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A record-breaking 5,000 people from throughout France have thus far visited an aliyah fair taking place in the heart of Paris today, the same day as the French run-off election. The fair, organized and run by the Jewish Agency, is being attended by Jewish Agency Chairman of the Executive Natan Sharansky, as well as by representatives of various Israeli local authorities and government bodies, who are meeting with participants and presenting them with various opportunities for settling in Israel. Jewish Agency Chairman Sharansky noted emotionally that thousands of members of the French Jewish community had visited the fair. “I cannot...

European and American perfidy in dealing with Iran's nuclear weapons program apparently has no end. This week we were subject to banner headlines announcing that the EU has decided to enact an oil embargo on Iran. It was only when we got past the bombast that we discovered that the embargo is only set to come into force on July 1. Following its European colleagues, the Obama administration announced it is also ratcheting up its sanctions against Iran� in two months. Sometime in late March, the US will begin sanctioning Iran's third largest bank. At the same time as the...

According to figures released by the Jewish Agency and published this past week on the FightHatred.com website, in 2010 there was an increase of 63 percent in the number of Belgian Jews who made aliyah to Israel. Two hundred and fifty Belgian Jews chose to make Israel their home in 2010, compared to 152 in 2009. The report cites increasingly open anti-Semitism in recent years and the rise of violent attacks against members of the community, especially its highly-visible hareidi religious members, as causes for the sharp rise in the numbers of individuals making aliyah. There are 40,000 Jews in...

The government voted Sunday to bring the last members of the Falash Mura in Ethiopia to Israel. Once the estimated 8,000 tribe members arrive, mass Aliyah (immigration) from Ethiopia will end... ...ver 80,000 Ethiopian citizens have made Aliyah since the founding of the Jewish state. Mass immigration began in the 1980s with Operation Moses. Immigration from Ethiopia has since been limited, due to what Immigration and Absorption officials say are the high costs of integrating Ethiopian immigrants. Many Ethiopian-Israelis have accused the government of moving too slowly on bringing the community to Israel. However, others have called to end the...

If, like me, you are Jewish, then you probably are often challenged by the Israeli Press and many in our own communities to make Aliyah and return to Israel. Aliyah is always referred to as returning to Israel which is like the lyrics of an old John Denver song Rocky Mountain High, “Comin' home to a place I’ve never been before.” Of course, John is singing about Colorado and Aliyah pertains to Israel, but the concept is the same. The question often posed about making Aliyah is, “How?” The how is followed by leave my family, friends, life, comfort, job,...

After the attempt last spring to break the Israeli security blockade off the coast of the Gaza Strip, the British government denounced the Israeli navy’s forceful seizure of the blockade-runners as “completely unacceptable.” Long forgotten is Britain’s disgraceful history as a blockader of the Zionist Jews, and as a violent enforcer of that blockade. A brief account of this travesty would be instructive: Following the end of WWI, the Jewish survivors of Hitler’s Holocaust were desperate to leave the European killing grounds for a new life in Jewish Palestine. Knowing that the Palestinian Arabs were in the habit of launching...

In 2010, a surge in the Israeli Jewish fertility rate is a long-term, unique, global phenomenon, while fertility rates decline sharply in the Third World in general and in Muslim countries in particular. In 2010, there is a 66% Jewish majority in 98.5% of the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean (without Gaza) – and a 58% Jewish majority with Gaza. That Jewish majority benefits from a demographic tailwind and from a high potential of aliyah (Jewish immigration) and of returning Israeli expatriates.

Dimitri Volvinov, who immigrated to Israel on Sunday from Kyrgyzstan with his family, spoke on his arrival of the recent unrest in the country's capital, Bishkek. Riots in April led to the ouster of the country's president and thousands have been killed as ethnic tensions flared between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz this month. "[Bishkek] is in anarchy," Bolvinov said, "and no one from the police or the government is intervening. Since the night of the coup we have sat entire days at home with windows and blinds closed and shaking with fear." Volvinov, who arrived in Israel under the auspices of...

Nefesh B'Nefesh has decided to accelerate and deepen its activities in North America, in order to realize the potential increase in the number of immigrants to Israel during 2010. In cooperation with the Jewish Agency and government offices, the organization will hold next week, between March 7 and 14, eight large fairs in major cities in the US and Canada, in order to give hundreds of potential immigrants reliable information, guidance and inspiration on immigration to Israel. More than 1,500 North American Jews are expected to participate in the fairs. They will be able to meet representatives from government ministries,...

IQUITOS, Peru — If Ronald Reátegui Levy someday finds that he is the last Jew of Iquitos, it may well be of his own doing. His dream, which he has vigorously pursued, is to persuade the descendants of Sephardic merchants who settled in this remote corner of the Amazon basin more than a century ago to reaffirm their ties to Judaism and emigrate to Israel. “It is getting very lonely here,” said Mr. Reátegui Levy, 52, an inspector at Peru’s national oil company, referring to the more than 400 descendants of Jewish pioneers who have formally converted to Judaism this...

I just wanted to thank everyone for great enjoyment, learning, and (relative) mental stability I have gained here. The movers are here and the computer is to be packed shortly. Girls' last day at school is tomorrow. Off to Eretz Israel. Next Passover really will be in Jerusalem! Thank you all again. I will check back some, but not often.

Israel Gov’t Minister Favors Selective Aliyah… Nov. 24, 2008, He specifically referred to a rise in cases of neo-Nazism among Russian immigrants, some one million of which immigrated to Israel in the past 16 years. Three to four hundred thousand of the Russian immigrants are non-Jews recruited by the Jewish Agency using Jewish donor funds.http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/124103 

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” Not being an angel, I decided to rush in and discuss mixed-race marriages and Miranda Jones.. The Fifties was a conservative generation. Families were in and being good was in. Father knew best and nice girls didn’t do it. I was in college during the second half of it. Eisenhower was president, McCarthy began his witch hunt, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus and the US Supreme Court ruled segregation unconstitutional. College intellectuals devoted themselves to national liberation in Africa at the expense of empire. But the...

Israel Enjoys Record Season of Nefesh B’Nefesh Aliyah By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Jerusalem ----July 8....... Nefesh B’Nefesh will begin a record period of Aliya from the US and Canada with the first arrival of seven charter flights to Israel. Over 220 North Americans are making Aliyah through Nefesh B’Nefesh, an organization dedicated to revitalizing North American and British immigration to Israel (in Hebrew, “Aliyah”) by removing or minimizing the financial, professional, logistical and social obstacles to Aliyah. Israel officials and dignitaries will greet the Nefesh B’Nefesh immigrants along with hundreds of family, friends and well-wishers. The first flight...

These days, even Jews who have never been to a synagogue are happy to assert that separateness: they are rossiiskiye, Russian citizens, but not russkiye, “Russians”. As many as 100,000 Russian-Israelis have gone back to Russia, says Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz, the director of the Lubavitch-run Federation of Jewish Communities, one of Russia's two main (and rival) umbrella groups. In a fast-growing market with a population over 20 times the size of Israel's, they often get better work. Today, a Russian Jew in Moscow will be more expensively dressed than his cousin in Tel Aviv: a big reversal from ten years...

PM Ehud Olmert received a standing ovation at the Orthodox Union’s annual convention in Jerusalem, speaking after outgoing Ambassador Danny Ayalon discouraged those present from coming on Aliyah. Ayalon, who just finished his term as Israel’s Ambassador to the US, stressed the need to unite behind Israel’s officials during these critical times. He also responded to Jewish Agency Chief Ze’ev Bielski’s call for American Jews to immigrate to Israel, saying: “I join Ze’ev’s call for Aliyah (Jewish immigration) from the states – but I have to say, you can wait a while.” Ayalon told the crowd of observant Jews that...

Massive Western Aliyah This Week, Despite Month of War 13:34 Aug 09, '06 / 15 Av 5766 by Ezra HaLevi Despite the two-front war, the thousands of missiles, and the evacuation of northern communities, more than 800 North American and British Jews are moving to Israel this week. After a month of war, and even though they have had plenty of time to postpone or reschedule their Aliyah (immigration to Israel), four planeloads of Jews are scheduled to arrive in Ben Gurion airport in the coming week – the first on Thursday. On Wednesday, August 16th – the one year...

JERUSALEM (EJP)--- A unique flight from London to Tel Aviv will land in Israel next month carrying the record number of British people to make aliyah (immigrate) on a single day. The plane, which has been chartered by aliyah coordination organisation Nefesh B’Nefesh, will take 550 new olim to Israel on August 16. The group has recently turned its attention to the UK after successfully bringing over 7,000 immigrants from North America to Israel since its inception in 2002. Nefesh B’Nefesh Co-Founder and Executive Director Rabbi Yehoshua Fass said: “England is the most natural expansion for Nefesh B’Nefesh’s services, especially...

240 North Americans Fly Home to Israel 17:05 Jul 06, '06 / 10 Tammuz 5766 by Hillel Fendel The first of this summer's seven specially-chartered Nefesh B'Nefesh/Jewish Agency flights, bringing some 3,000 Western immigrants to Israel, arrived today. IsraelNationalRadio was aboard. President Moshe Katzav, Absorption Minister Ze'ev Boim and other officials were on hand today to greet Israel's newest 240 citizens. Their move to Israel was facilitated by the Nefesh B'Nefesh organization, which has similarly helped some 7,000 Jews to come home over the past four years. Nathan Kluger sports an Aliyah Revolution T-shirt as he waits to check his...

As the Jews of Gaza and northern Samaria were being expelled from their homes, an entire planeload of North American Jews landed in Israel last week, pledging to build the Jewish State. (Photos in link)

AROUND THE JEWISH WORLDWith Canadian aliyah on the rise, Nefesh B’Nefesh plane set to fly By Suzanne Wintrob David Karp Kids from North American families play at JFK International Airport while they wait for their flight to Israel, sponsored by Nefesh B’Nefesh and the Jewish Agency for Israel, in August 2004. TORONTO, May 15 (JTA) — It used to be that so few people made aliyah from Canada that almost no one paid attention to them when tallying immigration totals from North America. But times are changing. With a wave of Canadians preparing to move to Israel, Nefesh B’Nefesh, an...

A special team of rabbis from Israel will soon be sent to the Indian-Myanmar (Burma) border in order to convert thousands of members of a local tribe who have been recognized as Jews by Israel's chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar, The Times of London has reported. According to the report, the tribesmen have been defined as members of the lost tribe of Menashe. Once converted, they would be able to immigrate to Israel based on the Law of Return. The mission is reportedly funded by a group of Christian Evangelicals. About 800 members of the 'Bnei Menashe' have been brought...

A prominent leader of Great Britain's Sephardi Jewish community will immigrate to Israel on Saturday night, Israeli cable TV station Hot News reported Sunday. Rabbi Pinchas Toledano, who serves as the head of the Sephardi rabbinical court in England, will immigrate under the sponsorship of the Jewish Agency, which has recently focused its efforts on bringing Jews from Western Europe to Israel. The agency's initiative is aimed at addressing the plight of Jews who have been subject to a surge in anti-Semitism. Toledano is considered one of the more prominent Jewish figures in Western Europe, according to Hot News. Officials...

As a first time visitor to England many decades ago, the thing that impressed me most was how incredibly polite everybody was. By the time an Englishman approached within ten feet, he was already calling out, "Excuse me." Civility is not the first thing a visitor to England would be likely to note today. Indeed if there is one thing in which the English, particularly the educated classes, seem to excel today it is vituperation. All the old taboos against expressions of hatred have fallen. On the verbal level at least, the manners of soccer hooligans have been adopted by...

Feb. 6, 2005 15:30 | Updated Feb. 6, 2005 16:01 Immigration to Israel drops 9.5% By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER Immigration to Israel dropped 9.5 percent in 2004, the Jewish Agency announced at a press conference on Wednesday. The main reason for the drop was a decrease in immigration from former Soviet Union (FSU) countries, from 12,000 in 2003 to some 10,000 in 2004. The Jewish Agency believes that the number of immigrants from FSU countries can increase in the coming years if Israel's negotiations with Germany to cut benefits to Russian Jews bear fruit. According to the German media, starting...

Yet another planeload carrying 201 Jewish immigrants from N. America touched down in Israel today, bringing the number of immigrants from the continent this year to over 2,800 - the most since 1983. "Heveinu Shalom Aleichem ~ We have brought you peace." Today's flight was the first Winter flight of olim [new immigrants] organized by Nefesh b'Nefesh, an organization aiming to "remove or minimize the financial, professional, logistical and social obstacles that potential olim face." Though the average age of this year's North American immigrants is 33, two sisters in their 90s who survived the Holocaust were among those who...

Dec. 28, 2004 19:55 | Updated Dec. 28, 2004 20:05 Two sisters in their 90s make aliyah By MARK HELLER New York Two sisters, aged 94 and 97, who have been together nearly all their lives—from a childhood in Germany to the horrors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to a comfortable life in America—are finally fulfilling their Zionist dream: They're moving to the Promised Land. On Tuesday afternoon, the two sisters, who are among the oldest olim to Israel—headed to the airport in New York to board a plane for their new home in Israel. As the packed up to...

Jerusalem - The Jewish Agency is bracing itself for the immigration of tens of thousands French Jews into Israel as a result of a growing anti-Semitism in France, a spokesperson for the organisation said on Sunday. Senior government officials including Immigration Absorption Minister Tzippi Livni, cabinet director Ilan Cohen and the president of the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency, Sallai Meridor, met last week "to work out how to come to the help of potential Jewish immigrants from France", Yaden Vatikai told AFP. Vatikai said that a report compiled by the agency had found 30 000 out of France's 575 000-strong Jewish...

I have a confession to make: I'm in love with the Land of Israel. After nearly 18 years living here, through two intifadas, two Gulf Wars, the ups and downs (mostly downs) of Israel's turbulent economy, and a two-and-a-half-year wave of terror which fills me with dread and heartbreak, my ardor for Israel has not abated. Why do I love Israel? Because I have been to half the world's holy sites. I have meditated in Varanasi, immersed in the sacred headwaters of the Ganges, visited the Vatican, circumambulated the Buddhist stupa in Sarnath, bathed in the waters of Lourdes,...

Absorption minister blasts American Jewish leadersTzipi Livni accuses communal heads of torpedoing “aliyah” initiatives fearing it would weaken their communities. Eli Berdenshtein Minister of Immigration and Absorption, Tzipi Livni, has chided North American Jewish leaders for discouraging the immigration of Jews (aliyah) to Israel. “It isn’t enough for the leaders to encourage aliyah from other groups, they need to encourage it within their own communities as an integral need of Israel”. In recent weeks, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has held several meetings with representatives of the Ministry and the Jewish agency to discuss the goal of bringing one million...

Mass Aliyah to Israel is Obsolete As we noted last week, the only long-term solution to the demographic threat that faces Israel is children and more children. Chazal said, "If there are no young kids, there are no adult goats" (Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 10:2). If we want to have people in the future to perpetuate the Jewish people and the Jewish mission in the world, we must have children now. In our times, there is no longer any shorter-term solution than this. Many Israeli pundits and politicians pin their hopes on aliyah. This has been part of the Zionist ideology for...

Terror Massacre in Turkey: MK Calls on Jews to Come Home 08:42 Nov 16, '03 / 21 Cheshvan 5764 Foreign Minister Shalom is in Turkey today, following a day of terror in Istanbul. MK Gila Finkelstein (NRP) said that the attacks "are just another reminder that there is only one place for Jews under the sun, and that is in the State of Israel." Terror Massacre in Turkey: MK Calls on Jews to Come HomeForeign Minister Silvan Shalom is in Turkey today to meet with Jewish community leaders and his counterpart Abdullah Gul, following a day of terror in Istanbul....

Leading religious leaders from the three major denominations of American Jewry have issued statements calling for mass Aliyah (Jewish immigration to Israel) from the United States. One recent joint statement was issued to hundreds of North American Olim (immigrants to Israel) who will be arriving this summer in the framework of the Nefesh b’Nefesh organization. Nefesh B'Nefesh lends potential Olim the thousands of dollars they sometimes need to be able to make the move - and the loans become grants if their recipients remain in Israel. The joint statement reads: “There are many ways for the Jewish community to connect...

Katzav Worried About Hareidi Parties And Aliyah IMG SRC="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/data/images//2003/03/13/katzav.jpg">President Moshe Katzav fears that the fact that the hareidi parties have no part in the government will mar the process of "Zionization" that they had been undergoing in the past decades. The President also expressed his view on the state of Aliyah [immigration to Israel], and said that potential immigrants must be presented with a "vision and challenge." Katzav, visiting the Jewish Agency building in Jerusalem today, said that the hareidim had tried to integrate into Israeli life over the past 20 years and that the latest developments may cause...

OU Announces Aliyah Fund Drive With the goal of assisting hundreds of families to make aliyah this summer, the Orthodox Union (OU) in the United States is calling on its member synagogues across the United States and Canada to conduct fund-raising campaigns in support of a Jerusalem-based foundation dedicated to bringing North American Jews home to Israel. The drive will culminate on May 7, Israeli Independence Day. The beneficiary organization, Nefesh B'Nefesh (Jewish Souls United), was founded to revitalize aliyah from North America through financial support and other assistance to new immigrants. In July, 2002, its first year of...

During Israel's rare moments of peace and even more during its worst violence, the Mensh and Welch families of Boca Raton feel an attachment to the country so strong that it is a living part of them. As Jews, they say Israel defines who and what they are. It is in their daily prayers, their everyday thoughts. They believe the country's survival ensures their existence as a religion and a culture. So even though violence and political tension have escalated dramatically in the last several months, they are packing up everything familiar and moving their families to the Middle East....