Moving to Israel

There is a very touching story in the Jerusalem Post today that I know will interest all of our readers of the moving to Israel blog about the widow of Golani Brigade Maj. Eliraz Peretz who, while talking to Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin in her living room on Thursday, asked not that her home be saved from imminent demolition in the unauthorized Givat Hayovel outpost on the outskirts of the Eli settlement, but that Jonathan Pollard, a dual American-Israeli citizen who is serving his 25th year of an unlimited life sentence in an American prison for passing classified American documents to Israel, be finally freed and allowed to come home.

Shlomit Peretz is still grieving her husband, 31, who was killed in action in the southern Gaza Strip on March 26, along with St.-Sgt. Ilan Sviatkovsky, 21. On Thursday, politicians made their way to her two-story stone home to speak with her and her four young children. Of her husband, Shlomit told Rivlin, “He was willing to pay the price and what happened, happened.”

This is an incredible display of faith and courage that during Shlomit’s time of the ultimate mourning, she still has people like Jonathan first and foremost in her mind. “The state has left someone in the field for 25 years. If we could return him home, it would be a form of comfort for us,” she said.

Pollard is still, all these years later, a very powerful motivation for Jews around the world to pick up and come home to Israel and it is our hope that Shlomit and her family will overcome this tragedy and be credited with the rewards from Hashem for those that make the courageous move.

May Hashem bring home Jonathan Pollard as soon as possible and may the Peretz family know only happiness from here on out.

Ari