Israeli deportation records can be found in both the ISA and IGRA online databases. However, the search depends on what information is already known about the illegal immigrant whose deportation was filed by the British authorities.
In order to get to the deportation application itself, it is necessary to know the name of the ship on which the person being researched arrived. If this information isn't known, however, but the date when the illegal immigrant disembarked in Mandatory Palestine is known, it is possible to browse through the list of ships that reached the ports of the Mandate during the years of the “Aliyah Bet”. The list is in Hebrew and contains a very detailed list of all the ships, including their arrival date, the number of illegal immigrants aboard them, and the ports of departure and disembarkment, among other details.
For example, if the person we are looking for arrived on May 18th, 1939, we can see in the list that the only ship that arrived on that date was the S.S. Nicolaus. If we don’t know the date or the name of the ship, it is possible to use the IGRA database to search for illegal immigrants. After typing the person’s name in English or Hebrew, it is possible to look for the type of record underneath the names in the results. In this case, we need to check for “Deportation” records. The records on IGRA should list the name of the ship, and we can use that to find the deportation record on the ISA website. Unfortunately, the files are not indexed, so you’ll have to manually go page by page to find the person you are looking for.
Click here to view all deportation records on the ISA website. You can also search for “טפסי זיהוי אישיים (בקשות גרוש)”, which translates as “Files of personal identification (petitions of deportation).”
Explore more about deportation records in Israel
- Israeli immigration records on MyHeritage
- Immigration and travel records on MyHeritage
- Austria, Vienna, Jewish Emigrant Applications, 1938-1939 collection on MyHeritage
- Eretz Israel Telephone Directory, 1944 collection on MyHeritage
- MyHeritage Completed Digitizing All of Israel’s Cemeteries! from the MyHeritage blog