emigration

To give up is un-Israeli

Israelis might be among the world’s most resilient people. Across 75 years of constant war or threats of war, terrorism, geopolitical isolation and global political assault, the Israeli people have built one of the world’s strongest democracies and most powerful economies.

Faced with an endless succession of external existential threats, not to mention internal divisions, Israelis have fought hard to survive and build the sort of state that accommodates, however imperfectly, the diversity of Jewish (and non-Jewish) identities encompassed by the population.

This is now under threat. The current government’s efforts to chip away at democratic structures is a grievous concern. And the political disruption is having demonstrative economic impacts as well. The “startup nation” has seen investment nosedive this year. In the first half of 2023, private financing fell 29% from the previous six-month period and 67% from the same period a year earlier.

While the economic numbers are the most tangible measure of the dangers of political instability and skirmishes, an opinion poll number stands out as at least as grave. A survey last month indicated that 28% of Israelis are considering leaving the country.

A recent feature story about a colony of expat Israelis who have made Hebrew a common sound on the streets of Thailand cited affordability and a laid-back lifestyle as among the draws that have brought more than 100 families to the town of Ko Pha Ngan in the last year alone. These families joined hundreds of Israelis who had already set up homes there. The Times of Israel reports most migrants cite Israel’s “pressure cooker” atmosphere as a leading reason for their move. We get that. People deserve to live the lives they want.

What is more challenging to understand is Israelis who are motivated to quit the country because they don’t like its political direction. The same opinion poll that said more than a quarter of Israelis are considering emigration showed that the current government would be headed for (by Israeli standards) a decisive defeat if an election were held now. Shouldn’t that count for something?

A plurality of Israelis seems poised to oust the government (if given the chance) and yet, rather than seeing this poll as a harbinger of hope, the children and grandchildren of those who persevered against enormous and impossible odds to rebuild the Jewish homeland are ready to give up the fight. (And, of course, we mean “fight” figuratively. Despite the fact that 56% of Israelis worry about civil war, the institutions the current government is attacking, though battered, are still strong and should not yet be dismissed as ineffectual.) If 28% of Israelis left, you can bet that the government that most of them oppose and which led them to abandon their homeland would be reelected in a landslide and be given a free hand to remake the country in the image they want.

We are worried by the apparent depth and breadth of the hopelessness. But hundreds of thousands of Israelis not only wish to change the government, they are taking to the streets every single week for many months to register their disapproval. Many of these are people who have never before engaged in politics. If the current government is traveling down untrodden paths of autocracy and iniquity, it is not meaningless that an enormous movement is amassing in response, potentially laying the foundation for a future sea change.

A lesson from close to home might be instructive. In the 1980s, British Columbia’s Social Credit government instituted a “restraint program” inspired by Reaganomics and Thatcherism that led to mass marches in the streets. Hopelessness gave way to one of the biggest mass mobilizations in the province’s history, in the form of Operation Solidarity. Long story short, that opposition movement, in a sense, emerged into the movement that is now dominant and that has transformed the province, the New Democratic Party having won one of the biggest majority governments in history, in 2020. John Horgan, the former premier who led the New Democrats to that huge victory, was inspired to get involved in politics during that tumultuous earlier time.

Presumably, an entire new generation of Israeli leaders are likewise being forged in reaction to the current developments. Whether they have the impact that British Columbia’s opposition movement-cum-government has had depends on whether they turn this moment into a lasting movement.

If we can point to any reason to lose hope, it is less the direction of the current government than, on the other side, the loss of hope and determination itself. If the policies of the current government seem un-Israeli to many of us, it seems no less un-Israeli to look at an existential challenge and give up.

Decline of Polish Jewry

Dr. Kamil Kijek of the University of Wrocław, in Poland. (photo from University of British Columbia)

For Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust, the question of where to begin life anew after the cataclysm was not as clear as it might seem in hindsight.

Looking back at the successive tragedies of postwar life for Jews in Poland, it might seem obvious that the blood-soaked homeland held little hope for the future. The choices for survivors limited their options, though, and the faith that, surely, the worst had passed played a role in the decision by tens of thousands to try rebuilding their families on the soil of their ancestors.

The disastrous history of Jews in postwar Poland was the subject of a special presentation at the University of British Columbia by Dr. Kamil Kijek, an assistant professor in the Jewish studies department at the University of Wrocław, in Poland. Speaking virtually from Poland to students in-class and to a wider audience online, Kijek addressed the decision faced by Polish Jewish communities to stay in or leave post-Holocaust Poland. He was speaking to a class led by Dr. Ania Switzer, a sessional lecturer at UBC, who was born in communist Poland and who is a translator and historian specializing in Jewish studies and Holocaust education.

“Most of Poland did not become the desert of Jewish life right away,” said Kijek. “It happened over time.”

About 50,000 Jews survived the Holocaust in Polish territory. In early 1946, about 136,000 Polish Jews returned from the Soviet Union, where they had survived the war, and a few thousand others found their way back from other parts of Europe. By July 1946, there were about 200,000 Jews in Poland, compared with about 3.3 million in 1938.

The vast majority of Jews who remained in or returned to Poland after the war did not take up life in the places they had been born. The borders of the country had shifted enormously, with the Soviets taking large swaths of what had been eastern Poland and Poland being compensated with formerly German lands in the west. Jews, along with other displaced Poles, were encouraged to take up residency in these newly acquired places in the west of the country, replacing Germans who were expelled.

“It is almost impossible to understand the tragedy of the people the moment when they are freed,” said Kijek. “We need to understand that the end of the war and so-called freedom actually was a time of psychological collapse for most of these people.… These people, when they come back to the places [of their origin], they see their whole communities destroyed and it’s the first time they are sure that most of their friends and family were killed.”

Significant American and other Western funds flowed into the Jewish communities of the country, intended to rebuild Jewish society there. Hebrew schools, synagogues and other institutions were constructed and supported by the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and other international Jewish welfare and aid agencies.

The postwar period saw continuous upheaval in Poland, with civil war between pro- and anti-communist forces. It was not immediately clear that Poland would fall to communism, nor was it apparent at the time that, even if that did transpire, an Iron Curtain would fall across the continent. Polish Jews in the immediate aftermath of the war maintained close and supportive personal and institutional connections with family and Jewish organizations abroad. A degree of political pluralism revived before the country fell into the Soviet orbit.

Government oppression was not the only concern, though. On July 4, 1946, a pogrom in the southern Polish city of Kielce saw 42 Jews murdered and more than 40 injured. This was just the most deadly and well-known of a series of attacks against Jewish survivors after the war. The immediacy of antisemitic violence by their Polish neighbours disabused many Jews of the hope that they could rebuild a life in the country of their birth.

An exodus followed, but Kijek noted that, while contemporary observers might have seen abandoning Poland as an obvious choice, for people then, there were many considerations. They may not have had any money to facilitate relocation. At middle age or later, it might be natural to resist relocating to a place where one’s language is not spoken and one’s work experience is not transferable. And the prewar barriers that left European Jews to their fate remained largely in place: Western countries still did not open their borders to refugees.

Events unfolded quickly as the communists gained the upper hand in the country, the Cold War arose and the state of Israel was founded, providing at least a place where fleeing Polish Jews could find a welcome.

About 100,000 Jews were still in Poland in 1948, when an estimated 30,000 made aliyah. There was a tremendous amount of judgment, even suggestions of sedition, toward Jews who remained in Poland when Israel existed as an alternative, said Kijek.

“For Zionist leaders, any decision to stay in Poland was an act of a kind of national treason or an act of not understanding the lessons of the Holocaust,” he said, adding that those who remained were not all driven by ideological commitment to communism. The remaining Polish Jews represented a cross-section of Jewish society, including Orthodox, socialist and Zionist individuals. Eventually, even Zionist organizations accepted that not all Jews would make aliyah.

About one-third of Polish Jews who survived the war remained in Poland by 1950, but the emergence of the Cold War isolated them from Jews worldwide.

“All these ties are suddenly cut off in the end of 1948 and 1949,” said Kijek. The burgeoning of Hebrew schools and Jewish cultural organizations was stanched by a communist crackdown on “Zionist” institutions. The state nationalized much of the Jewish community’s remaining assets.

A liberalization occurred after the Stalin era and a number of Jews were able to flee Poland in the late 1950s. Those Jews who remained in Poland into the 1960s were, to a large extent, living a non-Jewish life and may have believed that their identity was no longer a barrier to whatever success they could attain in the country. However, following the 1967 Six Day War, in which Soviet-backed Arab countries were defeated by Israel, and 1968 student demonstrations that posed a genuine threat to the continued dominance of the communist regime, the scapegoat of “Zionism” emerged again, with Jews being accused of disloyalty to Poland, some being forced from their jobs, and the final mass exodus of Polish Jews occurred.

When the communist regime fell, in 1989, there were an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 Jews in Poland, the last remaining of a millennia-old civilization.

מספר הישראלים המעוניינים לעזוב למדינה אחרת אלה הולך וגדל

כצפוי מספר הישראלים המעוניינים לעזוב למדינה אחרת לאור המשבר הקשה הפוקד את המדינה בימים אלה הולך וגדל. זאת בעיקר לאור הרפורמה במערכת המשפטית אותה מציעה ממשלת הימין בראשות ראש הממשלה, בנימין נתניהו. קנדה משמשת באופן קבוע אחד היעדים הבולטים בעולם להגירה כולל לאלה שרוצים להגיע מישראל. בקנדה יש כיום את הריכוז השלישי-רביעי בעולם של יהודים הגרים מחוץ לישראל וגם נקודה זו חשובה לישראלים

הנה מספר תגובות בנושא שמתפרסמות בימים אלה בפורומים השונים של ישראלים בקנדה של פייסבוק – בנושא המעבר מישראל אל קנדה

אלינור כהן כותבת: יש עלייה של מאה אחוז במספר הבקשות שאני מנהלת ואני מוצפת בשאלות ממשפחות שחושבות לעבור לגור בקנדה מהסיבות הכי עצובות שיש

לגבי נושא המחאה נגד תוכנית הרפורמה במערכת המשפט כותבת דפנה קדם: בטורונטו וונקובר אנו מוחים זה שבוע שלישי למען שמירת הדמוקרטיה בישראל. היא מציעה למעוניינים להצטרף לקבוצות המחאה בטורונטו, ונקובר או גם בערים אחרות בקנדה

אסנת קמחי חושבת לעבור עם המשפחה לקנדה. היא שואלת: אנו חושבים לעבור לקנדה. נשמח לקבל עצות, טיפים והמלצות

דניאלה בואנו גם היא מעוניינת לעבור לקנדה. היא כותבת בפורום: מחפשת לעשות רילוקיישן לקנדה עם בעלי והילד בן השנה. יש לי ניסיון של שלוש שנים בצילומי רנטגן של שיניים. אשמח באם תוכלו לעזור לי בנושא

ליאת מרסו מחפשת עזרה דחופה בנוגע להגירה לקנדה ושואלת איך מתחילים ובמי היא יכולה להיעזר

עידן סטולרוב מחפשת עורך דין מומחה להגירה לקנדה

נטלי קיינן מחפשת להכיר ישראלים שגרים באדמונטון שבמחוז אלברטה כיוון שהיא מעוניינת להגר לשם

ג’ניפר סיל כותבת כי אחיה בן העשרים ושתיים הוא שחקן כדורגל (חופשי) שמעוניין לעבור לקנדה. היא שואלת האם מישהו מכיר סוכן מקומי או מישהו אחר שיכול לעזור לו

אלמוני המציין כי משפחתו מתכננת להגר לקנדה בקיץ הקרוב. הוא שואל האם ניתן לפתוח חשבון בנק בקנדה און-ליין מישראל, כדי להעביר כספים לקראת ההגעה

אלדד בלייש שמעוניין לעבור לקנדה הוא טכנאי רנטגן. הוא שואל האם בקנדה מקבלים תעודות רשמיות מישראל ומה התהליך לאישורן

מאיה טאוב מעוניינת לעבור לקנדה והיא שואלת מה האתגר המרכזי של זוגיות ברילוקיישן

אלמונית כותבת כי היא גרה כיום בישראל. היא מעוניינת לחדש את האזרחות הקנדית שלה ולהשיג אזרחות קנדית לבעלה ולילדים. היא שואלת כיצד עושים זאת בצורה היעילה ביותר ומה התנאים לכך

מעיין עופרי שהיא פרמדיקית בישראל שואלת בפורום על פרמדיקים שעובדים כיום בקנדה. היא רוצה מידע מפורט בתחום התעסוקה הזה

מספר הפורומים של ישראלים בקנדה בפייסבוק הולך וגדל עם השנים. הרשימה כוללת כיום בין היתר: חמישה פורומים שונים בעלי אותו שם של ישראלים בקנדה (הכוללים 18 אלף חברים, שמונת אלפים חברים, שבעת אלפים חברים, שש מאות חברים, כחמש מאות חברים, כשלוש מאות חברים), שני פורומים בעלי אותו שם של ישראלים בטורונטו (הכוללים כעשרים ואחד אלף חברים ועשרת אלפים חברים), ישראלים החיים בקנדה (הכולל כארבעת אלפים ושש מאות חברים), ישראלים בהייטק באמריקה – מיועד לאלה שגרים בארה”ב ובקנדה (כולל כארבעת אלים חברים), סטודנטים ישראלים בקנדה (כולל אלף שלוש מאות חברים), שני פורומים בעלי או שם של ישראלים באמריקה – מיועד לאלה שגרים בארה”ב ובקנדה (כוללים עשרים אלף חברים ואלף ארבע מאות חברים) וכן קנדה למטיילים (הכולל כתשעת אלפים חברים)

Ethiopians’ long road home

Israel’s Operation Tzur Israel, bringing olim from Ethiopia to Israel, began Dec. 3. (photo by Kassaw Molla)

It’s been almost 40 years since Israel coordinated the first airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 1984. The Beta Israel people, a citizenry of more than 100,000 at the time, were facing starvation in the midst of Ethiopia’s civil war. By the end of Operation Moses, some seven weeks and 30 clandestine flights later, more than 8,000 men, women and children had been airlifted to Israel. Since that time, Israel has rescued more than 30,000 Beta Israel from northern and central Ethiopia.

The impetus for saving Ethiopia’s fractured and often-persecuted Jewish populations goes back to 1921. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the then-Ashkenazi chief rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine, made an appeal for Jews to rescue the “holy souls of the House of Israel” from “extinction and contamination” in Ethiopia. His urging would be repeated by numerous other rabbis, including a former Sephardi chief rabbi, the late Ovadia Yosef, who, five decades later, declared the population eligible for aliyah to Israel. Nonetheless, there are thousands of Ethiopian families still waiting for their turn to move to the Jewish homeland.

Descendants of Beta Israel

The Jewish enclaves of Gondar City and the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa are home to the descendants of those first refugees of the 1980s and 1990s: grandchildren and great-grandchildren, fathers, mothers and children who were born while their parents waited for Israel to fulfil its stated promise to provide a new home. Their primitive living conditions, say aid workers, are often the product of circumstance. In a 2014 interview, Rabbi Sybil Sheridan (now Romain), a co-founder of the aid organization Meketa, told me that the Beta Israel moved to Gondar City from their ancestral farmlands decades ago due to persecution, with the implicit understanding that their next home would be in Israel.

“They gave up their things, they gave up their jobs, they left thinking they would actually be on the next plane,” Sheridan said. For many, those years of waiting for the next plane have resulted in a week-to-week existence, hinged on the assurances of a future that will reunite them with their now-Israeli families.

In 2003, the Israeli government announced that 20,000 Jews would be allowed to move to Israel, but that plan was later dropped when the Ethiopian government objected to the mass emigration. In 2015, when it became evident that Jewish populations were still at risk from persecution, the Knesset declared it would rescue 9,000 Ethiopian Jews, and would complete the airlifts by 2020. Fewer than 1,000 individuals have been admitted during that time.

In October 2020, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced that 2,000 olim would be airlifted to Israel by the end of 2020. The deadline for Operation Tzur Israel (Rock of Israel) has been extended to the end of January 2021, and is gradually being fulfilled. Last month, roughly 700 olim arrived from Gondar and Addis Ababa. Another two airlifts this month have brought the total to roughly 1,500.

photo - Israel’s Operation Tzur Israel has brought approximately 1,500 Ethiopians to Israel so far — Israel’s Operation Tzur Israel has brought approximately 1,500 Ethiopians to Israel so far. *(photo by Noga Melsa/Ministry of Absorption and Immigration)*

Family members and aid groups in both countries say the 2,000-person limit is not enough. Those waiting in Israel to see their relatives say they are worried for their families’ safety with the risk of civil war and the coronavirus pandemic. Aid organizations argue that the country’s economic shutdown in March is still causing widespread unemployment. While Meketa and Struggle to Save Ethiopian Jewry (SSEJ), two aid groups that work to support the communities, have been shipping in food to the community synagogues, they warn that families are still at risk from famine.

Avi Bram, a trustee for Meketa, said conditions in Gondar are worrisome. “The community is in a very bad situation. Many, not all, but many are in a very, very poor and unsettled standard of living, especially now because of the pandemic.”

Bram said the original mandate of Meketa, which was established in 2013, was to reinforce independence for the community through training, conversational Hebrew classes and small business micro-loans. It was never designed to be a supplemental food program. But the aid is critical at this time. “It fills a humanitarian need,” he said.

SSEJ representative Jeremy Feit said the organization does what it can to support impoverished members of the Addis Ababa community. It arranges medical assistance for children under 5 and seniors, and hot meals for malnourished children and pregnant and nursing mothers.

“The end goal of the work is to limit needless suffering and deaths, while urging Israel to evaluate their claims and allow those eligible to make aliyah as soon as possible,” said Feit.

photo - Aid groups Meketa and Struggle to Save Ethiopian Jewry provide emergency food to Ethiopian Jewish communities waiting for aliyah — Aid groups Meketa and Struggle to Save Ethiopian Jewry provide emergency food to Ethiopian Jewish communities waiting for aliyah. *(photo from Meketa)*

Mengistu (no last name given), who lives in Ethiopia and has relatives in Israel from a previous aliyah, said the communities are facing increasing danger. “On one side, there’s coronavirus,” said Mengistu. On [another] side there’s the war,” coupled with endemic unemployment and famine.

According to Mengistu, the changing criteria for airlifts are only inciting more stress at home.

“[They] said they would bring 2,000 people at the end of this year,” Mengistu said. “We don’t know if they applied their decision [because] every time they decide [on a quota], they change it.

“So, who are they going to bring? Are they going to bring children? Are they going to [separate] brothers and sisters and leave [some] with their parents? Two thousand people, it’s nothing,” Mengistu said, “compared to the [actual number of] the people still in Ethiopia.”

A stalwart proponent

In May of last year, Pnina Tamano-Shata was appointed minister of absorption and immigration by the Likud-Blue and White coalition. The 38-year-old Ethiopian-born Israeli came with life experiences that made her an ideal candidate for the position. She and her family had immigrated during the 1980s rescue Operation Moses, during which an estimated 4,000 refugees died en route. She knows firsthand the conditions that today’s Ethiopian Jewish communities are forced to endure while they wait for aliyah.

She also isn’t bashful in her support for immigrant rights or services. In October, she negotiated an agreement with the Israeli nonprofit Shavei Israel to airlift approximately 700 Bnei Menashe Jews from North India. As part of the agreement, Shavei Israel would cover all transportation costs. The new immigrants will quarantine at a moshav before settling into their new homes and reuniting with their families.

photo - Israel’s Minister of Absorption and Immigration Pnina Tamano-Shata — Israel’s Minister of Absorption and Immigration Pnina Tamano-Shata is the first Ethiopian-born woman to hold a Knesset seat. *(photo from Ministry of Absorption and Immigration)*

As well, she has put forth a vision and a budget for how to finally resolve the humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia.

In August, Tamano-Shata proposed a plan that would allow, in her words, for Israel to “close the camps” in Gondar and Addis Ababa. Approximately 4,000 of 8,000 olim would be airlifted to Israel by year-end and the rest would follow by 2023. The NIS 1.3 billion ($380 million US at the time) proposal received support from all sides but was never adopted. The Netanyahu government later endorsed a limit of 2,000 by Dec. 31, with assurances of more immigrants at a later date.

Still, Tamano-Shata says she is committed to seeing the aliyah to its end. “[To] my dismay, we were unable to approve the national budget which was supposed to include the outline for the aliyah of those remaining in Ethiopia,” Tamano-Shata told the Jewish Independent in a recent email interview. “However, this does not prevent me from continuing to push for a comprehensive solution for this issue.”

To Mengistu, like many in Ethiopia’s Jewish enclaves, Tamano-Shata’s words are a hopeful sign. “Because now the help for the aliyah is Pnina,” said Mengistu. “She’s one of us. So maybe she will understand the situation and the [reason for] the protests [in Israel.] Maybe things will change.”

With Israel now set to face a fourth election in just two years, Tamano-Shata’s future as the next minister of absorption and immigration is yet to be determined, but her motivation to see the end of what is arguably Israel’s greatest humanitarian crisis remains firm. In 2016, the then-new minister was recognized by humanitarian activist Martin Luther King III for her efforts to establish better protections for Ethiopian immigrants in Israel. Last year, she toured the Addis Ababa enclave and handed out baskets of food to residents. She said she is committed to the rights of Israel’s olim, “despite the policies of lockdowns, shutting of flights and closing of the skies that exists in many countries due to COVID-19.”

At this point, all eyes are on Tamano-Shata. Few doubt that she will meet her stated commitment of 2,000 olim by Jan. 31. But can she, as well, engender better trust between Israel and those waiting for aliyah?

In a recent interview for the podcast One Jewish Family, Ambanesh Biru, former chair of the Gondar Jewish community, summarized the views of a hopeful community that knows its safety may rest in the Israeli government’s understanding of their predicament.

Don’t forget about the Ethiopian Jewish community, said Biru, “especially those [anticipating] aliyah. Because all of the Jews in Gondar and Addis Ababa came from villages expecting they would be going to Israel right away, not to live in Gondar [for the rest of their lives]. So, if anybody comes and talks about aliyah from Israel, please do your best [to follow through].”

Readers can learn more about the Gondar and Addis Ababa communities at meketa.org.uk, ssej.org and jewishagency.org/ethiopian-aliyah-explained.

Jan Lee’s articles and blog posts have been published in B’nai B’rith Magazine, Voices of Conservative and Masorti Judaism, Times of Israel, as well as a number of business, environmental and travel publications. Her blog can be found at multiculturaljew.polestarpassages.com.

Aliyah despite COVID

The breakdown of Nefesh B’Nefesh 2020 aliyah. (image from Nefesh B’Nefesh)

Despite a challenging and tumultuous 2020, 291 individuals from Canada decided to make aliyah and move to Israel with Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN) over the past year. The Canadians were among the 3,168 individuals who moved to Israel from North America in 2020 – 2,625 since the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Founded in 2002, Nefesh B’Nefesh, in partnership with Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael and Jewish National Fund-USA, has assisted in easing the aliyah process for more than 65,000 olim since its inception. With the help of its partners, NBN assisted nearly 90% of the total number of olim that arrived in 2019.

Since January of 2020, Nefesh B’Nefesh olim have most often hailed from New York, New Jersey, California, Florida, Ontario, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Texas. Altogether in the past year, 811 families chose to move their lives to Israel, along with 1,032 singles and 332 retirees. There were 61 physicians among a total of 198 medical professionals who arrived in Israel in the last year, most of whom joined the frontlines in Israel’s fight against the coronavirus. And 390 young men and women stepped off the plane with the desire to serve Israel as lone soldiers.

In addition to the olim who arrived throughout 2020, Nefesh B’Nefesh received 6,704 aliyah applications, in contrast to 3,035 in 2019 – marking a 126% increase in interest in aliyah.

image - The breakdown of Nefesh B’Nefesh 2020 aliyah — The breakdown of Nefesh B’Nefesh 2020 aliyah. *(image from Nefesh B’Nefesh)*

“From the earliest days of the Jewish state, no matter how trying or difficult the circumstances, aliyah has always continued in order to preserve what was once a distant dream for our parents and grandparents,” said Rabbi Yehoshua Fass, NBN co-founder and executive director. “As we look back at the challenges everyone faced in 2020, we are extremely proud of what we have accomplished together. We look forward to watching each oleh grow and build their new lives in Israel, and eagerly look ahead to 2021, a year with the potential to exceed all expectations in aliyah.”

“I welcome the dozens of new olim who chose to leave everything, especially during the time of a global epidemic, and fulfil their dreams of building new homes for themselves in Israel,” said Minister of Aliyah and Integration Pnina Tamano-Shata. “Many will surely remember 2020 as a challenging and complex year, but the olim who arrived [recently] from across the U.S. and are part of the last group of olim this year, are enabling it to be shaded in more encouraging and optimistic colours.

“Despite COVID-19, the Jewish nation is thriving and aliyah is continuing,” Tamano-Shata continued. “In the past year, more than 20,000 olim from 80 countries around the world made aliyah.”

“The thousands of new olim from North America and around the world, during a year of a global pandemic, lockdowns and almost complete paralysis of international air travel, emphasizes how much the longing for Zion is deeply ingrained in the hearts of the Jewish people around the world,” said Isaac Herzog, chair of the Jewish Agency.

The top 10 cities in Israel that new olim chose as their homes this year were Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Beit Shemesh, Ra’anana, Haifa, Herzliya, Netanya, Modiin and Be’er Sheva. The olim most commonly worked as educators, physicians, nurses, social workers and lawyers, as well as in the fields of marketing, sales and business. The average age of an oleh this year is 30, with the oldest being a 97-year-old and the youngest being only 35 days old.

When the pandemic began in earnest in March 2020, Nefesh B’Nefesh adapted its various programming and transitioned into holding virtual meetings, webinars and informational sessions. The online seminars have allowed the organization to reach a much wider audience and have included a wide range of subjects, from choosing communities and special webinars for medical professionals, to how to pack and ship for aliyah.

The ongoing support after aliyah provided by NBN has meant that 90% of its olim have remained in Israel, leading to tens of thousands of new Israelis who go on to make significant contributions to the country.

Jews leave Venezuela

Moises Brunstein now lives in Toronto, but he still has family in Venezuela. (photo from Moises Brunstein)

Political upheaval, economic disintegration, rising crime rates and the implosion of social services have brought Venezuela to its knees. The lucky ones see Soviet-style, hours-long supermarket lineups; the unlucky see bare shelves in a country said now to have the worst inflation rate on the planet, in some sectors upwards of 700%. The chaos, combined with rising antisemitism, has spurred a massive flight of Jews.

Caracas’ once-thriving Jewish community of nearly 30,000 has dwindled in just a decade and a half to a quarter its former size. The exodus continues in conditions exacerbated by the sudden departure of foreign investment and international corporations.

Interestingly, Venezuela was among the first countries to recognize Israel and, in 1991, supported revoking the 1975 United Nations resolution comparing Zionism to racism. Jews have lived in relative peace there for hundreds of years, until the last decade.

In May 2004, Tiféret Israel – the oldest synagogue in Caracas – was vandalized after demonstrators at a government-sanctioned protest graffitied on city walls slurs such as “Sharon is a murderer of the Palestinian people,” “Viva the armed Palestinian people” and “Free Palestine.”

In November of that year, armed and hooded state policemen broke into the Colegio Hebraica, a Jewish grade school in the city. During the three-hour sweep of the premises, under the pretext of a weapons search, the doors were locked and bolted with the children inside. Agents found nothing of interest.

Venezuela’s chief rabbi condemned the raid as community “intimidation.” The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism – based at Tel Aviv University in Israel – reported that the intrusion was “perhaps the most serious incident ever to have taken place in the history of the Jewish community.”

In December 2007, Venezuela’s secret police raided the Hebraic Social, Cultural and Sports Centre, again under the pretext of searching for weapons and drugs, of which they found none.

Coincident with the Gaza War (Operation Cast Lead, December 2008-January 2009), a number of incidents occurred, beginning with then-president Hugo Chávez expelling the Israeli ambassador.

Later, in a public broadcast, Chávez said, “From the bottom of my soul, I damn you Israel. You are a criminal and terrorist state that is openly exterminating the Palestinians,” and he accused Israel of “Nazi-like atrocities.”

At the same time, the Venezuelan foreign ministry dubbed Israel’s actions “state terrorism” and government officials were seen wearing keffiyahs and waving Palestinian flags in the streets at an anti-Israel march said to have been organized by Chávez himself.

On a Friday night in January 2009, armed men broke into Tiféret Israel and gagged and bound security guards. The thugs ransacked offices and left antisemitic slogans on the walls, including a call for the expulsion of Jews from Venezuela. Religious objects in the sanctuary were ruined, and a list of the country’s Jews was stolen.

In February 2009, Beit Shmuel Synagogue was the target of a bomb that shattered windows and damaged a nearby car.

According to the 2009 World Conference against Antisemitism, the average of 45 anti-Israel articles published a month in 2008 jumped to five a day during January 2009, and there were newspapers that accused Israel of genocide.

And the situation didn’t improve much after the Gaza War. For example, the country’s main Jewish organization, La Confederación de Asociaciones Israelitas de Venezuela (CAIV), reported more than 4,000 antisemitic incidents in 2013. And, as recently as this year, the Venezuelan United Nations ambassador, Rafael Ramirez, asked in a speech at UN headquarters in New York whether Israel was “trying to impose a ‘final solution’ on the Palestinians in the West Bank.”

Little of this is shocking to Moises Brunstein, an expat now living in Toronto.

A first-generation Venezuelan, Brunstein’s Romanian parents arrived in Venezuela by Red Cross boat in 1941, after having been prisoners in Nazi-occupied France. With no command of the language and no money, Brunstein’s father worked his way up to become president of the local hydro authority.

“We lived a very nice life,” Brunstein told the Independent. That is, until Chávez came to power. Twelve years ago, at age 29, it was time to go, Brunstein said. With only four suitcases, he came to Canada, leaving behind all of his books, furniture and currency. Some cousins remain in Venezuela, but his father’s side has left for Florida, Australia and Spain; his mother’s side for Canada.

It is his belief that the state is trying to squeeze the Jewish community out of Venezuela. “In 2010 and 2011, the main building where Jews had stores was extricated by the government,” he said. “My mother, a lawyer, saw her offices taken over.

“Everything changed when the government aligned themselves to Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. The Palestinian flag flew in the Venezuelan congress.”

Brunstein last visited Caracas in 2009 for a cousin’s wedding, and found security to be unusually high. “You don’t wear yarmulkes in public,” he warned.

There are various reasons why many Jews remain in the country, he said. The elderly aren’t necessarily mobile and have no command of a second language; those with businesses find it hard to leave.

Brunstein mails his mother basic foods, medicine and personal hygiene products, as well as a Passover care package.

Meanwhile, an expat living in New York, Freddy Steiner, runs his apparel and clothing stores in Caracas – Componix Clothing – from the United States, but his visits back home have steadily declined.

In 2000, about a year after the Chávez revolution, Steiner moved his family from Caracas to Miami.

“Pure safety, the number one issue,” he explained. “The kidnappings start[ed] to rise, the security was deteriorating. More and more people leave each year, knowing how much this is affecting the next generation.”

Caracas, he noted, consistently is ranked among the 10 most dangerous cities in the world, with medical services next to non-existent, except for the wealthy.

“The entire economy is in a coma, shut down,” he said. “Since early spring, malls and restaurants shut down at 7 p.m., there’s no electricity and no water.”

According to Rabbi Ariel Yeshurun of Sky Lake Synagogue in North Miami Beach, which has a sizeable Venezuelan membership, many of his congregants express concern about family who remain in Venezuela.

Abraham Levy Benshimol, former president of CAIV and of the Ascociación Israelita de Venezuela, said that, in addition to the difficulties experienced by all Venezuelans, those Jews who remain are facing increased challenges because of the exodus. “You still have the same number of schools, but you don’t have the same number of contributors,” he said. “So that’s a big problem.”

Chaya Perman, the wife of Rabbi Moshe Perman, director of Venezuela’s Chabad Centre, said, “The recent anti-Zionism is part of what is going on internationally.”

According to Perman, “nearly every Jewish family is affiliated in some way,” with some 90% of Jewish children attending Jewish day school; kosher meat, pizza, and bread products are still available. Given the overall circumstances, however, houses of worship are using up financial reserves to keep afloat, though they are “not yet at the point where they think they need help from wealthy Jewish communities,” she said.

For the Permans, two married children with their husbands and 15 grandchildren remain in Venezuela. They, much like the rest of the community, don’t know whether tomorrow will be better or worse. But there’s always hope.

“It’s a wait-and-see attitude,” said Perman.

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than a hundred publications around the world.