MK Ohad Tal
MK Ohad TalArutz Sheva

Today, in the Knesset, we marked Aliya Day. The different waves of Aliya to Israel are a unique and unprecedented event, on a historical scale, in the chronicles of the nations of the world.

The Jews, who were exiled around 2,000 years ago by the Roman Empire, were expelled and dispersed to the four corners of the globe. Our formative national sovereignty was taken from us, we suffered persecution, harassment and pogroms.

Yet, facing all the challenges, throughout the years, we stood up for our lives and our identity. We preserved our language, our religion, our culture, and our customs, and Besiyata Dishmaya (with the help of Heaven), we returned to our ancestral and indigenous homeland, to reestablish Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel.

It is precisely we, one of the smallest of peoples, who achieved the impossible, and broke the laws of history.

The most formative and memorable event in Jewish history is the Exodus from Egypt. The Talmud in Tractate Brachot discusses the question: Will the Exodus from Egypt continue to be the greatest defining story? At the end of the discussion, it is concluded that the miracles of the return to Zion will be so great that even the Exodus from Egypt will pale in comparison to them.

And the Gemara brings the verses from Jeremiah: “Therefore, behold days are coming, says the Lord, when they shall no longer say, ‘As the Lord lives, Who brought up the Children of Israel from the Land of Egypt. But, ‘As the Lord lives, Who brought up and Who brought the seed of the House of Israel from the north and from all of the lands where I have driven them, and they shall dwell on their land’.

The 5th of Iyar 5708 is not only the Independence Day of the State of Israel, but also the day on which the Jewish People declared loudly that they are returning to their homeland. The ingathering of the exiles became one of the pillars of the Zionist enterprise.

We will let the numbers speak for themselves, on the eve of independence there were about 600,000 Jews in the country. From May 1948 to the end of 1951, in just three years from the establishment of the State of Israel, almost 700,000 Jews immigrated to Israel.

The population of the country had doubled. This is an unprecedented figure, joining the chain of events that enabled the return to Zion.

In her biography ‘My Life, former Prime Minister Golda Meir describes the moment at the Declaration of Independence when she cried. It was when she heard Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion declare that the State of Israel would be open to the ingathering of the exiles. About 40 prophecies were written in the Bible regarding the ingathering of the exiles, and here she witnessed the fulfillment of the vision of the prophets before her eyes.

We must pledge to the Olim, and to those who have not yet arrived, that the state and society in Israel will know how to provide a proper and empowering response to Olim in various fields: In housing and employment, in education and in Hebrew tutoring , in assistance to students, community counseling, recognizing professional accreditation, creating incentives for returning residents and academics, and more.

We must adapt the system that integrates Olim into the fabric of everyday life in order to allow them not only to arrive, but also help create a successful integration.

Encouraging Aliya is the supreme moral obligation towards our brothers and sisters in the Diaspora, and a clear interest of the State of Israel.

However, we must not be mistaken. Successful Aliya comes in tandem with successful absorption.

I call from here on the incoming government, we must do everything in our power so that the words of Calev Ben Yefuneh [in the Book of Numbers] resonate with the people of Israel, to skeptics and optimists, wherever they may be, to call out even today: "We can surely go up and take possession of it, for we can indeed overcome it."

Ohad Tal is an MK from the Religious Zionist Party. This op-ed was adapted from a speech he gave in the Knesset Plenum for Aliya Day.