Emigration from Israel to other parts of the world has not yet received significant scholarly attention, as the subject is a sensitive one in Israeli society. Zionist ideology has long compelled Israelis to approach emigration from Israel through a biased lens. The Hebrew words aliyah and yerida, which mean, respectively, “ascent” and “descent,” are often used to refer to immigration and emigration. These ideological terms, which are charged with religious meaning, are heavily loaded with praise for immigrants and scorn for emigrants. Yet, thousands of Jews from all over the world have lived between two homelands, as the Israeli-Argentine case demonstrates. This study challenges the formerly dominant Zionist narrative that presents immigration to Israel as unique and emigration as a disgrace, shedding light on issues of immigrant identities, belonging, and expectations.

Covering the better part of the twentieth century and extending into the twenty-first, Adrián Krupnik bases his study both on interviews and on archival documents in English, Spanish, and Hebrew to give voice to Argentine migrants to and from Israel. The pursuit of two often irreconcilable ways of living—peace and economic prosperity—repeatedly vexed migrants moving in either direction. Many Jewish-Argentine migrants between 1980 and 2006 lost everything and became the “new poor” in both countries. Protracted recessions and incessant political crises in Argentina continued to drive migrants in one direction, only to arrive in an Israel submerged in the violence of multiple intifadas.

In our own era, one that will see unprecedented global migration patterns based on similar economic and political—and environmental—upheavals, Between Two Homelands serves as an important and informative cautionary tale of the personal, social, and economic stakes at play in an utterly unsettled globalized landscape.
 

In 1920, at the age of thirteen, Irmgard Gebensleben first traveled from Germany to The Netherlands on a "war-children transport." She would later marry a Dutch man and live and raise her family there while keeping close to her German family and friends through the frequent exchange of letters. Yet during this period geography was not all that separated them. Increasing divergence in political opinions and eventual war between their countries meant letters contained not only family news but personal perspectives on the individual, local, and national choices that would result in the most destructive war in history. 

This important collection, first assembled by Irmgard Gebensleben's daughter Hedda Kalshoven, gives voice to ordinary Germans in the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich and in the occupied Netherlands. The correspondence between Irmgard, her friends, and four generations of her family delve into their most intimate and candid thoughts and feelings about the rise of National Socialism. The responses to the German invasion and occupation of the Netherlands expose the deeply divided loyalties of the family and reveal their attempts to bridge them. Of particular value to historians, the letters evoke the writers' beliefs and their understanding of the events happening around them.

This first English translation of Ik denk zoveel aan jullie:  Een briefwisseling tussen Nederland en Duitsland 1920-1949, has been edited, abridged, and annotated by Peter Fritzsche with the assent and collaboration of Hedda Kalshoven. After the book's original publication the diary of Irmgard's brother and loyal Wehrmacht soldier, Eberhard, was discovered and edited by Hedda Kalshoven. Fritzsche has drawn on this important additional source in his preface.