News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) A full 20 flights carrying 5,000 immigrants to Israel are expected this summer. Approximately 3,000 of the immigrants will arrive on flights jointly organized by the Jewish Agency and Nefesh B'Nefesh. Around 2,000 immigrants are from the United States and Canada, 200 immigrants from France and Great Britain, 130 from South Africa, and 100 from countries in Latin America.  "Israel is perceived as an island of stability compared with other places," said Eli Cohen, head of the Jewish Agency's department for immigration and absorption, citing the economic crisis as the main motivator for increasing immigration.

The immigrant flights include, for the first time, flights for immigrants from Brazil, the first of which will land in Israel on Tuesday. Overall immigration in 2009 is expected to jump 15 percent over last year’s numbers. Absorption figures were in decline since 2000 with only 16,500 immigrants arriving in 2008, the lowest number since the start of massive waves of immigration wave from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s.