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TWO HUNDRED FRENCH JEWS MOVE TO ISRAEL

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Eitan Goldstein | Ynet News

M

ore than 200 French Jews
arrived in Israel aboard a
special aliyah flight orga-
nized by the Jewish Agency for Israel in
partnership with the Ministry of Aliyah
and Immigrant Absorption and Keren
Hayesod-UIA on July 20.
This is the largest aliyah flight from
France this summer. Half of the new
immigrants were teenagers, children and
toddlers who will join the Israeli educa-
tion system at the end of the summer.
Also included were several three-genera-
tion families.
The majority of the immigrants will
make their homes in Netanya, Raanana,
Jerusalem and Ashdod. The flight was
planned months ago, without any con-
nection to recent events in France.
Julie Abutbul, who immigrated on the
flight with her husband and five chil-
dren, said, “We always knew we wanted
to make aliyah, we just didn’t know
when.”
She was prompted to leave France
because “we understood that our lives
there aren’t normal. The hardest part was

to see the soldiers standing around out-
side of my children’s school every day.”
Regarding integrating into Israeli soci-
ety, she said, “We understand that our
absorption process will be difficult, but
we hope and believe that here we will be
able to have a different life, that we’ll be
able to find happiness here and start a
new life for us and for our children here.”
The French Jewish community is the
largest in Europe and the third-largest in
the world numbering just under a half-
million Jews.
French Jewish immigration to Israel
has surged since 2012 when only 1,900
people immigrated from France to the
Jewish state. 2014 marked the first time
in Israel’s history that more than 1 per-
cent of a Western nation’s Jewish com-
munity made aliyah in a single year, an
achievement repeated in 2015, with the
arrival of some 7,800 immigrants from
France, the most ever.
In total, nearly 10 percent of the
French Jewish community has immi-
grated to Israel since the year 2000, half
in the past five years alone.

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ORT RUBADUB TO AID ISRAEL PROJECT

Vulnerable Jewish adults are eligible if they:

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disability
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For more information, contact the
JFS Resource Center at 248-592-2313.

ORT Michigan’s annual Rub-a-Dub
Fundraiser will be held at 5:30 p.m.
Wednesday, Aug. 17, at Franklin Hills
Country Club in Farmington Hills. This
year’s theme is “ORT Academy,” an hom-
age to ORT’s mission of transforming
lives through education.
The event starts with cocktails, hors
d’oeuvres and a silent auction, followed
by a live auction and a barbeque dinner.
In the spirit of the first Rub-a-Dub event,
guests will rub off instant lottery tickets,
with the intention that proceeds will be
donated to ORT.
This year, the Farber family has
donated a transformative gift in sup-
port of Kfar Hassidim Youth Village, an

educational community in Israel. The
Farber gift will help renovate the Auto
Tech Garage and four science labs, bring-
ing them up to today’s high technological
standards.
Proceeds from Rub-a-Dub will go
toward teacher training, curriculum
development and course materials so the
garage will be usable for teaching at the
start of the school year.
Event chairs are Jason Fisher, Josh
Fisher and Andrew Luckoff.
For ticket or ad information, contact
Nicole Miller at (248) 723-8860 or nmill-
er@ortamerica.org. Tickets are $250 per
person or buy one get one free those age
30 and younger.

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JEWS AND CHALDEANS PLAN DINNER EVENT

A potluck dinner of Jewish and Chaldean treats is planned for 6-8:30 p.m.
Thursday, Aug. 18, at St. Thomas Chaldean Catholic Church, 6900 W. Maple
Road, West Bloomfield. Sponsored by the Social Action Committee of the Jewish-
Chaldean Building Community Initiative, the event also will be a collection point
for school supplies for underprivileged students.
Guests are asked to bring an appetizer or dessert to share, plus pencils, note-
books, scissors, folders, markers, etc.
RSVP to committee co-chairs Gail Katz, gailkatz@comcast.net or (248) 978-
6664, or Rula Yono, rula@chaldeanferderation.org or (248) 872-7013.

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36 July 28 • 2016