This August, a historic number of 1000 new olim will arrive on Nefesh B’Nefesh Aliyah flights from North America. The newcomers will be met with great fanfare at Ben Gurion Airport, highlighted by happy music, Hebrew songs, flower bouquets, film crews, and broadly-smiling NBN and government officials. The beaming newcomers will lead the way for the other 2000 new olim who, please G-d, will brave the way to Israel this year.
Yet, while everyone is joyful with the arrival of each new Jew in Israel, the fact is that these idealistic new pioneers are the same number, 2,500-3,500, who come on Aliyah every year, rain or shine. The soon-to-be-championed August arrivals have simply been grouped into a summer media festival of Aliyah. And even if another thousand, or two thousand, or even five thousand were to arrive, the number pales when compared with the millions still languishing in the now tarnished but still seemingly golden Diasporas of the United States and Canada.
This is not to blame Nefesh B’Nefesh. Far from it. They are supremely dedicated. The sad truth is that ever since the founding of the Jewish State, most ofthe Jews of North America, and from the affluent lands of the West in general, have not been able to give up their familiar and good lives for the challenges and uncertainties of living in Israel.
From the creation of Medinat Yisrael in 1948 to the Six Day War, under the auspices of the Jewish Agency, immigration to Israel remained minimal from North America. Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics reports that 659 Jews made Aliyah in 1948 from the United States and Canada; 888 in 1950; and 616 in 1951. Throughout the Fifties the annual amount hovered around 300 - 400 olim.
During the Sixties, under the auspices of the Jewish Agency, and due to the exhilaration following the Six Day War, the number increased to a whopping 7,000 in 1970. However, throughout the Seventies a reverse trend dwindled the annual amount of olim back down to 2,550 in 1980. Before making Aliyah in 1984, I worked in the Public Relations Department of the Israel Aliyah Center in New York which was the Jewish Agency bureau dealing with immigration from North America. In the year 1982 we sent 2,934 Jews to Israel; 3,806 in 1983; and 2,827 in 1984. For the following 18 years the numbers once again decreased to an average ranging from 2,500 down to 1,300 new olim per year.
In 2002, partly because of this decrease, Nefesh B’Nefesh took over Aliyah operations from North America. Led by the saintly benefactor from Florida, Mr. Tony Gilbart, and the industrious Rabbi Yehoshua Fass from Boca Raton, they set up the new organization like “a business with a heart.” In their first twenty years of operation, they maintained the Aliyah numbers at an average of 2,500 olim per year, but their success was greater than that. While annual numbers arriving remained basically the same, Nefesh B’Nefesh had success in keeping new olim in Israel, whereas in the past a large proportion of disgruntled olim returned to their former communities in North America.
Spurred by the Coronavirus scare, an all-time high was reached in 2021 with 4,400 Jews coming to settle in Israel. Sadly, this number is still a mere drop in the bucket, an annual .06 percent of the Jews in North America. In the past few years, the number of new olim dropped back down to an average of 3,500 from the lands of baseball and hockey. The numbers from Europe are equally low. As for Russia and the Ukraine, over sixty percent of the new arrivals are not Jewish!
Are we merely to shrug at these dismaying statistics and carry on as usual? No! Israel is at war! The lives of Jews around the world are threatened! And as long as Israel is forced to continue its battle against the enemies who rise up against it, the situation of world Jewry will worsen - that, my friends, is for certain.
At last year’s Emergency Aliyah Conference, many longtime Aliyah activists expressed the opinion that the various well-meaning Aliyah agencies cannot do the necessary job alone. There is a pressing need to change the past conceptions which have failed to attract our brothers and sisters from the West. Hashem has set the earth boiling under the feet of Diaspora Jewry but they need an extra push (known as “hishtadlut”) from us.
We have to begin to construct emergency absorption centers to house the Jews who will soon be fleeing hotspots of Jew hatred around the globe.
We have to build attractive “Aliyah Cities” throughout the country to convince Western olim that they are wanted.
We have to send battalions of spirited “Aliyah Commandos” filled with vision and faith in the Historical Mission of Am Yisrael to Jewish communities all over the globe to tell them straight out that the exile is finished. To tell them that there is no future for Jewish life in gentile lands! To wake up their Rabbis and Jewish organization leaders to the discernible fact that the time has come to pack up shop and come home.
We have to stop waiting passively for Coronavirus and antisemitism to bring our people back to the Promised Land. A far more aggressive approach to Aliyah is needed.
An independent group of “Aliyah Commandos” must be sent out immediately to all remaining diasporas. Scores of emergency “Aliyah Soldiers” must be airborne as soon as can be. If the coffers of the Government of Israel, depleted by the enormous cost of the war effort, can’t sponsor the rescue campaign, then Nefesh B’Nefesh, the Jewish Agency, the WZO, and partner Zionist organizations like KKL-JNF must allocate funds from their total enormous budget of billions to let grassroots activists with strident voices and spirited energy be the stallions to pull the broken wagon out of the mud.
Simultaneously, other enlightened Tony Gelbarts must be found to help finance this vital national undertaking. At this crucial moment when the reborn Nation of Israel has been thrust into a war of survival, new and improved solutions must be implemented to bring our people home. If not now, when?
Emergency Aliyah Conference #3 will take place on Aug.27, 5pm-9pm, at a location to be announced. For more information, write:shoshanastreetprod@gmail.com