We told you how Jews in Yemen need to get out, and how a bunch got out last year. Watch this video about some of the Yemenite Jews who came home last year through a quiet operation run by the Jewish Agency, IFCJ’s partner organization.
If you want to learn more, read about IFCJ’s On Wings of Eagles program.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the pre-eminent spiritual leader of Sephardi Jews around the world, greets a family of Yemenite immigrants in Jerusalem in November. (Courtesy of ISRANET)
Around 120 Jews remain in Yemen, the country at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula that’s been in headlines lately as a hotbed of al Quaida and other anti-Western, Islamic fundamentalist activity, and Jews around the world–and their friends–are working to get them out.
Yemen’s Jewish community had been one of the world’s oldest and most interesting; the community is believed to have been established during the time of the First Temple (Solomon’s Temple, which stood from around 960 BCE until it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE). The highly traditional community remained largely untouched by the forces of assimilation and other outside influences that deeply affected most other Jewish communities. In fact, scholars generally acknowledge that the modern Yemenite pronunciations of Hebrew are closest to the way that Biblical Israelites spoke. They also have a set of religious customs–minhagim, in Hebrew–that is distinct from any other community (virtually all of which fall under the broad categories of Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews).
Following a series of murderous Arab riots after the establishment of the state of Israel, the majority of the community was airlifted to the Jewish state in Operation Magic Carpet, a series of secret flights that took place in 1949 and 1950. Only a few hundred Jews remained behind and later changes in the political climate prevented them from leaving, although Jewish groups continued to try to get them out.
In a quiet move last year, around 80 were granted refugee status in the United States and have been absorbed by a Jewish community outside New York City. Another 60 more were brought to Israel in a quiet operation run by the Jewish Agency, IFCJ’s partner organization.
The remainder may be “in danger and may be stuck there,” Gregg Rickman, a former U.S. State Department official who was instrumental in obtaining the refugee visas, told the Jerusalem Post:
Over a hundred [members of the Jewish community] remain in a special compound in the capital, San’a, living under the protection of government forces. Many moved there from Raida in the north, a town close to some of the recent fighting.
“They had their chance [to leave], but maybe many were fearful of being seen making their way to the U.S. Embassy,” Rickman said.
SFI is grateful to the many supporters of IFCJ’s On Wings of Eagles program, who helped the Jewish Agency bring the Yemenite Jews home — and continue to support their work to bring them all home, safely. And–war or no war–we are mindful of what David told Solomon, his son, “Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the Lord is finished.” (1 Chronicles 28:20)
The work is not yet done, but we are grateful for the privilege of being a small part of seeing it finished.
Mazal tov! Israel was blessed with 160,000 new babies in 2009, which were part of bringing Israel’s population numbers up to 7.5 million.
Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) released population data and statistics for the year, showing the population grew 1.8%, as it did last year, and the five years before that. There are now 7,509,000 Israelis.
Israel’s population has grown by 1.8% every year since 2003, with Jews making up 75%. In addition to births, the increase includes immigration. During 2009, more than 16,000 Jews arrived on aliyah from countries all over the world — the highest number in a decade.
The number of immigrants to Israel rose this year — the first time in a decade that the Jewish state has seen such a jump.
In 2009, 16,244 people immigrated, a 17 percent jump over last year’s 13,859. The number of immigrants from English-speaking countries was also up by 17 percent this year, from 4,511 to 5,294.
The overall number of new arrivals has been dropping since the huge wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union peaked in the 1990s.
The data was announced by the Jewish Agency, the para-governmental organization that IFCJ partners with to bring Jews home to Israel through the Wings of Eagles program.
Some thirty years after he was imprisoned by the Soviet Union for the crime of wanting to live as a free Jew in Israel, statesman and author Natan Sharansky was named “Man of the Year” by the Russian Federation of Jews earlier this week.
During the 9 years he spent in a Soviet gulag, Sharansky became the face of Soviet Jewry–who were being denied basic freedom of religion as well as the ability to emigrate to Israel or other countries by the communist regime–and became one of the best-known Soviet dissidents around the world. He had been denied an exit visa to Israel in 1973, and was sent to prison in 1978 on trumped-up charges of treason and spying for the United States. He detailed his time in the gulag–and how his faith in God (and, to a great extent, his lovely wife, Avital) sustained him–in the touching book, Fear No Evil.
Despite the hardships of prison, much of which he spent in solitary confinement, and constant interrogations by the KGB, Sharansky never lost hope or gave in to his captors. When he was finally released in 1986, in a final act of defiance, when his captors told him to walk straight toward freedom, he walked in a zigzag.
Sharansky, who spent years as an Israeli cabinet minister and as a scholar, now heads the Jewish Agency, IFCJ’s partner in bringing Jews home to Israel on aliyah (as immigrants).
Sharansky has long written and spoken about the essentiality of Jewish identity to Israel and to Jews around the world, and has ben marshalling the resources of the Jewish Agency to strengthen Jewish identity in the Diaspora. At the event, he announced that Hebrew language “ulpan” classes in Russia will be re-opened after having been canceled due to budget cuts:
“We will teach Hebrew to more than 2,600 new students,” Sharansky declared. “I am determined to continue to act for strengthening Jewish identity in the former Soviet Bloc and among Jews throughout the world. I intend to use the award to strengthen the ties between Jews in the former Soviet bloc and the State of Israel.”
For more information on bringing Jews home to Israel, learn about IFCJ’s Wings of Eagles program.
Rabbi Eckstein greeting olim on an El Al plane. This might change if prices don't.
And you thought that high airline prices were cramping your travel plans: For officials from the Jewish Agency–IFCJ’s partner organization in bringing Jews to Israel on aliyah (immigration)–ticket prices are impacting their ability to bring Jews home to Israel!
JAFI traditionally has used Israel’s national air carrier, El Al, for all flights bringing Jews on aliyah from around the world, as well as for the agency’s own business travel.
Bring to mind any iconic images of grateful olim (immigrants) disembarking from planes, and El Al’s logo is in the picture — like the one at right. And those who’ve had the privilege of visiting Israel on an El Al flight aren’t likely to forget El Al’s custom of playing the classic Israeli folk song, “Shalom Aleichem,” as soon as the plane enters Israeli airspace.
(When Ben Gurion airport built a new terminal a few years ago, it did away with the old style-staircase used for deplaning; now visitors or olim de-plane with the same sort of jetway that American airports use — easier and probably safer, but it does make de-planing less of a havaya, an “experience.”)
But when the airline announced a 5 percent price hike for next year, JAFI balked at signing a new agreement. Now 2010 is only weeks away, and there’s still no agreement — and, for the first time, JAFI signed contracts with El Al’s Israeli competitors, Israir and Arkia.
El Al heads met with Natan Sharansky and other JAFI officials this week to resolve the price dispute, and El Al termed the meeting “good and productive.”
Whoever flies the plane, of course, with God’s help, we’ll still be bringing Jews home on Wings of Eagles.
Mainstream conventional wisdom tells us that, today, Jews around the world live safely — that anti-Semitism and other threats no longer destabilize their lives and communities. Not so, unfortunately. In fact, global events like the current economic crisis and international terrorism have whipped anti-Zionists and anti-Semites into action and Jewish communities in many places around the world face a new reality Jews who had always assumed that they could live their lives freely may need to be rescued.
The Fellowship works with a number of partner agencies to ensure that these Jewish communities’ most dire needs are met, as well as, ultimately, bringing Jews home to Israel.
Watch this video from The Jewish Agency, one of IFCJ’s partner agencies, on how we bring Jews home to Israel in crises.
Nefesh b’ Nefesh is a terrific non-profit that helps bring Jews from English-speaking countries to Israel on aliyah. It was established in 2001 after a relative of the founder (a Florida rabbi) was murdered in a terrorist attack; he decided the best response to people trying to kill Jews in Israel — was to bring more Jews there!
In addition to helping would-be immigrants navigate the bureaucracy of becoming an Israeli citizen (Remember – Israel may be a high-tech wonder, but it’s still a mostly socialized state and dealing with the bureaucratic aspects of living there isn’t easy!), NBN tries to help olim (immigrants) acclimate to life in Israel, helping them find jobs, access social services, and build the social networks key to successfully integrating into life the Jewish state.
Enjoy this NBN activity — a “flash mob” that burst into Hannukah-themed song and dance in the middle of Ben Yehuda Street, the pedestrian mall that’s one of the capital city’s central spots.
Watch this CBN news piece about Jews from tribes once considered lost–in China and India–coming home to Israel: