From “aliyah” to onward moves: circular dynamics in Zionist archives on Argentine migration to Israel

This article examines Argentine Jewish migration, a substantial share of Latin American movement to Israel. Rather than rehearse linear, nation-centred push–pull models that structure national narratives of aliyah, we adopt a circular, networked perspective that situates Israel as one node within wider migratory circuits. Reading Zionist state archives–documents originally crafted to promote a one-way journey–against the grain, we show that migration is rarely a single event. Individuals and families circulate among Israel, Latin America, and Europe, with many re-settling in Israel more than once; in other cases, circularity emerges as regret, or even deferral, and aborted moves prior to arrival. These trajectories–often obscured by origin–destination statistics and bureaucratic classifications–reveal relational dynamics across multiple sites that, while traceable in Zionist documentation, are routinely effaced in national meta-narratives.