MERCAZ Newsletter - Spring 2005

U.S. ALIYAH AT A 20-YEAR HIGH
Aliyah* Not a 4-Letter Word in Conservative Movement

With its fourth specially chartered “Nefesh B’Nefesh” El Al flight to Israel at the end of December, the Jewish Agency welcomed nearly 3,000 American and Canadian olim in 2004. This figure represents a 20% increase over 2003 in the number of North Americans moving to Israel and makes 2004 the best year for North American aliyah in more than 20 years.

Much of the credit for the rise in the number of American and Canadian olim must go to encouragement being provided by the Israeli government and to the new aliyah support services coming from the Jewish Agency and Nefesh B’Nefesh, a private initiative started in 2002. Additionally, while Orthodox Jews continue to make up the bulk of North American olim, it is estimated that 20% of the immigrants come from Conservative Jewish backgrounds, a fact that testifies to the greater openness and support for aliyah now than in the past within the larger Conservative Movement.

As Prime Minister Sharon said this past July: “Last week I had the opportunity to welcome a group of 400 Olim from North America as they arrived to Ben-Gurion Airport . . . Aliyah is the primary goal of my government. Only through Aliyah will Israel maintain its character as a Jewish State. Only in Israel is it possible to lead a fully Jewish existence. Only here can you be sure that your children and grandchildren will remain Jews . . . [It] affects our security, it affects our political situation in the world, our economy.”

MERCAZ USA has always proclaimed aliyah as one of the pillars of Conservative Zionism, along with Zionist education, political lobbying and support for Israel travel. MERCAZ supports aliyah by hosting the Aliyah Shaliach to the Conservative Movement, by funding the activities of the Conservative Movement’s Aliyah Committee, and, since 2003, by sponsoring and organizing, together with the Israel Aliyah Center, Jewish Agency’s Aliyah Department and United Synagogue’s Project Reconnect, a series of aliyah-promotion speaking tours.

While support for Israel and Zionism has always been a hallmark of the Conservative Movement, tangible support for aliyah from North America began in 1978, with the founding by Dr. Simon Greenberg z”l and Rabbi Paul Freedman of the “Settlement Committee”, an ad hoc Movement-wide organization to support the establishment of Kibbutz Hannaton, the Conservative Movement’s first - and only - collective settlement in Israel. Later on, the Committee’s focus expanded to include other aliyah options, such as Moshav Shorashim, a Masorti-affiliated communal settlement, and Tnuat AM, a framework for individual aliyah.

Recently, under the chairmanship of Elana Gershen Finkelstein, the renamed “Aliyah Committee” has organized, with MERCAZ, an ideological conference on Zionism and Conservative Judaism and has overseen the publishing of the AMTON, the special TNUAT AM publication which is geared, as the masthead reads, “for the curious about life in Israel”. Currently, the Committee is seeking new projects and avenues to encourage aliyah. At the same time, United Synagogue and Project Reconnect have entered into a partnership with Nefesh B’Nefesh to host aliyah “ambassadors” in communities in North America.

Besides assuming the role as the Aliyah Committee’s primary funding source, MERCAZ became in 1987 the home base for the Conservative Movement’s Aliyah Shaliach. While USY, Camp Ramah and Solomon Schechter Day Schools have been enjoying for some time the services of youth and educational shlichim, the purpose of the Aliyah Shlichut is to raise publicly the banner of immigration to Israel within the Conservative Movement in North America.

Since its founding, there have been six aliyah shlichim – Moti Arad, Dani Ben-Tzvi, Beeri Zimmerman, Hezi Nir, Karni Goldshmid-Lahav and now Devora Greenberg – who divide their time between the New York office of the Israel Aliyah Centers and MERCAZ USA, working on Zionist youth leadership with college students in conjunction with KOACH, providing outreach on Israel to Conservative Movement synagogues and organizations and helping individual Conservative Jews through the aliyah process. This help includes making contact through Project Reconnect and the Masorti Movement for a warm reception in the oleh’s new Israeli community.

In addition, since 2003, MERCAZ has been working to organize a series of short-term aliyah-promotion speaking tours. These 10-day speaking programs bring former American Jews who made aliyah back to “the Old Country” to promote an agenda of strengthening the connection between the Diaspora and Israel, through tourism, short and long-term study programs and, for those open to the idea, aliyah.

To date, shlichim have been sent to Chicago, Ohio Valley and Baltimore-Washington. In 2005, two more shlichuyot – early April and November – are scheduled to take place, with the first planned for Boston.

Prime Minister Sharon’s premise about the value of aliyah is borne out by a new study that found that the recent North American immigration is a major economic asset to the Jewish State. The findings show that each adult North American oleh represents about $200,000 in value to the Israeli economy upon his or her arrival. As the report concludes, these olim are “the group with the greatest potential economic contribution in the history of aliyah.”

The North American increase is all the more remarkable because it comes at a time when the overall aliyah numbers declined last year by 13%, to just under 22,000 olim. While the general decline has been slight, the fall-off in immigration from the former Soviet Union and Argentina has been significant, though partially offset by the record number, not only of North American Jews, but also French Jews settling in Israel in 2004. More than 2,200 French Jews immigrated last year, a number higher than for any year since 1972.