deal with the question why were these towns founded and populated, and will compare between the different towns.