Kindgo
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posted
Jul. 9, 2002
web page By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Some 400 immigrants from the United States and Canada, the largest ever from North America, landed Tuesday morning at Ben-Gurion International Airport.
Most of the newcomers intend to settle in Jerusalem and the town of Beit Shemesh, south of the capital. They will receive stipends of NIS 25,000 per family from the Absorption Ministry.
Former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu was on hand to greet the immigrants shortly after their El Al jet touched down on the tarmac.
Netanyahu remarked how 30 years ago he was in a similar hangar at the airport, when as an Israeli commando, he was preparing to storm a hijacked Sabena airliner.
"The war of terror is still with us. But what we are doing here today is the strongest, boldest and most endearing answer to those who want to drive us out of here," Netanyahu said.
Among the first to alight from the plane was Rabbi Joshua Fass from Florida, a cofounder of Nefesh Benefesh, the program sponsoring the immigrants. He said their arrival is "a passionate and palpable expresson of solidarity."
Another 130 North American immigrants are expected to arrive over the summer.
"The Jewish community in the US is the largest in the world and therefore from a strategic point of view, it is the great potential reservoir in the world for immigration," Jewish Agency Chairman Sallai Meridor told The Jerusalem Post Monday.
In recent years the Jewish Agency has been examining different ways to encourage and promote North American immigration.
Fass believes financial considerations are keeping many North American from coming.
His program, conducted in conjunction with the Jewish Agency and the Absorption Ministry, offers economic assistance in the form of one-time grants of $5,000 to $25,000 to each new arrival or family, with the help of private donors.
Funding for this initial group of 400 comes mostly from a $2 million grant from the International Fellowship of Christian and Jews.
It is the largest group of North Americans to arrive at one time in at least 25 years, according to the Jewish Agency.
Last year, 1,378 North American Jews immigrated to Israel. The numbers have been steadily dropping from 1995, when 2,503 North American Jews immigrated.
North American Jews have never made up a large portion of immigrants only 111,096 out of 2.8 million immigrants who have arrived since 1948. The banner year was 1971, when 8,122 came.
According to Jewish Agency spokesman Yehuda Weinraub 601 North Americans have arrived so far this year, compared with 561 last year. With the additional 400, the numbers for this year already are up to 1,000.
Another 150 North American are expected to arrive later this summer via Nefesh b'Nefesh. The program hopes to bring a plane of immigrants every three months.
Among the 103 families aboard the 10-hour flight that left New York is one family that spans three generations. Among the immigrants are 152 children, of whom 99 are under the age of five. The youngest immigrant is four months old and the oldest is 62, said an El Al spokeswoman.
According to the Jewish Agency, 75 percent of the new immigrants will live in Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh.
Standing at the ticket counter in New York with her cat Kitten, new immigrant Rebecca France, 31, of Boston said she is so tired she can no longer really focus on all the ideological reasons that made her leave her job as at the Combined Jewish Philanthropies. It's been five months of saying good-bye, France said.
"Now, I just want to be in Israel," she said.
Information on the organization can be found on the internet at www.nefeshbnefesh.org.
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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