Chosen People to the Chosen Land
Aloh Na'aleh in conjunction with the Israel Center

Editor: Batsheva Pomerantz • CPCL #8 • Shabbat Parshat Sh’mot; contact: aloh-naaleh@aaci.org.il 

This “from time to time” feature is geared towards encouraging Aliya... AND encouraging veteran & new Olim to become more involved in encouraging and easing the Aliya of others.

Aloh Na'aleh Melave Malka for Yeshiva Students - The spark of commitment to Eretz Yisrael was rekindled on the second night of Chanukah, when over 700 yeshiva students from English-speaking countries who learn in Israel for a year or two, gathered for a Melave Malka at Jerusalem's Renaissance Hotel.

Coming in busloads from 10 yeshivas, the students were inspired by Rabbi Sholom Gold, Rabbi Zev Leff and Rabbi Yerachmiel Roness. They emphasized having the right attitude towards living in Israel and how students should prepare themselves for eventual aliya. Recent oleh David Zeevi, a former Mevassaret student, described his path to aliya. The students enjoyed the music of Naftali Abramson and his band, and refreshments donated by Keren Ruth Bat Sara - courtesy of Rabbi Aharon Bina of Yeshivat HaKotel.

Aloh Na'aleh thanks all those involved in organizing and implementing the evening. A similar event is being planned for young women learning in Israel.

Eretz Yisrael in Our Sources - The people of Israel and the Land require each other for each to be able to achieve perfection on its level. For the Holy Land needs the people of Israel, just as the people of Israel need the Holy Land. – Be'er Mayim Chaim (Rabbi Chaim of Tchernowitz)
Assisting the Oleh - The issue of at-risk children is a frontline concern for the religious public. Many olim do not understand what is happening when their kids have problems with the culture, society and school. 

The Kav Baruch crisis hotline was founded in 1999 by Rabbi Moshe Speiser in response to these needs. The Kav Baruch hotline is the only one in Israel that works specifically with the religious English-speaking public. It provides guidance and support in the area of education, and confidential advice for at-risk youth and their families. Conversations on the hotline are anonymous and confidential unless the caller seeks a meeting and wishes to identify himself. Kav Baruch receives calls from throughout Israel.
The Kav Baruch telephone counselor gives practical strategies and techniques to bridge the communication gap between parents and teens. Follow-up meetings are available upon request. Referrals are provided to appropriate schools, job opportunities, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, or drug rehabilitation experts for problems of greater magnitude. There is no charge for any of these services.

Rabbi Speiser, originally from New York, has been living in Israel for over 20 years. After teaching a group of olim boys on Shabbat afternoons, he was stunned to see the array of problems they were struggling with. He took psychology and counseling courses and started working part-time with English-speaking high-risk teenagers in Jerusalem neighborhoods. Hotline hours: 9:30-11:30am and 9:00 to 11:00pm. tel: (02) 586-9279 • fax: (02) 586-9564 - email: kavbaruch@barak-online.net

Aliya Pen Pals Potential olim have contacted this list for advice. Please continue sending your names, professions and email addresses to David Magence at magence@netvision.net.il if you are willing to correspond with potential olim, providing whatever assistance possible. Potential olim can email magence@netvision.net.il for names and addresses.

Historical Perspective by Carl Alpert - (Reprinted from the AACI e-newsletter with the permission of Mr. Alpert)
In 1920, Max Nordau, pioneer Zionist leader, issued a clarion call to the millions of Jews in Europe to pack their bags and move to Palestine. The Balfour Declaration, three years earlier, had suddenly transformed the dream of a restored Jewish homeland into a political reality. "The moment England gets the Mandate over the country," he said, "we must have as many Jews in the land as there are Arabs." He had in mind not only the rescue of the masses of the Jews in Russia, Poland and elsewhere in Europe but also the creation of facts on the ground in the Middle East which would assure the viability of the Jewish state-to-be.

Nordau's call was not just ignored. It was considered as against official Zionist policy which favored a slow, more gradual program, known as "dunam by dunam".

Today, from historical perspective, we look back upon what might have been. Quite aside from the rescue of millions of Jewish lives in the decades that followed, we would have had a Jewish Palestine which was overwhelmingly Jewish. And let us not forget that in those days there was no talk of partition. Palestine was a huge territory, on both sides of the Jordan River. There were few Arab inhabitants and there was no Palestine Arab national movement. It was for lack of Jewish population that the country underwent one partition after another, gradually shrinking in the area assigned to the Jews.

How different the history of Israel would have been if the six million, or even less, had swarmed into the country, occupied the land, tilled the soil, developed industries and anticipated the creation of Israel by almost half a century. The possibilities are mind-boggling, but fate, and lack of Jewish will, decreed otherwise.

These thoughts are induced by a meeting held in June 2002 at the home of the President of the State, Moshe Katsav. The President played host to the AACI on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary, and took note of the contributions which the North Americans have made to Israel in various fields, despite the fact that they number only about 100,000 here.
Just imagine, he suggested, what an impact it would have on Israel, and on Israel's political, economic and social life if a million Jews were to come here from the U.S. and Canada, and play a role in the life of the country. President Katsav went further: "I just think that the Arabs would relate to us differently if we had a million immigrants from the West; they would be more willing to sign a peace agreement. Mass immigration from the U.S. and Canada could result in a major turnaround."

None of his listeners were under any illusion that these hopes and wishes were apt to be fulfilled in the near future, but certainly not for lack of a welcoming hand here. For 50 years the AACI has provided practical, physical and psychological services for the immigrants from "the old country". The problems of adjustment to a new way of life are many, and thousands of Americans (now veteran Israelis) can look back upon the helping hand which the AACI provided when needed.

Again the historical perspective. This time we leap 50 years into the future, when someone will write words like these and record that if a million American Jews had indeed decided to come here as Israel turned into the 21st century, the course of history would have been changed. The Max Nordau story repeated.

The AACI, composed of Americans who did answer the inner call, and have found personal and spiritual fulfillment here, still extend the hand of welcome to all who want to join them and play a role, even if only by their presence, in the making of history.

Here to Stay - Inspiring stories of olim from different periods of aliya are welcome. The essay should be up to 450 words long and emphasize one of the following: motives for aliya, contributions to Israel, how Israel contributed to the oleh, the main challenge in aliya and overcoming it. Please avoid publicizing businesses. Send the essay to: aloh-naaleh@aaci.org.il.
Jay Shapiro of Karnei Shomron has spoken to students on over 100 North American campuses on behalf of the WZO. He manages a consulting firm and has written several books. "From Both Sides Now" relates to his aliya experience. Jay hosts a weekly radio program on Arutz 7, in which he discusses current events and world Jewry.

I came on aliya with my family in 1969 in order to answer several questions that my wife and I asked ourselves in 1967.

We had two children, a nice home in Philadelphia, and I had a good job at the General Electric Space Division in Valley Forge. I had studied at Yeshiva Torah Vodaath in Brooklyn and held an advanced degree in physics from the University of Pennsylvania. My wife was a Beth Jacob graduate. We were active in synagogue and Jewish day school affairs. 
In May 1967, two events occurred almost simultaneously. I was promoted to a managerial position and accepted to a special General Electric program that trained promising persons for positions in higher management. It could almost be described as the quintessential path to success for a nice Jewish boy in America. At the same time, President Nasser of Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, a casus belli.

Six weeks elapsed before the outbreak of war, a time of anguished suspense for Jews all over the world. We were treated to a diet of Arab sabre-rattling which was received with indifference by the democratic western world. It was feared that Israel would be destroyed and its population massa- cred. The tension was so high that a meeting was held in a local synagogue concerned with organizing the exodus of children from Israel to save them from the coming holocaust - similar to the kindertransporten to save Jewish children from Europe before World War II. There was tangible fear that a second holocaust would occur in our lifetime. 
Among American Jewry, there were heightened feelings of solidarity with our brethren in Israel mixed with a sense of total helplessness. We were powerless to do anything to help.

I vividly recall my thoughts at the time: a Jewish state had been established in our ancient homeland after a long and bloody exile, a historic opportunity for our generation. How could we, involved in our search for personal advancement and comfort, ever justify that we stood by while Israel was lost in a deluge of destruction? Where was our sense of obligation to ourselves, our people, our history, our posterity, our G-d? What purpose was there in our Jewish beliefs and education, if we failed to rise to the call of the G-d of history? Why were we not involved in this great and unique project of the Jewish people?

In 1969 we moved to Israel in order to provide appropriate Jewish answers to these questions. 

Karnei Shomron by David Magence, Licensed Tour Guide
Karnei Shomron was the second Jewish community to be established in Shomron (Samaria). It was established in 1977, less than two years after neighboring Kedumim, the first Jewish community to be established there after the Six Day War.

The name ("the horns of Shomron") is a Hebrew version of the Arabic name of the hill just east of the community, since the shape of the hill resembles horns. The Jordanians maintained a military position on top of the hill, taking advantage of its strategic importance.

The current population of Karnei Shomron is about 6,500. The master plan calls for growth to a population of 20,000. Karnei Shomron has five neighborhoods, two of which are mixed religious and secular. One of these is named Neve Menachem, in memory of Menachem Begin, the other is Ginot Shomron, which has a relatively high concentration of English-speaking olim. The town prides itself on the harmony between its religious and secular residents.

Among the educational institutions of Karnei Shomron are a high school yeshiva, hesder yeshiva and a midrasha (for post-national service girls). In addition, Karnei Shomron hosts a regional college which offers courses in Bible, Judaism and Eretz Yisrael studies.

[The Parshat Shmot Homepage]
[The TORAH tidbits Homepage] [How to use TORAH tidbits]
[About The OU/NCSY Israel Center] [About TORAH tidbits]