The Promised Sea

Chapter 8 examines the representation of a flotilla of Jewish resistance in cinema’s linked visual relatives: photography and newsreels. It explores the routes and obstructions across the Holocaust and post-Holocaust landscape of the sea, charting the maritime dimensions of Jewish DPs as vigilant voyagers and political capital in the quest for a Zionist state. The chapter uses newsreel footage to argue that Jewish DPs were depicted as defiant and ultimately empowered activists who embraced the “illegals” categorization through their protests, voyaging, and internment in Cyprus from August 1946. It curates images of the “floating concentration camp” symbolized by the sailing of the ship, Exodus 1947, in July of that year. The fallout from that ship’s ill-fated voyage and its return to Europe directly impacted discussions about the partition of Palestine in November 1947.

Recommended interaction: The interactive map below includes information under "Departure Ports" (Legend) for the 66 Aliyah Bet voyages from Europe to Palestine between 1945 and 1948. The information is sourced from  Palyam  (a website/database that chronicles the activities of the Palyam, a unit of the Palmach, the Haganah's elite forces, in the operating the postwar flotilla of the Brichah).

Each Aliyah Bet voyage is identified from 1 to 66, and is geolocated to the city or port of departure. Each placemark includes basic information about voyages (the Haganah name of the ship), the date of arrival in Palestine, obstruction or interception information, the number of Jewish DP passengers, and hyperlinks to more detailed narratives about each ship's voyage (and original/renamed ships). The numbers on the map aggregate the number of times each port is mentioned in the database, rather than the voyage number. Clicking on each location in the legend, "Departure Ports," identifies the voyages attached to each port.

As discussed in Chapter 9, and depicted in the map, ports in Italy and France berthed the bulk of departures. The map also integrates transit voyages and collection points (North Africa) which often then connected to voyages from Italy (and sometimes at sea transfers). Additional clustered points identify the reach of British naval surveillance posts in Egypt (Port Said), and intended and diverted arrival locations. Aliyah Bet ships were often intercepted close to the shores of Palestine or near Lebanon's coastline, and "escorted" by British destroyers to Haifa port where, from August 1946, Jewish passengers were sent to detention camps in Cyprus.

The map also references the placemarks included in Chapter 7's geolocator, " An overland cartography of the Brichah ," so that readers can interact with multiple placemarks and trajectories on one map and interpret or augment this information with their own perspectives and research on routes, connections and testimonies of movement and humanitarian relief.