Archive
Immigration to Israel from North America increased in 2009
NEW YORK (Press Release)—The Jewish Agency for Israel announced that 3,767 new immigrants from North America will have moved to Israel in 2009, an increase of 17 percent compared with 2008, which saw 3,210 newcomers from the US and Canada.
Globally, there was also an increase of 17% in the number of new immigrants to Israel from around the world to over 16,200, excluding immigrants from Ethiopia. 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%). Countries with the largest increases in the number of new immigrants included the UK (with an increase of 34%, to 835 new immigrants), Argentina (51% to 325), Spain (52%, to 38) and Scandinavian countries (104%, to 57 new immigrants).
Aliyah from Ethiopia, whose volume is directly dependent on the number of Ethiopians Israel’s Ministry of Interior grants aliyah eligibility to, dropped this year to under 300, but is expected to rise to 2008 levels of approximately 1,500 immigrants in 2010.
“Every new immigrant strengthens the country and is a strategic asset to Israel,” Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky said at a press conference Sunday in Jerusalem announcing the immigration data. Sharansky thanked Jewish Agency partners Nefesh B’Nefesh in North America and Ami in France for their work.
In 2009, special arrangements were made to bring Jews to Israel from sensitive regions: 47 Jews were brought to Israel from Yemen, 25 from Morocco, 13 from Tunisia, 3 from Lebanon and 90 others from several additional countries.
Of the 3,767 new immigrants this year from North America, 3,324 were from the US (representing a 19% increase compared number of US immigrants in 2008) and 443 were from Canada (a 6% increase compared number of Canadian immigrants in 2008).
New immigrants from North America also took advantage of unique Jewish Agency absorption opportunities – 300 attended Kibbutz Ulpan; 90 attended Ulpan Etzion (including 20 who are at the new campus in Haifa), and 200 are enrolled through the Student Authority in degree studies in Israel. “We are proud of the attractive and innovative absorption options which we provide olim – from Hebrew ulpan to job options,” said Liran Avisar, head of the Jewish Agency’s Aliyah delegation in North America. “These difficult economic times have prompted people who were considering aliyah to decide that now is the time.”
In the last week of 2009 (and included in the annual figures), 400 new immigrants will arrive in Israel – 200 from North America on a flight arriving Wednesday (Dec. 30) in partnership with Nefesh B’Nefesh and 210 from South Africa, France and the UK on Jewish Agency-arranged flights.
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Preceding provided by the Jewish Agency for Israel
Security for Israel, By Israel
By Shoshana Bryen
[Note: at the Sunday funeral of the three men, thousands of Palestinians chanted anti-PA slogans, accusing the Palestinian Authority of "collusion" with Israel to arrest, disarm and kill Fatah military operatives. A largely unreported story is the unhappiness of Palestinians with the ruthlessness of the PA security forces in hunting down its internal enemies-Hamas, to be sure, but recalcitrant Fatah members and others as well. The United States and international "human rights" organizations have been completely and utterly silent about vicious abuses taking place inside the PA. It may be that the Palestinian public is reaching the limits of its patience with its own security force.]
On Thursday, three Palestinians murdered teacher and father of seven Rabbi Meir Chai in the West Bank. On Friday, Israeli forces surrounded the Nablus homes of the three suspects, all members of Fatah’s al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade, and demanded they surrender. Israeli intelligence had identified the men and cautioned that all three were armed. One came out holding his wife in front of him. The second refused to come out of his house, which was filled with family members. The third went to his attic and was shouting “Allah Akhbar” as the Israelis came upstairs. All three, but no others, were killed.
According to Ha’aretz, the Obama Administration, acting on complaints from the Palestinian Authority, requested that Israel “explain.” The Palestinians had asked the United States to condemn the raid as a violation of Palestinian authority in Area A, saying Israel should have asked the PA security forces to arrest the three. American officials received both the intelligence information and the details of the operation, and thus far at least, the administration has declined to offer an opinion.
Which is wise, as there are bigger issues at play here.
The Israeli government recently announced a (partial) “settlement freeze” and appears interested in a modus operandi with the Obama Administration to restart formal talks with the Fatah-led PA. Israeli citizens living east of the 1949 Armistice Line are increasingly edgy about their future in their homes. For the Palestinians, any apparent lessening of Israeli government support or protection for its own citizens has always appeared as license to attack. [After Israel withdrew unilaterally from Lebanon in 2000, Palestinian attacks on the West Bank increased throughout the spring until Fatah's Yasser Arafat opened the throttle on the full-scale terror war known as "the second intifada" in September.] And indeed, shooting and stabbing attacks against Jews on the West Bank have increased in recent weeks, culminating in the death of Rabbi Chai.
This presents a problem for the United States and for Israel.
Both have been touting the emergence of American-trained Palestinian “security forces” as a means of securing the West Bank against Hamas, and part of institution building for the Palestinians. JINSA had previously questioned the long-term loyalty of such a force, but this weekend’s operation shows the other side of the risk. It is one thing to accept that Fatah forces will hunt down Hamas forces that threaten them-it is another to expect Fatah forces to take seriously the day-to-day security of Israelis living on the West Bank. It is Fatah’s fixed position that those people have no right to be where they are and they will not be part of the future of the territories.
Israelis have seen revolving door Palestinian “justice,” and since all three suspects in the killing were products of Fatah’s own al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade, there was no reason to believe any Fatah arrest of the three would be anything other than temporary.
As a matter of day-to-day policing, Palestinian security forces have proven to be able to bring safety and security to local residents, allowing them greater freedom to improve their lives. As a matter of Hamas-hunting, the security forces will clearly work to protect themselves from Hamas, and use it as cover to eliminate other internal opposition. But as a matter of the safety of Israeli citizens living in disputed areas, security for Israelis has to come from Israel.
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Bryen is senior director of security policy of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. Her column is sponsored by Waxie Sanitary Supply in memory of Morris Wax, longtime JINSA supporter and national board member.
East Jerusalem is 12 times the original
By J. Zel Lurie
DELRAY BEACH, Florida –The statement in my last column that Israel tripled the size of East Jerusalem when it reunited the city in 1967 was a serious understatement. Actually, the Israeli geographers, who, they thought, were drawing the frontier of a state and not just its capital city, enlarged the area of East Jerusalem by almost twelve times what it had been under Jordan and the British Mandate.
Acording to figures supplied by Ir Amin, a Jewish organization devoted to the interests of Jerusalem, Jordanian East Jerusalem measured six square kilometers (6 kms2) including the walled Old City, which was one sq.km. Almost a score of Arab villages of the Jordanian West Bank totaling 70 sq. kms. were urbanized overnight and added to the holy city,
East Jerusalem became almost double the size of Jewish Jerusalem but it is voiceless in Jerusalem’s city council. West Jerusalem, which elects the Mayor and City Council, measures 38 sq. kms.
Bear this in mind when you read about settler violence in East Jerusalem.
The ongoing violence in the Sheikh Jarrah section of East Jerusalem is particularly galling. The United Nations special organization for Arab refugees built houses in Sheikh Jarrah for refugees from West Jerusalem. The land had been owned by Jews. So recently the court ordered that the land and the house built on them should be returned to Jews.
Arab families, who had been living in these UN-built homes for decades were evicted and their furniture was placed in the street.
The law is the law. But when I covered the United Nations for the Jerusalem Post there was an Armenian in the press corps who took delight in interrupting Israeli press onferences by asking loudly, “When will my mother get her home back?” The home was a mansion in albieh. Under the Law of Abandoned Property, the Armenian lady never got her house back.
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Obama’s 16 words On Mideast Conflict
President Obama delivered another great speech in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. If I didn’t have a vague knowledge of the history of Afghanistan, which has never been conquered by a foreign force, I might have been convinced that our Marines were fighting a just war and that only victory will extract them from the quagmire.
Unfortunately, victory will never happen. Like the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan and the experience of British forces which preceded it, the Afghanistan quagmire will suck American men and material until we get out as we did in Vietnam with our tail between our legs.
Obama is heading for a disaster but as Commander in Chief he seems to feel that he has no other option.
Likewise his vigorous health reform battle is ending with a whimper. Instead of Medicare for all it’s handing a bonanza to the insurance lobby with another 30 million clients paying premiums. That still leaves about 17 million Americans depending on emergency rooms for health care. It is shameful that the insurance lobby was able to prevent Congress from legislating a decent health care law.
On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Obama and the Secretary of State and their numerous Mideast experts are making slow and gradual progress. In the first year of his presidency, he has advanced the Prime Minister of Israel from the acceptance of a two-state solution to a temporary freeze on new settlement construction. That’s about as slow as the peace process can get and still maintain it’s viability.
All that the United States asked at the beginning of the new presidency was that Israel and the Palestinians implement the initial provisions of the 2003 roadmap. Namely that the Palestinians renounce violence and maintain security and Israel freeze settlements and evacuate illegal outposts. The Arabs have fulfilled their part on the West Bank But on the Israeli side, despite repeated promises by Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, most of the illegal outposts are intact and the inhabitants are continuing to harass their Arab neighbors.
But the goal of full peace and security for two states is still possible to achieve during eight-year presidency.
At his Oslo speech, Obama devoted exactly 16 wards to the Mideast conflict. He said, “We see in the Middle East, as the conflict between Arabs and Jews seems to harden.”
Critics have complained that the conflict is between Palestinians and Israelis, not Arabs and Jews. They are wrong. As Obama has discovered, the conflict is with Jews, Israeli Jews and their supporters in American Jewish organizations.
The United States has actively opposed the construction of every settlement from first one in 1968 to today. Mainstream American Jewish organizations, such as the American Jewish Committee and Hadassah, have actively supported every settlement that was legally built by various Israel governments. Fringe right wing Jewish organizations have supported the illegal settlements with large gifts of money.
The U.S. opposition to the settlements was buried in reports to the State Department by the American Embassy in T el Aviv and the American Consul in Jerusalem, while a half million Jews settled in the West Bank and East Jerusalem
The Israel lobby maintained its influence over actions by Congress. No opposition to settlements ever reached the floor of Congress. Obama and Clinton must work slowly. Senators are elected for six years. Pro-Likud congressmen, who wrongly, call themselves the pro-Israel lobby, are well entrenched.
I am heartened. however, by the success of J-Street in Congress by showing Jewish support for Administration policies. In the 18 months of its existence J-Street has won support by about a fourth of Congress.
For the 2010 Congressional election I am planning to channel all my political contributions through the JSteetPAC, PO Box 33106, Washington DC 20003. Only a change in Congress will allow a two-state peace to prevail.
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Lurie is a freelance writer based in Florida. His articles appear in the Jewish Times of Southern Florida
Israeli newspapers de-emphasizing photo journalism, survey finds
HAIFA, Israel (Press Release)– More than 86% of the news photographs in the Israeli newspapers are archive photos. This is the result of a new and original study that was carried out at the University of Haifa for its Second Photojournalism Conference, “Photojournalism: From Hard to Soft News?” which took place at the University on Monday.
“The results clearly show that the value of the news photo in Israeli media is decreasing, and that only a few of the photos tell the journalistic story as expected,” says Dr. Amir Gilat, Head of the Division of Communications and Media Relations at the University of Haifa, who carried out the study. “Most of the photos serve as visual means alongside reports, sometimes with no real connection to them. The photograph in Israeli media is no longer worth a thousand words, but much less,” Dr. Gilat explains.
The survey examined all of the photographs published in the news pages of three daily newspapers in Israel, “Yedioth Ahronoth”, “Haaretz”, and “Israel Hayom”, over the course of one month (July-August 2009). Those counted were press photos and did not include advertisements, announcements, caricatures, graphs and drawings.
The most prominent finding was that most of the photographs on the news pages were not taken at the actual scene of the event or even nearby. 90% of the shots in “Yedioth Ahronoth” and 86% of those in “Haaretz” and “Israel Hayom” were not taken the day before publication.
Additional facts that were revealed show that “Haaretz” published an average of 42 news photographs a day, while “Yedioth Ahranoth” and “Israel Hayom” published an average of 38 news photographs per day.
The survey further revealed that credit is not always given to the photographer or source of the photo. “Yedioth Ahranoth” did not give credit for 24% of the photos, while “Israel Hayom” omitted credit for 19% and “Haaretz” for 14% of the photos.
In many cases, the newspapers used ‘multipurpose’ photos, such as a forest or street, that did not illustrate the story and only provided a visual accompaniment to the item. This is most likely based on the need to cut production costs. “We would expect to see photos from the events themselves on the news pages, but this is not the case. Photos on the news pages do not represent classic photojournalism – they do not tell a story; they are frequently recycled and serve to adorn the texts, sometimes manipulating the reader into thinking that the photographs are new and present actual news,” says Dr. Gilat.
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Preceding provided by the University of Haifa
The Jews Down Under~Roundup of Australian Jewish News
Compiled by Garry Fabian
Educators Israel-bound for Holocaust studies
MELBOURNE – School and university teachers from across Australia are setting off
for Israel to take part in an intensive course designed to broaden their knowledge of the Shoah.
The members of the 20-strong delegation are participants in the inaugural Gandel Holocaust
Studies Program for Australian Educators.
Conducted by the Yad Vashem International School for Holocaust Studies in Jerusalem, the
initiative is a long-term course to educate and mentor the group, beginning with an intensive training seminar in Israel, followed by a year-long program back home.
“This is an extremely important initiative and we are delighted to be involved,” John Gandel said upon announcing the successful scholarship recipients.
“The participants will come home to intensify and broaden their study of the Holocaust in their work and to raise awareness of the Holocaust within their communities. We believe their visit to Israel and attendance at the Yad Vashem course will be a highlight of their professional careers and their life in general.”
The Gandel Charitable Trust has provided scholarships for 10 educators, with Yad Vashem sponsoring a further 10 people.
The director of the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, Dorit Novak,
said that the group of Australians would become a part of a “cadre” of educators from around the world with “the knowledge and tools for meaningful Holocaust education”.
They would also become a part of a worldwide network able to share and exchange information about Holocaust education initiatives.
“The Holocaust is a part of the shared identity of our civilisation - certainly part of our
shared identity as Jews, but also part of the shared identity of our modern civilisation,” she said.
“Educators are in the unique position to be a part of building and strengthening the shared
values that underpin our civilisation and that were undermined during the Holocaust, and can infuse it with meaning when transmitting it to their students.”
According to Novak, the Gandel Holocaust Studies Program will also enable a meaningful, long-term relationship between Australia and Yad Vashem.
“Yad Vashem has worked with Australian educators in the past, but the new Gandel program will transform periodic seminars into a comprehensive, sustainable program.
With Australia expected to mandate Holocaust education in the schools beginning in 2011, this project is perfectly timed to prepare educators to meet the challenges of meaningful, multidisciplinary Holocaust education in the new century.”
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Student web site bans anti-Israel group
SYDNEY – A popular student website has banned an anti-Israel group from using its
site after a spate of anti-Semitic postings were uncovered last week.
The comments were published under a group registered as “BoS anti-Israel League” on the
Sydney-based site, www.boredofstudies.org, which in recent years has become a well-known resource hub for students sitting their HSC exams.
Among the threads was a post about finding synagogues in Sydney and featured information on how to make a Molotov cocktail. Another thread, titled “F- Israel”, included a posting from a blogger, which read: “Kill all da f-ing Jews . f-ing hate every single one of them . I hope Iran nukes them big time.”
Deenu Rajaratnam, a spokesperson for the site, this week said he was alerted to the offensive material on December 16 and immediately moved to delete it and ban the group from its site. He has also spoken with moderators and taken steps to tighten their surveillance.
“Obviously, we don’t endorse anything of that nature,” he said. “It’s not something we think is acceptable.”
“It was a good wake-up call,” he added. “It’s the first time that it has happened. We’ve decided to be a lot more serious about action and pay more attention to it.”
Further investigation however, uncovered additional anti-Semitic comments and postings that had not yet been removed.
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies CEO Vic Alhadeff, who originally brought the material to the
publisher’s attention, applauded their quick action, but said “it is clear that vigilance is needed”.
“It was unfortunate that a respected forum, which is designed to assist students with their
studies, could be hacked into by people with a racist agenda,” he said.
He also called on other internet publishers to be more vigilant. “All publishers should exercise care to prevent such damaging material appearing on their sites and to remove it immediately if it appears.”
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Liberal leader calls on action against racist web sites
SYDNEY – New South Wales Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell has called for a review of
laws in all states to combat racial vilification on social networking and blog websites.
“We must ensure that the laws are up to date,” he told Jewish leaders gathered at the Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s annual meeting last week.
“Unless we’re conscious of the threat and adapt those laws to meet the varied ways in which
vilification can be pursued in this age, we will fail those who rely on us.”
O’Farrell’s comments came immediately after a report, released at the same conference,
indicated anti-Jewish propaganda in fringe publications and from extremist organisations remains an “ongoing concern”.
Earlier this year, O’Farrell called on Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard to take a stance
against anti-Israel messages posted on the taxpayer-funded blog Khaldoun, which is run by
academic staff at Sydney’s Macquarie University.
So far, however, no action has been taken, and the site continues to operate without any review.
O’Farrell said it was an ongoing dispute and content on such sites was “just as evil today .
as it was in 1938 in those dark days in Europe”.
O’Farrell appeared at the conference as a last-minute replacement for former federal
Liberal head Malcolm Turnbull, who was forced to remain in Canberra longer than expected.
The embattled leader was ultimately ousted by Tony Abbott in a party room ballot.
O’Farrell reassured the audience that Australian Jewry and its interests wouldn’t suffer under a new leader.
“The Jewish community doesn’t lose because [the leaders of the] Liberal Party are strong friends of Israel and supporters of the Jewish community,” he said.
In that same spirit, he reaffirmed his own support for the State of Israel.
“Until we see those who oppose the legitimacy of the State of Israel and understand the only
solution is a two-state solution, there is frankly no great optimism that can be held as to
what’s happening in the Middle East,” he added.
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Reviewing a Yiddish Holocaust story
MELBOURNE – Documentary The Sleeping Book, about the translation of a book first
published by a Holocaust survivor in 1948, was shown on ABC-TV’s Compass on Sunday.
It tells of Melbourne ophthalmologist Henry Lew’s mission to revive a story written by Rafael Rajzner that meticulously described Bialystok, its 60,000 Jewish residents and their destruction by the Nazis.
The Sleeping Book follows Lew’s quest to have Rajzner’s work translated from its original
Yiddish into English - with the title The Stories our Parents Found too Painful to Tell - in no conventional manner.
Lew appealed to the international Yiddish speaking community, sending 10 pages to people in countries all over the world.
What resulted was the translation of a true story that began in Poland almost 70 years ago, quietly landed in Melbourne for 60 years before taking off around the world from New York to Canada.
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Young Soccer star aims high
CANBERRA – Six months ago, Steve Solomon was the lightning-quick skipper of
Australia’s junior Maccabiah football side, who did a bit of sprinting on the side at school.
Now, after blitzing all before him in the state and national school athletic championships, the 16-year-old has been scouted by the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS).
He will train in Canberra during his school break, before spending the year in Athletics
Australia’s under-19 talent squad in Sydney.
Having been hand-picked by the sport’s roof body, Solomon now has his eyes firmly on the track, and aims “to represent my country, hopefully at the Rio Olympics”.
The meteoric shift from soccer enthusiast to Olympic sprint aspirant comes on the back of a phenomenal athletics season.
Representing the Cranbrook School, Solomon won the long jump and broke the Combined Associated Schools’ (CAS) longstanding 200-metre record, while also setting a new best in the 400-metre event.
He began turning heads when he went to the NSW State Championships and broke the 400-metre hurdles record in his first attempt at the race, while also winning the 400-metre flat race.
He collected another booty of gold representing NSW at the Australian All Schools in Hobart, winning his pet 400-metre event in the under-17 division, while also collecting a win in the 4×400-metre relay. In just his third hurdles race, he was pipped on the line to claim silver.
Solomon will now enjoy the benefit of the AIS’ resources - an exciting proposition given that
he has hardly trained beyond his school’s seasonal athletics program and runs a personal
best of 48.32 over 400 metres, and 53.70 in the 400-metre hurdles event.
“I’m completely open-minded to it and willing to give everything a go to see how far I can take it,” Solomon enthused.
“I’ve always been running, but this year everything has fallen into place. I was quietly
confident, only because I knew I’d beaten the other competitors before, but was very surprised at the same time - particularly with the hurdles. It was only my third hurdles race.”
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So near and yet so far
MELBOURNE– The Maccabi AJAX First XI fell agonisingly short of victory with Cheltenham
clinching the win with just two wickets in hand.
A brilliant bowling performance from skipper Dave Gelbart, who snared 4-37 from his 24 overs - including a staggering 12 maidens - wasn’t enough to get the Firsts across the line in the last game before the break on December 19.
All-rounder David Fayman (2-20) was the only other multiple wicket-taker.
In a thrilling finish to the hard-fought contest in Melbourne, the Firsts needed three wickets, while Cheltenham needed 15 runs.
Gelbart got the breakthrough for his side, but it was the visitors that prevailed with a stubborn ninth-wicket stand that went on to post 42 runs.
Cheltenham resumed on 3-23, needing 135 for victory. A wicket to Gelbart and a freakish catch to David Majtlis, which rebounded off a close infielder, lifted the home side. Fayman then snared two wickets in an over to have Cheltenham reeling at 6-69.
Majtlis had another wicket just after the lunchbreak, but it wasn’t to be for the Firsts,
which could only watch as Cheltenham went on to register 169.
With 27 overs left in the day, Rowan Bricker showed class and resolve with an unbeaten 32, as the Maccabi AJAX side finished on 5-85.
The Second XI suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of Cheltenham, losing outright. Having
already conceded first-innings points on day one, after being dismissed for a paltry 75, the side followed up with an even worse performance in its second dig, posting just 66.
Darren Bloch (31) and Jason Webb (13) looked solid early, progressing the score to 2-40, but Webb’s wicket sparked a collapse from which the side never emerged.
The Seconds needed to dismiss their opposition for under 54 runs to get the points, but
Cheltenham, needed just 16 overs to record a massive win.
The Third XI secured a convincing home win against McKinnon. Resuming at 3-71 and needing just 37 more runs to win, the Thirds passed the required score and kicked on to a healthy 7-181 before declaring for a chance at an outright win. The visitors saw out the day on 4-73.
The Fourth XI crashed to an outright defeat at McKinnon. With a lead of 101, McKinnon declared at the start of the day and managed to bowl the Fourths out for 103. Adam Wiser (20) and Tim Fone (18) were the standout performers with the bat.
In its second innings, McKinnon chased down the three runs required for outright victory.
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Fabian is Australia bureau chief for San Diego Jewish World
Rabbi Sherman’s installation at Etz Rimon set for Jan 9
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CARLSBAD, California (Press Release)– Temple Etz Rimon of Carlsbad will formally install Rabbi Karen Sherman at a special Havdalah Service at 6 p.m. on Saturday, January 9 at the Temple. The festivities will commence with wine, cheese and hors d’ouevres followed by the 7 p.m. Havdalah Service and installation ceremony. Dessert and socializing will follow the services.
Temple Etz Rimon meets in rented facilities at the Pilgrim Church at the corner of Chestnut and Monroe in Carlsbad. For more information, call 760-929-9503. |
