{"id":6620,"date":"2014-08-22T00:08:41","date_gmt":"2014-08-22T07:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=6620"},"modified":"2014-08-27T19:56:33","modified_gmt":"2014-08-28T02:56:33","slug":"aliyah-even-in-hard-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2014\/08\/22\/aliyah-even-in-hard-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Aliyah even in hard times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>The Babani family at New York\u2019s JFK airport, moments before they boarded the plane to Israel. <em>(photo by Shahar Azran via Nefesh b\u2019Nefesh)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Despite tensions surrounding the war in Gaza, 338 new <em>olim<\/em> (immigrants) from the United States and Canada departed on an aliyah charter flight to Israel on Aug. 11. The special flight is a joint venture of Nefesh b\u2019Nefesh, the Ministry of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption, and Keren Kayemeth Le\u2019Israel, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency for Israel, JNF-USA and Tzofim Garin Tzabar.<\/p>\n<p>Among the olim are Nir Babani and Luz Arroyave with their daughter Antonia from Vancouver. \u201cWe\u2019re going to miss our family and the peaceful environment of Vancouver. We\u2019ll miss the quality life there,\u201d said Arroyave.<\/p>\n<p>The large group of olim includes 37 families with 107 children. The passenger list also includes 65 olim moving to the Galilee and the Negev as part of the Nefesh b\u2019Nefesh and Keren Kayemeth L\u2019Israel Go North and Go South programs. Altogether, the olim will be settling in every part of Israel, from Ma\u2019alot in the north to Eilat in the south. Included in the group of olim are 109 young men and women who will be serving in the Israel Defence Forces.<\/p>\n<p>The olim hail from 27 states and three Canadian provinces, from Arizona to Quebec, and range in age from a six-week-old baby to a 93-year-old great-grandparent in a family of four generations making aliyah together.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI find it profoundly inspiring that we have a 747 jumbo jet filled to capacity with people from the North American Jewish community making aliyah, especially at such a challenging time,\u201d said co-founder and executive director of Nefesh b\u2019Nefesh Rabbi Yehoshua Fass. \u201cTo see that Jews everywhere, young and old, religious and secular, are determined to fulfil the dream of helping to build the Jewish state is truly amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This summer, 2,000 olim are expected to have made aliyah with Nefesh b\u2019Nefesh on eight different flights. Since the beginning of the year, about 1,600 olim have made aliyah with the organization. Since 2002, Nefesh b\u2019Nefesh has brought nearly 40,000 olim to Israel from the United States, Canada and England.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Babani family at New York\u2019s JFK airport, moments before they boarded the plane to Israel. (photo by Shahar Azran via Nefesh b\u2019Nefesh) Despite tensions surrounding the war in Gaza, 338 new olim (immigrants) from the United States and Canada departed on an aliyah charter flight to Israel on Aug. 11. The special flight is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4329],"tags":[724,1771,4380,1770,1769],"class_list":["post-6620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","tag-aliyah","tag-luz-arroyave","tag-nefesh-bnefesh","tag-nir-babani","tag-yehoshua-fass"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}