Moving to Israel

As common as it is to hear stories of immigrants who struggle after moving to Israel, it’s always refreshing to hear the ones about the Olim who had a dream of making it in Israel, made the dream happen and manage to live out the dream. I was in the mood to hear such a story today when I jumped over to the Jersusalem Post’s Cafe Oleh section and was certainly not disappointed as one of the lead columns, entitled Footloose and fancy-free, was the inspiring and emotional story of Esther Kunda, who is celebrating 60 years since her Aliyah.

The story of how Esther, now 81, and her mother arrived in the tiny, newborn Jewish state from South Africa is a must read for anyone who dreams of making Israel their home but is scared or discouraged by family, friends and finances that they will be leaving behind. Esther faced all that and more and now is happily celebrating 60 years since her immigration.

As Esther says regarding the best thing about Israel: “The most wonderful feeling of being in your own country.”

Read her story and inspire yourself to be the one celebrating your immigration in another 60 years.

Ari

While constantly searching for Aliyah facts and figures I remember that sometimes the best way of getting the whole moving to Israel overview is by looking at some basic, raw numbers. With that in mind I wanted to point out to everyone this fantastic summary of the Aliyah numbers for 2008 courtesy of an article found at the Support Association for Zionism (SAZ).

While serving as a terrific guide for viewing the past year in Aliyah, it is also important to note what the report says. With the exceptions of North America, South Africa and Oceania, Aliyah was down in all other locations compared to 2007 while also being a 22% overall decrease compared to the number that arrived during the same period last year.

These are discouraging numbers so let’s continue to spread the word to all our brothers and sisters: we want you to come home now!

May Hashem soon bring the day where all the Jewish people are back where they belong.

 Ari

As concerns have grown regarding the new American leadership with regards towards their policies with Israel, there has been at least one encouraging piece of news. The U.S. has anounced that it will be boycotting the Durban II conference on racism unless there are significant changes to what the State Department called “unsalvageable” anti-Israeli resolutions. Israel has been concerned by the new American government’s change in policy to participate in preliminary committee meetings for the convention, which is to be held in Geneva but bears the name of the South African city where the first meeting was held in 2001. The United States walked out of it because of harsh anti-Israeli resolutions.

With the conference planning a clearly anti-Israel agenda the State Department announcement came after growing domestic protests of the Obama administration’s participation in the planning committee.

While it is still too soon to see how the new administration will be working with Israel in the long term, this is a piece of good, encouraging news to let Israelis know that, at least for the moment, America still understands the amount of vitriol that that the world is armed with towards their best friends in the Middle East. Let’s hope this is a sign of things to come for the next four years.

 Ari