ALIAV (Kluger), RUTH ALIAV (Kluger), RUTH (1914–1980), the only
female member of Mosad Le-Aliyah Bet, the organization which
saved Jews from the Holocaust by smuggling them into Ereẓ
Israel, in defiance of the restrictions on immigration imposed
by the Mandatory Government (see "Illegal" *Immigration). The
name Aliav, given to her by David Ben-Gurion, is an anagram of
Aliyah Bet. Aliav was born in Kiev; her family later settled in
Czernowitz, Romania. She immigrated to Ereẓ Israel in 1934 and
settled with her husband on a kibbutz. She was one of the
founding members of the Mosad and in 1939 returned to Romania to
organize the escape of Jews and their illegal immigration to
Ereẓ Israel. In 1941, when further rescue work became
impossible, she fled to Turkey from which she proceeded to Egypt
to continue her rescue activities in bringing Jews from Arab
countries. From 1942 to 1945 she worked closely with the French
and Dutch Resistance movements in Europe, became a colonel in
the *Haganah, and was appointed by D