I am publishing this article by historian and academic Zachary Foster in full because I think it is mind-bendingly important.

A 1919 political cartoon depicting Chaim Weizmann and Menachem Ussishkin closing Palestine to Jewish refugees:"Necessity breaks iron! Open the gate or they will break it open! Der Groyser Kunds, September 12, 1919, cited in Gur Alroey, Deborah Stern (translator), Land of Refuge: Immigration to Palestine, 1919-1927 (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana, 2024), ch. 3

From the late 19th century through the 1950s, Zionist leaders adopted a selective immigration policy designed to exclude 'undesirable' Jews. The goal of the Zionist movement was to build a Jewish state in a Palestinian Arab land, and that required Jewish capitalists, skilled laborers, professionals and fighters, not children, elderly people or refugees. The Zionist leadership rejected persecuted, disabled, destitute, sick, diseased and elderly Jews because they were persecuted, disabled, destitute, sick, diseased and elderly. They instead prioritized what they called "halutzim," or young, healthy Zionist ideologues willing to sacrifice their youth, capital, labor and life for the cause. This is the eugenist history of Zionism, in brief.