Yes, you can make aliya this summer
The Jewish Agency is circumventing the
Foreign Ministry strike by having olim
enter Israel as tourists and then convert them to olim once they are here.
The Foreign Ministry ceased issuing immigration visas in late June as
part of an ongoing work dispute by the ministry’s workers’ union and the
government.
New immigrants will be flown to Israel as tourists, at the expense of the Jewish Agency, and will then be processed in Israel.
“We will do our best to bring everybody to Israel on the date they want to make aliya,” spokeswoman Hagit Halali said.
Those
whose immigration has been put on hold due to the strike can expect to
receive letters informing them of the “ad hoc solution,” she added.
This solution is so simple that one can only wonder why it took the Jewish Agency nearly three weeks to think of it. For those of you making aliya, welcome to reality. Here are some potential reasons why they didn't do it until now:
1. They were afraid you'd take the free flight and then return to your home countries. Oh wait, aren't they only buying you a one-way ticket? And aren't they demanding that you repay the ticket if you don't stay in Israel for a certain amount of time.
2. They're afraid that the Foreign Ministry employees will picket your arrival at the airport or whenever you go to the Interior Ministry or the Absorption Ministry to be registered as olim. Well, who says any of those things have to be disclosed to Foreign Ministry employees? Oh wait, this is Israel where half the government workers are on strike at any given moment and the other half are busy watching them....
This reminds me of
my own aliya 22 years ago (pre-Nefesh b'Nefesh) when the few financial benefits you got were the cost of the plane ticket (on what was then government-owned El Al) and a VERY small loan for your moving expenses (which was forgiven if you stayed long enough) from what we called Banky Dude. I went to the Jewish Agency to get my loan and they told me that I needed two guarantors. I looked at them like they came from another planet and asked them why I needed guarantors. They said, "surely you cannot expect to get a loan without guarantors!" I pulled a piece of plastic from my pocket and said "see this? It has no guarantors and ten times the credit line you're offering me."
In the end, they insisted on the guarantors. I no longer recall which of my American friends signed on it, but they never had to pay.
I'm so glad to hear that things haven't changed. Welcome home guys!
Labels: Absorption Ministry, aliya, foreign ministry strike, Jewish Agency for Israel, Minister of the Interior, Nefesh b'Nefesh
Jewish Agency co-sponsors anti-Israel event with New Israel Fund... for the last three years
Once again there are suspicious goings on at the
JCC in Manhattan in cahoots with the radical Leftists, anti-Israel New Israel Fund. But this time the Jewish Agency is a co-sponsor, and the program has been going on for three years. Here's a press release I received from my friends at JCC Watch.
July 5, 2011
For more information, contact JCCWatch.org at (917) 434-3480.
________________________________________
DENIAL FALLS APART:
THE JEWISH AGENCY (MAKOM)
PARTNERED WITH AND SPONSORED
ANTI-ISRAEL EVENT WITH NEW ISRAEL FUND
FOR PAST THREE YEARS
JCCWatch.org's founder, Richard Allen, calling "Love Hate and the Jewish State 4.0: Airing the Dirty Laundry" a "bash-Israel event," stated that it "trains the younger Jewish generation to hate the Jewish state. There is nothing at all positive being taught at these political bash-Israel sessions. In fact, the program might be better called 'Love to Hate the Jewish State 4.0.'" He went on to condemn the JCC in Manhattan, a beneficiary of the UJA-Federation of New York, for hosting yet another event put on by groups that fund and support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. "There are clearly elements within the American arm of the Jewish Agency (MAKOM) that have established links to these nefarious organizations."
"The Jewish Agency (MAKOM) and the JCC in Manhattan should not be utilized as a sponsor or a gathering place for those who work to delegitimize Israel," Allen continued.
"NGO-Monitor has proven that, for some time now, the New Israel Fund has directly funded groups that support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. J Street, the George Soros-funded group, has also partnered with efforts to further the insidious BDS movement.
"We once again call on the JCC in Manhattan's board of directors to establish firm and serious guidelines to prevent the JCC in Manhattan from becoming a hotbed of bash Israel activities. The Jewish Agency must also supervise their American arm, MAKOM, and establish better oversight to prevent sponsorships of anti-Israel activities."
For more information, contact
Hmmm.
Labels: Haviv Rettig Gur, J Street, JCC Watch, Jewish Agency for Israel, Manhattan JCC, New Israel Fund
'New Israel Fund' opposes Jewish immigration to Israel?
The New Israel Fund is backing an Israeli organization, the
Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity movement, which has called for the dissolution or fundamental change of the Jewish Agency for Israel, the Jewish National Fund and the Israel Lands Administration.
“The Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity movement, to the best of our knowledge, is opposed to kibbutz galuyot: the right of Jews to make their home in Israel,” said Haviv Rettig-Gur, the spokesman for JAFI. “If you are opposed to this idea, then in fact you are opposed to the Jewish Agency. We believe the organization that supports this movement, for whatever reason, should be asking itself tough questions.”
Avner Inbar, the spokesman for Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity, said its criticism of the organization tasked with Jewish immigration and absorption in Israel was related to the “privileged status” it was given, not to its mission.
“If JAFI were to become an NGO like any other, we’d have no problem with them, but our criticism of them is because they are treated like a branch of government,” he said.
At the same time, he said Israeli policy allowing Jews to immigrate freely while denying similar rights to Arabs and Palestinians clashed with his organization’s commitment to equality.
“One can infer from our manifesto that changes need to be made to the Law of Return and that those changes need to be done democratically and in the spirit of democratic values,” Inbar said, referring to the law that gives people of Jewish ancestry the right to immigrate to Israel. “We have to think whether Jews in Israel should enjoy a right that Arabs don’t, and that’s an open question.”
Actually, that's not - and ought not to be - an 'open question.' There is no ethnic distinction between the 'Palestinians' and other Arabs, including Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese, Saudis, Iraqis and a whole host of others. There are 22 Arab countries to accommodate them.
But there is one and only one Jewish state and that Jewish state is meant to be a refuge and a home for Jews. If the 'Palestinian Arabs' don't like that, they can go live among their brethren elsewhere.
The Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity movement, whose founder received an award at the J Street conference earlier this week, is funded by the New Israel Fund. In other words, Jews are funding an organization that seeks to place Arab immigration to the Jewish state on the same plane as Jewish immigration.
Meanwhile, watchdog group NGO Monitor criticized the New Israel Fund for funding Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity, and J Street for honoring one of the movement’s key activists, Sara Benninga, at its conference in Washington.
“The New Israeli Fund claims to love Israel and to oppose boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS),” said Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor. “But at the same time, NIF also provides funding to a group that campaigns for the ‘liquidation’ of organizations such as the Jewish Agency and Jewish National Fund.”
He added that “one of the NIF’s new funding guidelines states that funding will not go to groups that ‘promote anti-democratic values.’ NIF must end the secret funding processes and publicly disclose how they see funding of the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity movement as contributing to coexistence and mutual understanding.”
However, Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founder of J-Street, rejected NGO Monitor’s criticism and went on the offensive.
“Efforts by NGO Monitor and others on the far Right of Jewish life to deny those whose views they don’t like the right to express themselves are pursuing a dangerous and highly un-Jewish course of action,” he said. “J Street disagrees with some of the words chosen by some who spoke at our conference – just as we share concerns of Israeli leaders like [Defense Minister] Ehud Barak, who have used the word ‘apartheid’ to describe the future Israel faces without a two-state solution.”
The NIF also rejected NGO Monitor’s claims, defending its support for the activities of Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity.
“NIF, alongside many intellectuals and public figures in Israel, recognizes the importance of the work of the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity movement, which bravely acts against the injustice caused by the occupation and the undermining of basic human rights of Arabs in east Jerusalem and other places in Israel,” the NIF told The Jerusalem Post.
Read the whole thing. And if you still donate money to the New Israel Fund, please ask yourself why.
Labels: Israel Lands Authority, J Street, Jewish Agency for Israel, Jewish National Fund, New Israel Fund, Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement
