A better approach to aliyah

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The Jewish Agency is not abandoning aliyah. Rather, we will encourage aliyah in ways that are far more relevant and effective for today's generation.

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Tauber's case is simple: With the Agency's announcement last year of a bold new plan to connect young Jews to Israel and to one another, it has allegedly "redefined its mission" away from aliyah. The only problem with this diagnosis is that the facts point in the exact opposite direction.

For one thing, aliyah from the United States, whose Jewish community makes up perhaps 75 percent of the Diaspora, remains very low. Of an estimated 5.5 million American Jews, just 3,800, or less than one-tenth of 1 percent, made aliyah last year. While I'm happy to report a double-digit rise in aliyah globally during the past two years, even this rise doesn't change the overwhelming fact that Western, largely English-speaking Jews are not moving to Israel in significant numbers.

This key fact is integral to the Jewish Agency's strategic reorientation, initiated by its chairman, Natan Sharansky. This new plan comes from the realization that while a robust absorption basket is crucial for the success of those who have already chosen to make the move to Israel, it is not raising the numbers of those making that choice. That's why we have worked with the government in recent years to increase its share, and decrease ours, in the funding of long-term absorption programs for new immigrants. This is enabling us to focus on a new mission: bringing ever-larger circles of young Jews to visit and experience Israel.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/a-better-approach-to-aliyah-1.408261

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1. Yeah, not moving to Israel anytime soon...

...I can do more for Israel in the United States than in Israel. I think that's a fairly common conclusion among young Jewish American people like myself.

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2. Well, I'm not getting into that, how things are here, we can talk about it in private if you want.

Other than to say, I think you are quite right.

The main point I was interested in is that it supports the idea that the current internal demographics of Israel and the OPT are the way it's going to be, no big exodus of people leaving or influx of people coming in. So what you have now and where it is going now, is how it's going to be.

[ellisonz]

3. Agreed.

Although, I wouldn't rule out an increasing illegal immigrant population...

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4. Oh yeah, all of that, not suggesting any sort of stability coming soon.

More like present trends will continue.

There have been some interesting posts lately about the global underground economy, how big it is. Aside from the occasional story I've seen little information on the subject WRT Israel, but I would expect it applies like any other country, more or less.