On The Paths Of Fulfillment
A large audience was present at the Center on 8 May 1997 for a study evening in conjunction with the Organization of Former Members of the HeHalutz Movement. The occasion was the publication of the book by Dr Shaul Sehayik entitled "On the Paths of Fulfillment: Integration of Iraqi Zionist Pioneering Youth Into Eretz-Yisrael Settlement".
Mr Mordechai Ben-Porat, Chairman of the Center, and Mr Yigal Lushi, the Managing Director, opened the proceedings by comme-nding Dr Sehayik's work for the Center as one of its founders, a member of the Board, and a scholar of Babylonian Jewry. An analysis of the book was delivered by Dr Dafna Tsimhoni, who noted the special nature of the work as a comprehensive study following the life's work of the author and his family. It traces the full circle of development of consciousness of the Hebrew language, the revival of the Jewish nation, Zionism, pioneering aliya to Eretz Israel, and aliya generally. The research also covers the pionreeing process of changing bourgeois youth that came from Iraq into the working class, which was the jewel in the crown of Zionist endeavor at the time. Dr Sehayik likewise probed the reasons why the pioneering activity of the youth from Iraq did not become a central element in the building of the kibbutz movement and the moshav movement. Dr Tsimhoni concluded her remarks with a recommendation of the book and expressed the hope that the author would go on to portray the full picture of the period.
In his lecture Dr Zvi Yehuda stressed the importance of the book in that it dealt for the first time with the pioneering settlement of one of the Jewish communities in the east. Until then, it had been generally accepted in research on Zionist settlement in Eretz Israel to disregard the role of Jews from the Islamic countries in this settlement. The book carried great weight in establishing the history of the kibbutz settlement and also in the framework of the other settlement enterprises. The research in this book for the first time made use of the archives of the clandestine HeHalutz Movement in Iraq, which was formed by the Babylonian Communication Bureau, and thereby it in fact continued and complemented research on the Movement. The work of the Movement could not be understood in the absence of research on the activity of its members in Israel, and this was the subject matter that Dr Shaul Sehayik's study unfolded before the reader.