Sunday 21 March, 2010
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THE JEWISH CHRONICLE ONLINE
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Aliyah
Grandmother is oldest UK immigrant to Israel
March 18, 2010A 90-year-old great-grandmother has become the oldest person to make aliyah from the UK, more than 30 years after completing her original application form. Phyllis Lader will leave Finchley on Sunday for a new life in an English-speaking retirement village located between Netanya and Ra'anana. Mrs Lader, who has more than 60 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, still has the application form from three decades ago. Her then change of heart was prompted by a desire to stay close to family.
Family 'heartbroken' as Israel refuses aliyah
January 28, 2010A black Jewish family from South London who have been trying to make aliyah for more than two years have had their application rejected by Israel’s Interior Ministry. Carl and Maleka Levy, who converted from Rastafarianism through the Reform movement six years ago, had planned to go out to Israel with their five daughters in August 2007. But despite testimonials from British rabbis and intervention by Israeli lawyers on their behalf, they were notified last week that they would not be allowed to emigrate under the Law of Return.
UK has biggest Israel immigration increase
December 29, 2009Aliyah from the UK has increased by 34 per cent, the largest increase in new immigrants to Israel in 2009. The Jewish Agency for Israel has announced a global increase of 17 per cent, after more than 16,200 new olim made their home in Israel. The largest number of the new immigrants was 3,767 from the US and Canada with, but 835 British citizens also made aliyah, the largest increase in emigration volume. Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky said: “Every new immigrant strengthens the country and is a strategic asset to Israel.”
Call to bar criminals from aliyah
November 12, 2009The arrests of two alleged killers who were allowed to immigrate to Israel despite previous brushes with the law have strengthened calls for a change in the Law of Return. Yaakov (Jack) Teitel, who was arrested a month ago by the Shin Bet (Security Service), is suspected of carrying out a long list of terror attacks on Palestinians, left-wing and gay-rights activists, messianic Jews and police, including two murders of Palestinians in 1997. The murders were carried out while Teitel was still an American tourist living on the Kfar Tapuach settlement.Rabbi compares Jewish Agency to rioters
October 14, 2009The rabbi in the centre of the row over gender segregation at the Western Wall has compared the Jewish Agency to the Jerusalem rioters. Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, has previously demanded more stringent gender segregation at the Western Wall, causing the Jewish Agency to halt all ceremonies for new olim at the Kotel. The head of immigration and absorption at the Jewish Agency, Paula Edelstein, refused to segregate men and women during the ceremony, and the organisation will now hold the presentation at its own headquarters in Jerusalem.
Only aliyah can save Israel
October 8, 2009Hiking through a Galilean meadow during army service in pre-intifada 1985, a childhood friend approached a severely weathered and abandoned wooden shed. Drawing closer, he was able to decipher a message sprayed on to one of its crumbling walls. “The future is ours,” averred the roughly scrawled words, whose Hebrew penmanship and spelling suggested the hand of a non-Jew; an Arab field worker, perhaps. The implication of the message was clear: the future won’t be “owned” by those who possess the present — namely Jews.Sharansky to head Jewish agency
June 26, 2009The former Soviet Prisoner of Zion, Natan Sharansky, has been elected chairman of the Jewish Agency. The vote, on Thursday evening, was unanimous despite initial concerns by American delegates. Mr Sharansky, born in 1948 in the Ukraine, became the symbol of the movement to free Soviet Jewry, spending years in Soviet prison in isolation and forced labour. In 1986, after international pressure, he was freed and came to Israel.
Julia Neuberger tells students to shun aliyah
March 26, 2009Baroness Neuberger, the president of Liberal Judaism, has told British gap-year students in Israel to return home to be community leaders rather than settle in Israel. She made the point this week during a keynote address at the five-day convention of the World Union of Progressive Judaism in Jerusalem. Speaking on her return to the UK, Baroness Neuberger said she had wanted to emphasise that if Zionist youth groups encouraged all its gap-year graduates to go to Israel, then “what hopes for leadership for us?”Aliyah lowest since 1988
December 30, 2008Last year was the worst in two decades for immigration to Israel, new figures have revealed. Only 16,500 Jews arrived in the country, 16 per cent less than in 2007. However, aliyah from Britain was slightly up, with 680 new immigrants in 2008. The aliyah figures, the lowest since 1988, can be attributed to the Israeli government’s decision to cap the immigration of Ethiopian Falashmuras, whose Jewish ancestry is contested.![Sasson__149.[1].jpg](http://www.thejc.com/files/imagecache/body_taxonomy/Sasson__149.%5B1%5D.jpg "Sasson__149.[1].jpg")
Family blasts ‘racist’ Israel over aliyah wait
November 27, 2008A black family from South London who converted to Judaism spoke this week of their exasperation at being kept waiting more than a year to go on aliyah. Carl and Maleka Levy and their five daughters had hoped to move to Ashkelon in August 2007, but Israel's Ministry of Interior has so far failed to approve their application. Since their situation was first reported in the JC last November, the family had refrained from further comment, but now they have broken their silence.
Poll shows Israelis have conflicted views on immigrants
January 28, 2010A new poll shows that Israelis hold deeply conflicted views on immigration, considering new immigrants vital for the state, but also worrying they make Israel crime-ridden and boozy. Some 73 per cent of Israeli Jews deem immigration important for Israel, the Geocartography Knowledge Group, a research company, found in a survey commissioned by the Immigration and Absorption Ministry.
Israel reopens Ethiopian immigration
January 19, 2010Eighty-one immigrants from the Falash Mura community have touched down in Israel, the first to make aliyah since a controversial Israeli decision to ban further Ethopian immigration. This is the first flight of the Falash Mura since the Israeli government decided to end Ethiopian immigration in August 2008, with another 63 due to arrive tomorrow. The ruling was reversed in December 2009 after the Jewish Agency for Israel threw its support for bringing the Ethiopian immigrants to Israel.
Ethiopian aliyah may restart
December 3, 2009The lobby calling for the renewed emigration of the Falashmura to Israel scored a significant victory this week after the Jewish Agency confirmed that it would support bringing more than 8,000 members of the Ethiopian community to Israel. The Jewish Agency chairman Nathan Sharansky will ask the Israeli government to renew its efforts to bring over the members of the Falashmura currently living in a compound in the Ethiopian city of Gondar. This is a reversal of the agency’s previous policy and of the government’s decision that all Falashmura emigration was to end in 2008.Murder raises questions over Israeli immigration
November 5, 2009It took the police only six days to crack Israel’s most vicious murder, but despite the arrest of the alleged killer and his detailed confession, the case has raised serious questions about the country’s immigration policy.Jewish Agency stops Western Wall ceremonies
October 13, 2009New Israeli citizens will no longer have their immigration ceremony held at the Western Wall after a row erupted over gender segration at the Kotel. Instead of a ceremony at the Wall, in which new olim are presented with their Israeli passports and identity cards, the Jewish Agency will hold the event at the Jewish Agency Courtyard. Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, has previously demanded more stringent gender segregation at the Western Wall, causing a rift between him and the head of immigration and absorption at the Jewish Agency, Paula Edelstein.
Aliyah-bid couple to get help from shul
August 6, 2009A South London synagogue has rallied to the support of a family of black converts who have waited two years for approval to make aliyah. Carl and Maleka Levy were recently told by Israel’s Ministry of Interior that they must fly out to Israel to attend an official hearing to prove their Jewish credentials. Now Bromley Synagogue, which the Levys and their five daughters attend, has agreed to underwrite the cost of the couple’s trip to Israel in order to state their case.Aliyah interest rises as British recession bites
March 26, 2009A combination of the credit crunch and rising antisemitism is encouraging more British Jews to consider buying homes in Israel, according to exhibitors and visitors at an Israel property fair in London. Among the 200 browsers at the Marriott Hotel Swiss Cottage was retired engineer David Marks, 65, who observed: “This country has declined significantly over the last few years. Though I own my own house, I will be unable to afford to pay the council tax on my property once my wife stops working.Legal help for aliyah family
February 5, 2009The Israeli High Court has been asked to intervene on behalf of a black family from south London who have been waiting to go on aliyah for more than 18 months. Israel’s Ministry of Interior has so far offered no explanation for delaying the emigration of Carl and Maleka Levy, and their five daughters. The family, who converted under Reform auspices in the UK, had hoped to begin a new life in Ashkelon in August 2007. Now the Israel Religious Action Centre has filed a petition on behalf of the Levys to the courts.Lead role in Israel for UK-trained guide dog
December 23, 2008A golden labrador trained in the UK for the Israel Guide Dogs for the Blind Centre has “made aliyah”. Minty was put on to an El Al plane at Heathrow by Gill Stoller, the Pinner Israel Action Group member who has taught and cared for her for the past year. In Israel, she was handed over to her new handlers by fellow Pinner Synagogue member Hilary West, who had volunteered to oversee Minty’s transfer while on a trip to visit her daughter.Nefesh’s 15,000th oleh
July 17, 2008Aliyah organisation Nefesh b’Nefesh brought its 15,000th new immigrant to Israel last week in an event broadcast for the first time as a live webcast. Two-hundred olim from the United States and 30 from Britain were welcomed at Ben-Gurion airport.
