The best place for a Jew is your home in Israel

Sean Porter (left), Sean Greenberg (foreground), and Brad Goldblatt (right) fresh off the plane from Johannesburg. The 18-year-olds will live on Kibbutz Yagur in the north of Israel, before joining the IDF. Over 200 new immigrants from South Africa, the United Kingdom, and France were recently welcomed with music and fanfare at a ceremony sponsored by the Jewish Agency. It was held at the Ramada Renaissance in Jerusalem.

“Today we’re experiencing ‘Aliyah of Choice,’” said Jewish Agency Chair Natan Sharansky. “It is difficult to break the ‘Golden Curtain’ of the good life in America, England, and South Africa, but I am very glad that you—like me before you—have decided that the best place for a Jew to be is in your real home in the State of Israel.”

These new immigrants experienced “Aliyah on a Red Carpet,” a package recently launched by the Jewish Agency that includes an Aliyah Expo in the country of origin, the aliyah flight, a welcome ceremony in Jerusalem at which the new immigrants receive their Israeli ID cards, and a mini-expo at the hotel where new immigrants can sign up for a variety of services, including banks, cell phone companies, medical insurance, and more. The final step “up” the Red Carpet is a bus ride to their new homes.

Recent immigrants from South Africa David and Rachel Lipschitz with daughter, Ashira, at the welcoming ceremony in Jerusalem. Globally, aliyah has seen a 17% increase in 2009 as compared to 2008, excluding Ethiopian immigration. The largest growth in percentage of immigrants by geographic area was from Eastern Europe (27%) and from the former Soviet Union (22%), followed by North America (17%).

The Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey’s Annual Campaign provides dollars each year to the Jewish Agency for Israel to support programs such as aliyah and absorption of new immigrants, as well as hundreds of social service programs that help Israelis across the country live richer, safer and more fulfilled lives.

Annual Campaign dollars also support a local network of social service agencies that help thousands of people in need in our own community, in addition to thousands more around the world outside of Israel.

You can help build a strong Jewish community by making your contribution today to the 2010 Jewish Federation Annual Campaign.

Donate online at www.jewishsouthjersey.org or call 751-9500, ext. 214.