As Worries Over Democracy At Home Increase, Will Aliyah Become A Serious Option?
For some, a mix of ideology, practicality and politics could be persuasive.
Aliyah from the U.S. has never been more than a trickle. Will the current unique circumstances result in increased numbers?
A number of friends in recent months have begun the process of becoming Israeli citizens, motivated by a mixture of love of Zion (and family who live there), and pessimism about the future of America.
Suddenly and surprisingly, renewed faith in the democratic rule of government has grown in Jerusalem even as it has weakened in Washington.
While the number of people even considering the aliyah option in the U.S. is no doubt very small, this mini-trend is significant. It suggests that one major Zionist dream – that finally, in the 21st century, diaspora Jews will make aliyah out of conviction, no longer out of fear – is still not yet realized.
Compared to the rest of the world, aliyah from the U.S. has never been more than a trickle.
Consider: the American Jewish population is estimated to be about 7 million; 4,000 made aliyah in 2021. And that was a 30 percent increase over the previous year, with the highest number since 1973.
It makes sense that 1973 marked a turning point for American aliyah. Israel’s dramatic Six-Day War victory in 1967 sparked a renewed enthusiasm among Jews around the world, which included a significant increase in aliyah for the next few years. But it ceased suddenly in the wake of the ‘73 Yom Kippur War, during which Israel lost more than 2,600 soldiers, and almost the war itself. In a matter of days the Jewish state morphed from elation to depression.
Through good times and bad, few American Jews have chosen to settle in Israel, and the great majority of those are from the religious Zionist community. That still holds true.
The remarkable growth of the modern state of Israel can be attributed to the horrific impact of anti-Semitism in the 20th century, and the compassionate response of the Jewish state’s founding fathers, who created a nation to be “the ingathering of the exiles,” a safe haven for Jews everywhere.
More than 3.3 million Jews have immigrated to Israel since the state was founded in 1948. Most of them, facing persecution in their native lands, were rescued and resettled during the state’s first 50 years. Indeed, in the first three years of statehood, the population of Israel nearly doubled.
In the beginning were the European survivors of the Holocaust who, now homeless, made their way to the one place that would welcome them, the eternal Jewish homeland.
From the late 1940s to the early 1970s, an estimated 850,000 Sephardi and Mizrachi Jews fled, were expelled or evacuated via Operation Magic Carpet from Arab and Muslim countries to settle in Israel. That population is now the majority of the state.
In the 1980s and ‘90s, almost one million Soviet Jews came to Israel. A movement started by a few brave Russian Jewish refuseniks was championed by “American housewives and students,” according to Natan Sharansky. It became a powerful influence, pressuring the Kremlin to open its doors.
Nearly 100,000 Ethiopian Jews have been rescued and settled in Israel since the early 1980s. Thousands walked great distances across deserts to Sudan in 1984, and were transported from there in a secret mission known as Operation Moses. In May 1991, a dramatic Israeli airlift, Operation Solomon, brought 15,000 men, women and children from Ethiopia to Israel; there were 41 flights made in just 34-hours.
In recent years, with the growth of anti-Semitism in Europe, aliyah from there has increased dramatically. More than 2,800 French Jews chose to settle and build their future in Israel last year. That’s an increase of 55 percent over the previous year.
Anti-Semitism has become more violent and prevalent in the U.S. in recent years, and is surely a factor for those who feel that American society is in a downward spiral. But the primary motivation for those serious about aliyah appears to be a mix of ideological, political and practical.
The practical piece concerns the fact that the lingering Covid pandemic has prevented travel to Israel from the U.S., even among those who seek to visit close relatives – children, parents, siblings. The one exception is for those holding Israeli passports. A number of people who have first-degree relatives have applied for Israeli citizenship – while maintaining their American status – so that they can more readily visit their loved ones. It’s a slow, bureaucratic process that includes much paperwork and clearance by the FBI.
Some taking this action happen to be life-long Zionists, observant Jews who have considered aliyah at different stages of their lives, and who have close family who have made that leap of faith.
Some want to move permanently to Israel, others prefer to divide their time between here and there, and there are those who just want to be sure they can gain entrance easily to visit loved ones.
Today, perhaps more than any time since the Army drafted young men to fight in the Vietnam War, there is a strong political motivation for Americans considering aliyah. When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, and most especially when he refused to concede the 2020 election – and as his popularity continues to grow among a disenfranchised base that believes his falsehoods – the prospect of a second Trump victory in 2024, legitimate or stolen, is very real.
“What will we do if that happens?” becomes, for some, “Now is the time to become an Israeli citizen.”
“‘I’ve thought about aliyah for years, so it would be a shame if it took my current fears about my home for me to leave now,” one friend confided. “But it worked for millions before me.”