Aliyah – Israel’s Body and Soul
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought”
“Israel Hayom”, April 13, 2012
http://bit.ly/I9Irku
Global economic, social and educational circumstances provide Israel with a window of opportunity for 500,000 Olim, during the next decade, from the former USSR, France, England, Germany, Latin America, the USA and Canada. Is Israel’s leadership up to the challenge, which requires tenacious pro-activity and defiance, rather than relative-passivity and timidity, in encouraging Aliyah (Jewish Ingathering)?!
For the first time, Israel attracts Olim due to economic – not only ideological – considerations. Against the backdrop of global economic meltdown and uncertainty, Israel’s credit rating has been upgraded and its GDP growth exceeds any Western country. Unemployment is 5.4%; the national debt is less than 75% of GDP; inflation is at 1%-3%; no mega-stimulus; banks are managed with fiscal responsibility; all time high foreign exchange reserves of $75BN; the flow of overseas investments is robust; exports are sustained at high levels despite global economic insecurity; high-tech industries are expanding; and the economy is adrenalized by the surging secular Jewish fertility rate, increased Aliyah, reduced Jewish emigration, accelerated return by expatriates and growing integration of the ultra-Orthodox community in Israel’s workforce. By 2018, Israel is expected to become a major net-exporter of natural gas and a growing producer of oil and, possibly, shale-oil.
Rising anti-Semitism in the Ukraine and in Russia, accompanied by shattered expectations of democracy in the former USSR, is producing an Aliyah-tailwind among the 750,000 Jews there (according to conservative estimates). A formal conversion of 300,000 Olim, who are yet to be recognized as Jews by Israel’s Rabbinate, will bolster that tailwind. Weak economies, intensified anti-Semitism and increasingly-assertive and growing Moslem communities in France, England and other European countries, have increased the number of Olim. Economic insecurity and dramatically-expanded, but very costly, Jewish/Zionist education systems (mostly modern-orthodox), have augmented the Aliyah potential from the USA. Jewish/Zionist education is provided, almost-free, in Israel.
Sixty four years of Arab-Israeli wars and Palestinian terrorism have not deterred the 3.6 million Olim since 1948, as they have not deterred more than 400 high tech giants, which invest substantially in Israel. Moreover, recent waves of Islamic terrorism in Europe, the USA, Asia and Africa have highlighted the relative-security in Israel.
However, the realization of the 500,000-Olim-potential requires Israel’s current leadership to significantly alter its Aliyah policy. They should emulate Israeli Prime Ministers from 1948 (Ben Gurion, Labor) to 1992 (Shamir, Likud), who considered Aliyah to be their top priority, and pro-actively generated major waves of Aliyah. They considered Aliyah the moral compass of the Jewish State and its most important growth engine. They were aware that Aliyah and migration have been thekey factors determining the Jewish-Arab demographic balancebetween the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.
Israel’s Founding Father, Prime Minister Ben Gurion proclaimed (Uniqueness and Destiny, 1954): “…Our mission is the Ingathering, which will impact our future security and the global standing of our people (p. 10)…. Our independence shall not be sustained without the Ingathering (p. 55)…. It is incumbent upon Israel to initiate [pro-actively] the Ingathering (101)…. The Ingathering is the fountain of growth of the Jewish State (p. 168)…. Israel is not designed, solely, for its inhabitants, but for the entire Jewish People (p. 193)…. A Zionist movement which disassociates itself from the Ingathering dooms itself to degeneration and destitute (p. 203)….”
Prime Minister Shamir echoed Ben Gurion’s Aliyah ideology (Conversations with Yitzhak Shamir, Haim Misgav, 1997): ”…We need to be pro-active in order to bring millions of Jews to Israel…. We are not doing enough to generate and absorb Aliyah…. Aliyah is a moral imperative…. The Land of Israel exists in order to absorb Jews…. The Jewish State would not survive without Aliya…. (pp. 132-3).”
Indeed, Israel owes its existence to the annual Aliyah since 1882 and to the 3.6 million Olim who arrived since 1948. Israel owes its current robust economy, science, technology, medicine, education and culture to the one million Olim who arrived from the former USSR during the 1990s. The influx of the one million triggered the high tech revolution, which has attracted mega-billion dollars of overseas investments. It has significantly reduced military service per capita, and has substantially bolstered Israel’s posture regionally and globally.
The 700,000 Olim of 1948-1951, the 350,000 Olim of the 1970s and the one million Olim of the 1990s would not have arrived if Israeli Prime Ministers had not defied the Super Powers and most of Israel’s establishment. They dismissed claims by leading Israeli demographers that Jews would not come to a war-plagued and an economy-deprived country; that cultural, economic, security and technological constraints preclude an Aliya wave; and that Western Jews could – but did not want to come – while Communist Bloc Jews wanted – but could not come.
500,000 Olim during the next ten years is a realistic goal – a security, economic and diplomatic game changer – which depends upon Israel’s leadership. Will it rise to the occasion?!
Happy Passover,
Yoram, “Second Thought: US-Israel Initiative” ???? ??????, “?????? ?????”
www.TheEttingerReport.com
Yamit, I listened to that sermon by Rabbi Singer but there was nothing on how anyone can get to a sinless place where the Lord is. In the Torah there are many clear assumptions that there is a life after death. To Abraham, Isaac and Jacob He individually promised them the land as well as their descendants. Those three died and never received the land which was promised to them by the Lord so they must be raised back to life someday for the Lord’s promise to them to be fulfilled. If the Lord doesn’t raise them from the dead than His promise was not true and the Lord cannot lie; He must raise them from the dead to be consistent with His Holy nature. Many times the Lord says he the Lord of the living not the dead which would seem to mean that He will raise them from the dead.
@ Alanjo55:
Here
@ Alanjo55:
First of all you make assumptions that there is some form of life after death. The Torah is silent re: life after death so any Jewish view is speculative. Judaism concerns itself with this world not on any conception of afterlife. That does not mean that belief in an afterlife does not exist in Jewish thought and beliefs but where you find it is speculation mostly from Rabbinic sources and probably influeced by other cultures and religions.
Christians are wrapped up in the culture of death and have developed a whole theology and eschatology on the subject. Judaism concerns itself with this world and how best to live in it in harmony and righteousness.
Judaism holds that the righteous of all nations have a share in the World-to-come.
According to Nicholas de Lange, Judaism offers no clear teaching about the destiny which lies in wait for the individual after death and its attitude to life after death has been expressed as follows: “For the future is inscrutable, and the accepted sources of knowledge, whether experience, or reason, or revelation, offer no clear guidance about what is to come. The only certainty is that each man must die – beyond that we can only guess.”
Jewish Beliefs on the Afterlife
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/beliefs/Theology/Afterlife_and_Messiah/Life_After_Death/Heaven_and_Hell.shtml
A rabbinic view of after life and sin (There are others):
Judaism,Unlike other world-religions, is not focused on the quest of getting into heaven but on life and how to live it.
Yamit, since the Holy Lord can’t have sin in His presence do you have any idea how a Jew [or anyone] with sin on them can go to a sinless place where the Lord is? Do you know of a sermon by any rabbi that explains that?
@ leonard white:
LOL, Hit a nerve there Mr. White? Again stay there and get as mad as you want. You chose Galut both physical and spiritual and that is that. Talk to us when you decide to settle and work with Jewish people in Eretz Israel.
@ leonard white:
You talk about our government being destructive…? Say, have you looked around your own confines don White? What do you call that? Do you actually believe that people overseas do not see or hear you people?
Swamped by illegals, (your so called government DOES NOT WANT to stop that trash).
We have some illegals running away from the islamic degenerates your leadership aligns itself with. Your place is floating with drugs, sunk in debt and unemployment, mired in racial warfare, stained by electoral fraud and those being the lesser troubled areas. Stay there and enjoy Mr. White. We can do quite well w/o your delusional posing.
We enjoy full employment, great standard of living, when needed our military will whoop ass w/o any problem.
Today we had some fun with a bunch of misfits trying to break in here.
The “flytilla” numbering about 40 morons. A while back some others, US brand I believe tried the boat stunt. Pathetic.
We do have a problem with the local brand of unJews, but that is being addressed as we need.
Turulu
@ SHmuel HaLevi:
I don’t need your admonishment about conspiring to destroy Israel, when your present government is doing a great job of doing just that. When will you come to your senses and see what is happening before you. You and your ilk of useful idiots have no clue how self destructive you have become.
@ leonard white:
By all means. If the still in the Galut Jews and former Jews, unJews, want to use the self justifying nonsense that they staying “safe” there is better for us, fine with us.
As long as they do not conspire with our enemies to destroy Eretz Israel to make their Galut lives… better. At that point they turn into enemies.
Alanjo55 Said:
The same christian nonsense, refuted over and over again.
Thanks, Yamit. Aviv Tov! 🙂
@ yamit82:
Eric’s argument is very sound. Having all Jews in Israel would make little difference in the greater scheme of things. 14 mil Jews vs 375mil Arabs is still a very lopsided ratio. The Jews of the world have survived precisely because they were well dispersed.Modern Israel has been in existence for only some 60 years and no one can predict where this nation is going. A good analagy is where would I be wealth-wise if I had every penny of my sizeable capital invested in one company-namely Lehman Brothers rather than well diversified in many corporations.
From a purely risk management prospective let us continue having the majority of Jews safely invested outside of Israel- in as many jurisdictions as possible..
Ted my comment got botted.
For Ted and all you Canadians
Canada’s Loss Israel’s Gain!!
Kathleen Reiter wins Israel’s version of “The Voice”
Montreal’s Kathleen Reiter is ready for the spotlight after big win on The Voice in Israel
Duet with Sarit Hadad
@ Alanjo55:
Easy one to refute, Here
Yamit, if you keep the old covenant there is no final remission of sins. All the sacrifices in the Torah were types and pictures of the coming Jewish Messiah. The entire tabernacle in the wilderness which the Israelites carried with them has future implications in types and pictures of the Messiah. Once the real came there was no need for types and pictures, for the Messiah provided a way to have one’s sins cleansed away not just covered which only the blood of animals could do under the old covenant.
The old covenant is everlasting, as you say, but it comes up short to completely cleanse sins. This new covenant has the ability to cleanse sins because a perfect sacrifice was made on behalf of mankind. Blood from imperfect animals could not cleanse sin, only cover it as a picture of when the perfect sacrifice was made which had the power to wash one’s sins away and make one righteous to be able to be in the Lord’s presence.
@ Alanjo55:
The term “new covenant” would be meaningless unless what Jeremiah meant by it was the renewing of the old covenant, which will thereby regain its full original vigor. The covenant of old is of eternal duration, never to be rescinded or to be superseded by a new covenant (Leviticus 26:44-45). The covenant between God and Israel is frequently referred to as everlasting (e.g., Genesis 17:7, 13, 19; Psalms 105:8, 10; 1 Chronicles 16:13-18).
The Christian position concerning Jeremiah’s covenant is the complete opposite of what the Jewish Scriptures teach. Hebrews 8:13 states: “In that he says, a new covenant, he has made the first obsolete. Now that which is being made obsolete and growing old is near to vanishing away.” In stark contrast to this statement, the Scriptures state: “The works of His hands are truth and justice; and His precepts are sure. They are established forever and ever, they are done in truth and uprightness” (Psalms 111:7-8); “The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God shall stand forever” (Isaiah 40:8).
Jeremiah’s “new covenant” is not a replacement of the existing covenant, but merely a figure of speech expressing the reinvigoration and revitalization of the existing covenant. The people of Israel possess an old covenant yet a new covenant, truly an everlasting covenant.
Covenant Renewal:
The covenant of G-d will never end.
Yamit, the Lord mentions a new covenant in Jeremiah, which is actually what the New Testament consists of. This new covenant is a personal relationship between the person and the Lord. Someday, a third of the Jews will acknowledge their Messiah and reign with Him. There are many Jews today experiencing this new covenant already.
“Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,
not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.
“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
Jeremiah 31:31-33
@ Alanjo55:
🙂 Yes and not a single ref: to a new covenant or human deity. ‘Vehi Sheamda’
@ Eric R.:
Two counters to that argument:
I know the history and most of those 10% were converts and the conditions in the land of Israel were so bad that they could not support even the
indigenous Jews at that time. The Romans had taxed most of the amcha off their lands. Even the patriarchs went down to Egypt due to an extreme famine stayed to long and were enslaved. When moses left Egypt with the hebrews only 20% left with him. Those who choose to say perished, just as did the European Jews.
You are making assumptions that diaspora Jewry will be spared. How foolish.
Our sages equated living in the Land of Israel equal to all of the commandments combined. Why do you think? The purpose of Jewish survival is not for survivals sake but to accomplish the Jewish mission and purpose we were chosen for. That purpose and mission is stated clearly in all of our scriptures and commentaries and there are few real rabbis who would disagree.
re: being nuked, Were that to happen G-d forbid, The estimates are that there would be around 10k casualties maybe double but the majority would survive. That said, Israels response could destroy the world depending on our targeting selections. The Jews in America would not escape.
Google nuclear winter: Think of tens of thousands of burning radioactive oil wells all over the world that can’t be put out. Think of the millions of tons of fine sand in the atmosphere along with thick black smoke blotting out the sun for a year or so. No food no water no industry and everything covered in ice. neighbor killing neighbor for anything that might allow them more time to live. Get the picture? In a nuclear exchange the rule is use em or lose em. Consider that from our stockpile there are enough armed and pre targeted nukes that are on automatic response with pre targeting. One I am sure is zeroed into the Aswan dam which will put most of populated Egypt under a 100 ft of water. Saudi, Iraqi Libyan and Iranian oil fields targeted probably Russia’s as well. What our land based nukes don’t target our nukes on our Submarines will.
The above is common knowledge. My point is you gain nothing by not coming and have a better chance of survival here than there. The G-d of Israel did not bring us to this point just so we would be wiped out. In the Gulf war 39 Scuds hit Israel and over 4000 structures destroyed or damaged and not a single death. One scud hit the American barracks in Saudi Arabia and over a hundred Americans killed and wounded. 39 lashes is the maximum punishment authorized in the Torah for certain offenses, those lashes could not be fatal of deface the body. Coincidence? Maybe. .
From a pure human point of view it would seem very likely that Israel will get destroyed. Thankfully this world’s outcome doesn’t depend on humans. The Lord has Israel where they are to fulfill His plan. If Israel gets annihilated expect the sun and stars to go dim. With that being impossible Israel will continue to advance and have the protection of the Lord. Their future holds many trials but in the end Israel will be the star of the world and every nation will give them respect.
“Specious argument. The purpose of being Jewish is not just survival but survival for a purpose. There is no Jewish purpose in the exile. The exile was meant to be punishment not a replacement for the land of Israel.”
Two counters to that argument:
a) Even in the time of the second Temple, more Jews lived outside Israel than in it – Jews accounted for 10% of the population of the Roman Empire, and that does not include “Oriental” Jews of what are now Iraq, Iran, Yeman, Ethiopia and other areas that were never in the empire. The idea that all Jews have to live in the Jewish state when it exists has never been, in reality, the actual case.
b) If you stick all the Jews in Israel and it is nuked, that does not leave a diaspora to try again. Judaism would simply be finished. Completely.
@ Eric R.:
‘Vehi Sheamda’ >
@ Eric R.:
Specious argument. The purpose of being Jewish is not just survival but survival for a purpose. There is no Jewish purpose in the exile. The exile was meant to be punishment not a replacement for the land of Israel.
The Jewish purpose can only be effected in the land of Israel. Jews are meant to live in their own land. If the Jews of Europe had returned in time not only would there not have been a holocaust there might not have been a war of independence and if it did happen the results would have weighed in our favor to the extent one can only imagine today. So those Jews thinking along the lines you suggest paid for their mistake and errant judgement.
This article reminds me of some words of the promise for Israel in the Bible. Not to long ago Israel wasn’t spoken of as having much. But in the past decades they have shown remarkable advancements. And soon they will be an energy exporter. These times could possibly be fulfillments to the verses below. The existence and continued advancements in Israel is as sure as the sun giving light by day and the stars giving light at night. It is the Lord Who is bringing the people back and blessing Israel economically.
‘For behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will restore the fortunes of My people Israel and Judah.’ The LORD says, ‘I will also bring them back to the land that I gave to their forefathers and they shall possess it.'”
Thus says the LORD, Who gives the sun for light by day And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; The LORD of hosts is His name:”If this fixed order departs From before Me,” declares the LORD, “Then the offspring of Israel also will cease From being a nation before Me forever.” Jer 31:35,36
Logically, Israel has no long term future. However, Judaism and Jewish history has defied logic for over three thousand years. There is room for logic but these is also an essential need for faith as well. Not blind faith but faith coupled with action as in “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition”.
Before we talk about more Aliyah, we have to talk about the unthinkable here – we also have to consider that if there is a nuclear strike against Israel, Judaism having all its eggs in one small basket will prove to be its truly final solution and provide Hitler an ultimate victory.