So, no holocaust and "the big pogrom" in its stead.
How do you convince eastern jews to emigrate?
Is there still something like 1941 Lviv or an earlier 1946 Kielce?
Please clarify POD.
The fact that hundreds of thousands or even more Jews will be killed will be sufficient to get many Eastern European Jews to emigrate. After all, while this would certainly pale to our TL's Holocaust, this TL's Jews won't know that. Rather, what they will know is that the "Big Pogrom" ended up being hundreds of times more devastating than the pogroms of the Russian Empire were and that thus they should get out of Eastern Europe as soon as possible.
Also, in regards to Soviet Jews, the anti-Jewish discrimination in the Soviet Union after the end of World War II should motivate most of them to want to emigrate in this TL. Plus, there will be a much larger Soviet Jewish community in this TL due to the lack of a Holocaust in the Soviet Union (no Operation Barbarossa = the Holocaust doesn't spread to the Soviet Union) as well as due to population momentum from the youthful demographics of the Soviet Jewish population.
If you have a larger aliyah of European Jews, you'll get some from Western Europe as well to go to Israel,
Yes, you would, but probably not as much. After all, the situation for Jews in Western Europe appears to have been better than the situation for Jews in Eastern Europe in the early 20th century.
issues of housing and integration will be more difficult early on. Lots of people lived in tents for quite some time after immigrating in the early days. OTOH you will have more manpower for the military and developing the land. Finally you will have a situation early on where the Jewish population of Israel is substantially larger than the Arab population after independence and the Jewish/Arab ratio will remain heavily tilted in favor of the Jews even with the higher Arab birth rate.
Agreed with all of this.
Thus, could we see a more belligerent position on the part of the Israeli government earlier on? After all, this TL's Israel will be even more in need of additional living space and whatnot.
Also, could we see a more Ashkenazi-dominated culture in Israel in this TL?
Politically, the greater survival of European Jewry means that the pressure on the early government to pass the laws allowing ultra-Orthodox to avoid national service is not there, and the blanket "go to full time religious study and get an automatic exemption" that led to ALL ultra-Orthodox males ending up deferred unless they chose otherwise won't happen. The reason this happened OTL was that there was a desire to preserve the Jewish theological scholarship that had been decimated by the Holocaust. You might also see the minimum threshold for representation in the Knesset higher,which reduces the power of the splinter parties since almost every government post independence was a coalition government handing out "deals".
Agreed with all of this.
In turn, this could result in much faster assimilation of the Ultra-Orthodox Jews into Israeli society as well as in a lower total fertility rate for Israel.
Plus, the higher threshold for Knesset representation might make Israeli politics more efficient and less susceptible to political blackmail.
With a larger Aliyah, you may see a stronger role for Yiddish in Israel, perhaps recognition as a second language.
Agreed.
OTL many of the Jews of Eastern Europe went to Israel via DP camps. Here you'll have more who will be in countries that have communist governments in 1947-48. Will the USSR and other communist countries allow the Jews to emigrate, even at this point in time when the USSR et al were positive on the establishment of Israel (the idea being that an Israel created by the west would be a permanent irritant to the Arabs who would turn against the west and towards the USSR).
Honestly, I don't think that Soviet emigration policy would be much different from our TL. In other words, Soviet Jews (whom there will be much more of in this TL) would initially not be allowed to emigrate anywhere; however, as in our TL, this might change if Jewish refuseniks try hijacking a plane or two and thus result in large international sympathy for them--which in turn results in the Soviet Union allowing some of them to emigrate.
As for the surviving Polish Jews, a lot will depend on whether they end up on the Soviet or Western side of the Iron Curtain. After all, if the Schwarze Kapelle capitulates to Britain and France early enough, we could see the recreation of an independent, Western-aligned Poland (albeit without its pre-World War II eastern parts). If so, we could see most of the surviving Polish Jews immigrate to Israel immediately after the end of World War II in this TL.
Finally, in regards to the Soviet Jews, like in our TL, I expect most of the remaining Soviet Jews to emigrate--mostly to Israel, but also some to the U.S. and Germany--after the Soviet Union either collapses or liberalizes in this TL. In turn, given the tendency of Soviet Jews to vote for the right, we could see a stronger Israeli right-wing in the 1990s and beyond in this TL.
Also, if the c. 1990s aliyah in this TL will consist of, say, 3 million Jews rather than 1 million Jews (much more surviving Soviet Jews = a much larger aliyah), could we see Israel outright annex the West Bank in this TL in order to provide sufficient living space for these (ex-?)Soviet Jews? Any thoughts on this?