PURELY COMMENTARY

The Serious Problem Created For Aliyah

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor Emeritus

M

ajor in obligations toward
fulfillment of the Zionist
pledge to Israel is Aliyah —
pioneering into the Jewish homeland as
settlers. Aliyah has suffered immense-
ly in recent times. Even the hope for a
very large migration of Jews from
Russia into Israel has faded. The latest
figures are exemplary.
The National Council on Soviet
Jewry announces that Jewish
emigrants from Russia numbered 4,240
in March. The new emigrants leaving
the USSR with Israeli visas continue to
prefer settlement in the United States.
In March, 10.9 percent went to Israel.
In Februray, 12.7 percent. In January,
it was 7.3 percent.
The diversions from the Israel com-
mitments in the visa applications have
created a crimp in the aliyah program.
It is saddening for Israel and mocking
of the Law of Return which remains the
basic Zionist principle and the
"Welcome to Eretz Israel" invitation to
Jews everywhere.
It is an altogether declining status
in aliyah tasks that is most deplorable.
There were years when the aliyah from
the United States was by far superior
to the present. This, too, has to be taken
into account.
In search for a change for renewed
commitments to the aliyah needs in
behalf and in support and defense of
Israel there is surely the need for a
renewal of Zionist dynamism.
The experiences of the past cannot
be erased from memory. In the most dif-
ficult years of ugly anti-Semitism there
were often heard the abuses leveled at
Jewish victims with the cries of "Jew,
go back to your Palestina." If patience
is a difficulty in life, even the vilest anti-
Semitism did not force Jews into self-
emancipation in the Land of Israel. The
Nazi brutalities resulted in a mass
migration which was in itself compell-
ing. Jews who were victims of the

Holocaust had only one welcoming
homeland — the Land of Israel. Is there
a renewed lesson for aliyah in the facts
of life?
When American Jews demanded
the right to exit from Russia for fellow
Jews, the Russian antagonism was ex-
pressed in challenges from the Kremlin
anti-Semites: "Why don't you American
Jews migrate to Israel, if it is that
important?"
Let's consider realisms as the basis
for aliyah especially in the experience
of the post-Nazi era when closed doors
everywhere assured search for entrance
into the Promised Land which had a
welcome sign. That was the resort to
redemption, to prophecy, to history and
to Zionism. A temporary halt in
persecutions continues the pledge of
freedom in the basic ideal that provides
help where it is vitally needed. Several
other countries with restraints on
freedoms for Jews point to the endless
need for home. The American Jew can
share in it as an instrument toward
eliminating hatreds in the land whose
ideal was and remains the end of
homelessness.
Can this aliyah ideal be restated
and adhered to loyally and with digni-
ty? Militant Zionism needs to be reborn
and reactivated. When the Zionist
Organization of America, through its
Detroit District, induces several score
youths to go to Israel on study missions,
it is a meritorious scholarship aliyah.
The Jewish communities of America
mark a return by resuming tourism to
Israel. When travellers begin to realize
and admit that the intifada has in no
way reduced security anywhere in the
State of Israel except in the embattled
areas now awaiting necessary negotia-
tions for accepted peace, there will be
a resumption of faith in the Isrel whose
aliyah appeals are honorable.
That is the urgent need for a revived
militancy in Zionism.

What about aliyah to Israel from
the United States? The Wall Street
Journal on April 17 published an arti-

cle by Pinhas Landau under the title
"Glowing Rhetoric vs. Grim Realities in
Israel's Economy." It treated with mark-
ed seriousness many of the faults caus-
ing shocking problems for Israel. While
this theme itself demands serious con-
sideration, there was one concluding
point in it that merits special attention
devoted to pioneering from the United
States. It is a kind of indictment and
relates also to the Russian immigrants.
The article concludes with this
challenging revelation:
The Russian Jews are fulfill-
ing the Leninist dictum of voting
with their feet, by pointing
themselves firmly in the direc-

The Russian Jews and
the Israelis are voting
with their feet. The
Western Jews are voting
with their backsides. The
numbers making aliyah
are statistically
insignificant.

tion of the U.S. rather than
Israel.
Recently, there has been talk
that a great wave of Russian
emigration is at hand, and that
many of the emigrants will come
to Israel. But this ignores the
essential point: The Israeli
economic structure cannot ab-
sorb a large number of highly
educated Russian Jews because
it operates on the premise that
the government should tell the
people how to make a living.
For some reason, which the
Israeli establishment cannot
fathom, that approach doesn't
attract Russian Jews.
Israelis are also voting with
their feet, especially the young
and well-educated ones.
Graduates in disciplines from
medicine to accountancy are

discovering that the economy at
home is not able to absorb them,
but that there is a strong
overseas demand for their skills
and drive.
Western Jews are voting
with their backsides — by stay-
ing put. The number of U.S. im-
migrants to Israel per year re-
mains statistically insignificant
in terms of the size of the
American Jewish community.
Ironically, many people who
made it in the Reagan boom
years would like to move to
Israel, but the hostile business
environment thwarts them,
while the lack of a mortgage
market prevents all but the best-
heeled younger people from
buying a home.
The way to solve these pro-
blems is clear. Israeli Jews must
be allowed to emulate their co-
religionists throughout the
Western world, and let their
talent and drive generate
wealth. There are too many ex-
patriate Israelis who have suc-
ceeded too well for there to be
any doubt that it is the system,
not the people, that is at fault.
That is just as well, because
the system can be changed. But
that won't happen until Israelis
get beyond the stage of talking
big and start dealing with con-
ditions as they really are.
Such are the defining challenges to
Jews everywhere on the score of the
compulsive duty to encourage and
suport aliyah. The duty to Israel is
primary. And to Jews in many lands to
settle in the Jewish homeland is a ma-
jor responsibility.
There is need for adherence to these
ideals. They need emphasis rooted in
full appreciation of the issues involved.
A program reflecting world Jewry, with
special emphasis on American Jews, is
involved here. Its fulfillment is truly a
revival of militant Zionism.

❑

An O'Brien Admonishes The Panicking Tourist

I

t took a realistically observant
Christian to teach the panicked
who interrupted tourism to Israel
about the safety experienced on a visit
to Israel.

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Vol. XCV No. 11

May 12, 1989

It fell to the lot of an O'Brien to
rebuke a great newspaper for con-
tributing to such fright.
In it's April 30 issue, the Chicago
Tribune published this letter, signed
James G. O'Brien, Mundelein, Ill,
headlined " 'Shalom' In Israel":
A recent picture in the
Tribune showed Israeli soldiers
confronting Arabs. To one just
returned from a month in Israel,
the picture illustrated the lack
of balance in news coverage of
that country. The real story, the
remarkable tranquility of Israel,
goes unmentioned.
In its cities, relaxed crowds
throng sidewalk cafes until a
late hour. Crime is unknown. In
the countryside, the roadsides
are bright with daisies and pop-
pies. There is a pervasive sense
of peace.

The metal watchtowers of
frontier kibbutzes are empty ex-
cept for roosting birds. At an
Israeli army post near the
Syrian border, the only sentry
was sleepily reading a
magazine.
The abence of tension was
apparent even on the West
Bank, at a settlement five
kilometers inside the Green
Line. A weekend there in an Or-
thodox community, whose
members abstain from use of
cars, TV and radios, during the
Sabbath, was spent in a
quietude long vanished from
America.
May the Tribune enhance its
history of excellent Mid-Eastern
coverage with an up-to-date ac-
count of the real, and rather
laid-back, Israel, where

"Shalom" is a way of life as well
as a greeting.
James G. Obrien
Let this be a lesson for all, especial-
ly Jews who must make Israel the com-
pelling historic aim for pilgrimage.
Anything contrary to it must be treated
as shameful. ❑

International
Hypocrisy
Indicted

A

lluding to the latest 129 to 2
U.N. vote condemning Israel for
violation of human rights, and
describing it as "what is by now its
biannual ritual," the New Republic
editorially described it as continuing
hypocrisy. The editorial drew upon ig-

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