1. Ptah said:

Another interesting aspect of Aliyah is that it makes Israel an analogue of the United States as an "Immigrant nation": the personal qualities that made them say "yes" to moving to a new environment from an old and familiar one are those that have a high survival factor. While I am against illegal immigration, I have personal respect for those who have the gumption to transplant themselves to a new and strange environment to improve themselves. I merely want reciporical (sp?) respect returned by obeying the laws and standing in line with everyone else.

2. Isaac said:

I agree, and I think Aliyah from the United States and Canada in particular is absolutely essential for another reason-- Jews in these countries are being rapidly assmiliated and losing their Jewish identity, such that in two generations, there really won't be that many Jews left in the US, and they'll be lost to Israel (and the worldwide community) in general. It's unfortunately commonplace in the US to deride characteristics that seem too "ethnic" or that set a community apart, and instead to encourage bland homogenization, the type you see in suburbia, and this in turn leads Jewish kids (brought up in the general culture) to regard their "parents'" Judaism as quaint and backward. Furthermore, too many people sound off about the joys of intermarriage while forgetting that after an intermarriage occurs, the couple (and the kids) still have to pick a culture-- and 80-90% of the time, Judaism loses out. The birth rate for such intermarried couples (and even for Jewish-Jewish marriages) is low to begin with, and too few of the kids in general are raised as Jews.

Hollywood in particular loves to sound off about the "liberating" effect of Jewish intermarriage and to deride those hidebound Jewish traditionalists, and on TV, whenever you see a Jewish intermarriage (usually a Jewish guy with a non-Jewish wife or girlfriend), the guy is a milktoast who is drawn away from his Jewish identity and traditions, which are seen as old-fashioned and un-hip to the in-laws. The kids, of course, would not dare be raised Jewish themselves. I don't like to deride these guys' wives as "shiksas" or to rebuke them for their decisions, but at the same time, we have to be realistic about how this tendency is trashing and diminishing Jewish communities in general. I've even heard stomach-turning stories (most confirmed, unfortunately) about how the kids of such mixed marriages not only are *not* raised Jewish, but often raised in those sorts of evangelical Christian denominations which teach that Jews are fools and condemned to suffer for failing to recognize the Messiah. So not only are the kids too often lost to Judaism, they wind up despising Judaism to boot!

The Jewish people will progressively lose our demographic, economic and cultural clout unless a good number of the millions of Jews currently in the US and Canada make Aliyah, before our numbers are decimated by further assimilation. There's a precedent for this-- there used to be decent-sized Jewish communities among the Berbers and Chinese, but both basically disappeared through intermarriage and assimilation. There's even some rising anti-Semitism in the US these days, especially since we now have about 9 million Muslims in the country from conversion among blacks and heavy immigration. (Blind pro-immigrationists often stupidly fail to appreciate the fact that immigrants don't just leave their cultures at home, something that France and the Netherlands had better learn fast. The key is smaller numbers and quality, not high quantity of unemployable, hate-filled anti-Semitic louts like the North Africans now in France.) In a few years, 30% of African-Americans, and much higher in urban centers, may be Muslim-- affirmative action has totally and utterly failed to help their prospects in the inner cities-- so our own political strength will be further diluted, as is also happening in Britain, the Netherlands and France.

But the main disaster for our culture is from this lazy assimilation into the cultural mush of the "melting pot" in the United States, which in fact has never really existed-- all we have is a consumerist, materialist, mostly rootless culture into which millions of Jews are being lost over recent decades. The same goes for the Jewish communities in Britain and France, but it's in the US and Canada that the Jewish communities are disappearing most rapidly. I don't think these communities would or should migrate away altogether, and it's nice to have Jewish outposts in New York, and London, and Paris and especially the resurgence in Berlin and Hamburg. (Hey, Adolf-- you wanted Germany to be Jew-free? Well, we're back and we're stronger than ever. So ha! You lost again.) But still, I just think that the bulk of the Jewish communities currently in North America and Europe would best stay Jewish by moving to a Jewish country, i.e. to Israel. Otherwise, assimilation basically decimates us outside of our homeland.

Nefesh B' Nefesh ( www.nbn.org.il ) and a few other organizations are doing nice work getting much of the vast Jewish population of North America to Israel before this group largely disappears through assimilation, also sponsoring things like the Applebaum Fellows to bring trained physicians to Israeli soil (which is very helpful for the OR's and ER's in Tel Aviv and on the kibbutzim). Even if we just get maybe 20-30% of the North American Jews to move to Israel, this will also help to offset the demographic danger of all the Palestinians in the West Bank and Israel proper overwhelming us numerically. Aliyah from the US and Canada really is the key to Israel and the Jewish community in general.

3. Leonard said:

Although American aliyah is important it is tiny compared to the number of Israeli's who make Oleh(leave) Israel for the USA, & the West. It is vital to create an economic environment within Israel that provides well-paid jobs and acts as a stimulus to retain these Israeli's who might otherwise leave and tempt the expatriates back.Security is the key to this stability. Thats where I believe the emphasis should be.