Thursday, January 26, 2006

Issue 16 "Parshat Va'Era" 5766



Shalom! We are proud to present another issue of Kummunique.
This issue is filled with Aliyah and Eretz Yisrael inspiration - so enjoy!

In this issue you will find:

1. "Shalom From Israel!" by Adam Israel Burnat
2. "Save The Diaspora" a Jerusalem Post Editorial
3. "Save the Diaspora - Why?" by Ze'ev Orenstein


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1. "Shalom From Israel!" by Adam Israel Burnat

So I have finally made it after waiting for so long. It's truly amazing to be here. This was by far the greatest and most exciting day of my life. The good bye ceremony at JFK was nice. The flight was good and the excitement kept growing the closer we got to Israel. When the pilot announced that we were about an hour away I started to learn the chapter 31 in Yirmiyahu where it talks about the Geulah (redemption) and that's where the quote Vshovu Bonim Ligvulam (the children will return to their borders) comes from. Just learning it was so amazing as this prophecy was going to apply to me. I was going to be returning to my borders in Israel. We started getting closer to Israel and we started to see the land of Israel. The greatest view from a plane I have ever seen. We get closer and the wheels hit the ground, I am now an Israeli Living in Israel.

I don't think I have ever wanted to leave a plane more than I wanted to this time. The second we landed I had all my stuff ready and was ready to walk off the plane onto My Land. I took my first steps outside the plane at the top of the stairs. It was gorgeous. I started walking down the stairs in disbelief of what I and 272 friends had just accomplished. A lifelong dream had come true and I was living it. I kneeled down and kissed the ground. I truly took in the moment. We boarded the bus to take us to the terminal where our friends would be meeting us. But on the bus I had the strangest feeling. I was standing on the bus and it was a very surreal feeling. I'm in Israel and I just made Aliyah but I couldn't believe it. It didn't seem real. But something happened that made it real as ever. The bus was pulling up to the terminal and I see hundreds of people waiting for us. Music was blasting and people were dancing. They were all here to celebrate our Return Home. I walk off the bus and see so many Jewish faces with such joy on their face. Joy of seeing their brothers and sisters come home. I see Naftali from a distance. I couldn't believe it. I then see a sign that read "Welcome Home Adam". I run up and give the biggest hug ever to Naftali. I see Michelle who made the wonderful sign, Aliza, Laura, Perry and Pepper. It's awesome. We start singing Vshova Bonim Ligvulam and we would sing it many more times that day.

This is the greatest moment of my life.

We head on inside to the ceremony and there are so many people. There are many speakers who give such meaningful speeches. We rise to sing Hatikva, the national anthem of Israel. Perry says to me that this is the first time I'll be singing it as an Israeli. I've sang it many times before but nothing ever like this. I was living Free in My Land. There's nothing like seeing so many yiddin standing at attention to sing Hatikvah. We then had a Bnei Akiva Mifkad led by all those who just made Aliyah. I have so much gratitude to Bnei Akiva whom I gained so much from and played a major role in me making Aliyah. After we sang Yad Achim, the song of Bnei Akiva I said the Following. Rebbe Nachamn said "To every place I go, I got to Israel." But now for all of us, To every place I go I go IN Israel. It's unbelievable. I truly am home. The friends then went on their way and I took care of my paper work where I received the documents telling me I am an Israeli Citizen, something I am so very proud of. So Thank G-d everything worked out and I am now living my dream. The pictures will be online soon but the pictures don't have so much meaning to me. The memories I have I will carry for a lifetime. This is the beginning of my new life and I couldn't be happier.

Shabbat Shalom, Your Chaver (Friend) From Israel,

Adam Israel Burnat

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2. "Save The Diaspora" A Jerusalem Post Editorial
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1137605876930&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

It was but 55 years ago that American Jewish leader Jacob Blaustein imposed on David Ben-Gurion a written agreement in which the latter acknowledged American Jewry's exclusive commitment to the US, respected "the integrity of Jewish life in the democratic countries," and conceded that "the Jews in the US do not live 'in exile.'"

Evidently, things have changed since American Jewry was more than five times as large as Israeli Jewry, and US Jewish leaders could speak with nearly patronizing confidence to the elected head of the Jewish state. According to data presented this week by the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, based on studies by the demographer Sergio DellaPergola, America's 5.28 million-strong Jewish community is but 45,000 people larger than Israel's.

Not only does this mean that we are, at most, only a few years away from Israel's emergence as home to the world's largest Jewish community, it also reflects the disturbing phenomenon of a shrinking Diaspora.

On the face of it, Israel's emerging demographic status within the Jewish world is a happy development. Who would have dreamt - not only back when the Zionist movement was conceived, but even after Israel's establishment - that the Zionist enterprise would be so successful that for the first time since antiquity the Promised Land would host the world's largest Jewish community and seem well on its way to hosting more than half of the entire Jewish people?

Yet that is precisely where things are headed, considering that Israeli Jewry is growing rapidly while the Diaspora's current population of 7.75 million Jews is already a drastic 2.25 million people smaller than a mere 35 years ago, according to DellaPergola's studies.

This is anything but a welcome trend. Like Blaustein in his time, we reject Ben-Gurion's dogmatic view that all Jews should live in their ancestral land. The way we see it, the demographic and spiritual survival of the Diaspora is vital for the future of the Jewish nation in general, and the Jewish state in particular.

It follows that Israel cannot remain indifferent as the Diaspora shrinks. We, as the Jewish state, must get down to the business of nourishing the Diaspora. This effort should not be focused on the restoration of Jewish life in countries like Germany, Russia, Ukraine and Poland that have been the historic hotbeds and stages of catastrophic anti-Semitism. Rather, it should concentrate on assisting Jewish communities across the Western world - where they are most numerous and welcomed, and are threatened by assimilation because of that very success and acceptance.

The next government should formally define the revitalization of the Diaspora as a strategic aim. Such a resolution would entail a drastic re-thinking of the relations between Jerusalem and Babylon, which remain governed by an unwritten and anachronistic distribution of responsibilities whereby the Israelis sacrifice blood and their brethren money.

Israel has matured economically, and the share of foreign aid and donations in its GDP is hardly 2.5 percent and on the decrease. Our income per capita is on a par with the major economies of Europe, even if our level of defense spending necessarily remains much higher than in other Western nations.

Accordingly, Israel should be working with the Diaspora on programs to bolster Jewish education and identity. The panoply of efforts that are known to work, including Jewish day schools, Jewish camping, and educational programs in Israel - such as the birthright and Masa programs - should be fully funded as a joint project of Diaspora philanthropy and the Israeli government.

The Diaspora played a pivotal role in Israel's founding, for which every Israeli should be eternally grateful. The Diaspora, moreover, has much to offer Israel at this moment, particularly in the realms of Jewish pluralism and the integration of Judaism with modern life. Now it is time for us to return the favor, and give back as much as we have received. For this, the Jewish state was founded and therein lies its - and the Jewish people's - future.

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3. "Save the Diaspora - Why?" by Ze'ev Orenstein
http://israelperspectives.blogspot.com/

The Jerusalem Post, in a recent editorial entitled Save the Diaspora, has found the latest cause for the Jewish State of Israel to champion:

"According to data presented this week by the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, based on studies by the demographer Sergio DellaPergola, America's 5.28 million-strong Jewish community is but 45,000 people larger than Israel's... Israeli Jewry is growing rapidly while the Diaspora's current population of 7.75 million Jews is already a drastic 2.25 million people smaller than a mere 35 years ago, according to DellaPergola's studies. "

It is clear to anyone who is intellectually honest that the Jewish community of the United States is in a rapid decline, that the State of Israel is primed to become the largest Jewish community in the world (the only one with a positive growth rate), and that the future of the Jewish People is going to be taking place in the Land of Israel - which is consistent with the fundamental principles of both Judaism and most streams of Zionism.

As such, the logical conclusion that the State of Israel should be drawing from these statistics would be for her to be doing everything in her power to ensure that the shifting of the center of Jewish life from New York & Washington to Jerusalem & Tel Aviv is done as smoothly as possible, and to begin assisting American Jewry in coming to terms with this new reality and demonstrating to them that the Jewish State of Israel can be considered a viable option for those interested in continuing their Jewish lives.

Makes sense, right?

Wrong. At least if you write Op-Eds for the Jerusalem Post:

"This is anything but a welcome trend... The way we see it, the demographic and spiritual survival of the Diaspora is vital for the future of the Jewish nation in general, and the Jewish state in particular... We, as the Jewish state, must get down to the business of nourishing the Diaspora... The next government should formally define the revitalization of the Diaspora as a strategic aim."

I will be the first to admit that I would have liked to see the State of Israel become the largest Jewish community in the world through Aliyah alone, and not through the assistance of assimilation. Yet, what is the basis for the claim that the Jewish People and State can't survive without a strong Jewish presence outside of the State of Israel?

We have witnessed over and over again, throughout the long and tortuous 2,000 year Exile, that the Jewish People can not find any lasting peace and security (whether physical or spiritual), and that sooner or later, they will be asked or forced to leave their countries of residence. This was the reasoning behind the establishment of political Zionism and the quest of the Jewish People to re-establish a Jewish State in the Land of Israel; the re-established State of Israel would be a place where the Jewish People could live as masters of their own destiny and not need to rely on the kindness and goodwill of the nations of the world.

That being said, I am in favor of the Jewish State of Israel providing the Jewish communities of the world with assistance for endeavors that are meant to strengthen their Jewish identity, and their connection to the Jewish People, State and the Land of Israel. Yet, by no means should the State of Israel be interested in "revitalizing" the Diaspora, and I say this for three reasons:

1st, it's a bad investment. Despite all the resources (financial and otherwise) that the State of Israel has allocated to trying to "revitalize" the Diaspora, on the whole, there continue to be fewer and fewer Jews to show for it. Programs like birthright and MASA that strengthen Jewish identity while strengthening the connection to the Jewish People and State are worthwhile investments, and should continue to be funded, but they seem to represent the exception rather than the rule.

2nd, the Jewish People belong in Israel - both from a Zionist and Jewish perspective. Why should the State of Israel help the Jewish communities of the world do something that is contrary to their own well-being and that of the State of Israel? Granted, The State of Israel can't force any Jew to come and live in Israel, but that doesn't mean that the State of Israel needs to assist them in their decision to remain in the Exile.

The proper approach that the State of Israel should be taking is the one that was taken a few years ago in response to the economic crisis in Argentina. The State of Israel opened her doors to the Jews of Argentina, offering them a lifeline - a way to get back up on their feet, through their choosing to come home to Israel where the Israeli government was waiting with open arms to do everything possible to assist them - and many took them up on their offer.

3rd, imagine what an impact the Aliyah of 1-2 million American Jews would have on the State of Israel! Imagine the impact on the economy, on the way people do business and treat each other. Imagine the impact that 2 million Jews from AMERICA would do to the morale of this country. Imagine an Israel that can tap into the American know-how, drive, passion and creativity. Imagine the impact that 2 million Americans would have on the way Israel's electoral and judicial systems, as well as the media operated. The Jewish State would no longer need to consider retreating from parts of her Homeland due to demographic considerations. There would be enough Jews to settle the Negev, the Galil, the Golan, Jerusalem and Judea & Samaria.

Would Israel miss the millions of dollars donated annually by American Jews? Sure, but right now, Israel misses actual Jews more. Also, imagine an Israel where all of these wealthy Jews brought their capital, as well as their businesses over to Israel and invested them into the economy - that would be doing more for Israel than any check from America ever could. Additionally, with the American Jewish community in decline, and with the younger generation of American Jews showing a disconnect with the Jewish State, it can be expected that in the not-to-distant future, the stream of American $$$ is going to dry up.

For all those reasons and so many more, it is in the absolute best interests of the Jewish State of Israel to do everything it can to allow Jerusalem to become the center of the Jewish world, in mind, spirit and body. The American Jewish community is in decline, following the natural course of all Jewish communities in Exile throughout the last two thousand years.

The United States of America has been good to the Jewish People and State, and the American Jewish community has, by and large, been a tremendous asset and faithful ally, and for all of this the State of Israel should be appreciative. However, the State of Israel can't afford to let nostalgia stand in the way of Jewish destiny - and that Jewish destiny is playing itself out in the Land of Israel.

To my Jewish brothers and sisters in the Diaspora (AKA: Exile): Come home now, while good seats are still available... (Or, act now and avoid the Mashiach rush).

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Issue 15 "Shemot" 5766



We are proud to present another issue of Kummunique - Kumah's Shabbat and Holiday Bulletin. This issue is filled with Aliyah and Eretz Yisrael inspiration - so enjoy!

In this issue you will find:

1. "Some Days It's Hard To Live In Israel" by Malkah Fleisher
2. "Parshat Shemot" by Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Reich
3. "Israel's Jewish Population Surpasses United States" by Ezra HaLevi
4. "Aliya? To Which Country?" By Jack Engelhard

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1. "Some Days It's Hard To Live In Israel" by Malkah Fleisher

News of Thursday's horrific suicide bombing in Tel Aviv is depressing an already thoroughly depressed populace. The not-quite Prime Minister hasn't bothered addressing the people in the wake of the stroke of the real Prime Minister, who himself never really bothered to do anything the people wanted him to do, either. The Holy City of Hebron is being ransacked, as indisputably Jewish land (even the Supreme Court has recognized that the Shalhevet marketplace building belongs to the Jewish City of Hebron) is being yanked from underneath the Jews (or rather, the Jews are being ripped from upon it). A formidable, gray-slabbed wall is carving our country into a prison, gasoline costs a fortune, and there's not a Bed, Bath and Beyond on the continent. I don't think I've ever been so frustrated in my life.

One might ask, "Malkah, what the heck? Why are you putting yourself in this situation? And don't give me this garbage about 'oh, I moved to Israel to make a difference, I moved to Israel to be with my people, blah, blah, blah. YOU'RE NOT MAKING A DIFFERENCE! Look around you – the whole country is going to H.E. double hockey sticks, and frankly, I don't see your big Zionist imprint all over the big revolution that HASN'T sprung up since you got here!!!"

My first response would be that you're very rude – kiss your mother with that mouth?
Secondly, I would say that you should NEVER discount an impending revolution. When it happens, you owe me a case of Krembo and a big apology. Malkah Fleisher votes with the Jews, every single time.
And thirdly, I never said I would win the war. I said I would fight it. If the biggest difference I can make for my people and my land is by buying milk here and not in America, then that's what I'll do, and to heck with all the cynical exilophiliacs who don't have any better ideas to put out there. If I die before we set things right, or if I die in the process, you'll write on my tombstone "Here Lies Malkah Fleisher: She Tried."

So there you have it. There are no easy answers and no foreseeable let up to the problems that we face. But I've come here to try – I hope you will, too.

My advice to you - buckle in for the long haul and load up on some comfort food.

Malkah's Apple Cake

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 Tablespoon baking soda
3 apples, cored, peeled, and chopped
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped dates
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat oven (somewhere between hot and super hot). Line a rectangular or circular cake pan with parchment paper. Mix the flour, oil, sugar, eggs, and baking soda in a bowl. In another bowl, mix the apples, raisins, dates, cinnamon, and nutmeg, coating the fruits with the spices. Mix the fruits into the dough mixture. Pour mixture into pan, bake 50 minutes (also makes great muffins!), and forget about the problems for a while.

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2. "Parshat Shemot" by Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Reich for Aloh Na'aleh

"And these are the names of the children of Israel who came down to Egypt (Shemot, 1:1)." Rashi indicates that enumerating the names of the children of Yaakov, who we have already met in the book of Genesis, is a sign of how precious they (we) are to God. They are compared to the stars which God lovingly displays in the heavens, calling each by its name.

The Chatam Sofer comments that we, the Jewish people are indeed compared to stars because it is our task and privilege to illuminate what can sometimes be a very dark universe.

Generally we see stars from a distance, hundreds, thousands or millions of light years away. That distance prevents us from viewing them as they really are – huge orbs of pulsating energy and light with a tremendous influence on other celestial bodies and the very space around them. In Egypt (the Diaspora) we too are a pale reflection of our potential power. Viewed from the right perspective and setting however, we are a blazing source of energy and light.

Israel is the setting in which a Jewish soul can come to full expression of its potential power. Leaving Miztrayim, (Egypt) is not easy. The Lubavitcher Rebbe wrote that we all have our "meitzarim," narrow places that can keep us confined. Sometimes those narrow places can even take the form of a lovely home on five acres. But leave Mitzrayim we must, if we are to arrive at our true destiny.

Aloh Naaleh! As sons and daughters of Israel, let us shine forth as a beacon of faith, illuminating the world with the message of "Shma Yisrael" from the holiest place in the universe, the Land of Israel.

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3. "Israel's Jewish Population Surpasses United States" by Ezra HaLevi
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=96801

For the first time, Israel has more Jews than the US, according to Hebrew University Prof. Sergio Della Pergola. Tel Aviv has also overtaken New York as the city with the largest Jewish population.

Dr. Della Pergola, who released the statistics at a conference in Jerusalem this week, said that the new figures are partly the result of the increase in Israel's Jews, but greatly due to the shrinking Diaspora. The percentage of Jews, within the global populations, has decreased by one third since 1970 due to intermarriage and assimilation.

According to Della Pergola, the Jewish people now comprise .21% of the world's population – whereas they comprised .35% in 1970.

In 1970, there were about 10 million Jews living outside Israel. Only 7.75 million remain. The slight increase in the number of Jews in the world – from 12.65 million in 1970 to nearly 13 million now, is only due to the growth of Jews living in the Jewish state, Della Pergola said.

The demographer said that the only thing that has kept the number of American Jews stable is the hundreds of thousands of Russian Jews that have moved there. He says there is no reason that the size of the Diaspora communities will not continue to shrink.

A previous study done by Hebrew University's Institute of Contemporary Jewry concluded that, barring mass immigration to the Jewish State, by 2030, the majority of the Jewish people will live in Israel due to demographic trends alone. Such a situation would have far-reaching implications according to Jewish law.
Click here for an in-depth analysis of the matter:

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[The following peice is an anti-Aliyah article. I include it for the sake of debate - Ed.]

4. "Aliya? To Which Country?" By Jack Engelhard
http://web.israelinsider.com/views/7410.htm

An Israeli novelist I'm corresponding with, sharing tips, asks me if it's all right to mention Netanya in his novel, in case Netanya is gone in a year.

Only an Israeli could ask such a question.

That same day I'm reading that the Israeli government is expanding certain settlement blocs outside Jerusalem. The next day I'm reading that, fearful of international condemnation, the expansion plan is nixed. A day later Ariel Sharon says that the expansion will go ahead, yes, but that he's prepared to uproot and destroy these new settlements upon any agreement with the Arabs.

In other words, Israelis and newly arriving Jews are welcome and invited to put down permanent roots anywhere in Israel, until those permanent roots are permanently uprooted. Every inch of Israel is negotiable. Or, as Israeli politicians and diplomats refer to the Land of Israel -- bargaining chips. Just like Gush Katif, which was vacated from Gaza, vacated of Jews for an Arabs-only zone ("All Jews Out Of The Pool!"), to make room for peaceful Kassam rockets being hoisted from new and improved Gaza.

In the middle of all this, I'm getting e-mails, from Israel, urging me to make Aliya.

Sharon himself urges me to come on down and make Israel my new home.

Sharon is big on Aliya.

But suppose, a year ago, I had made Aliya to Gush Katif? Today I'd be without a job, my kids without a school, all of us without a home, except in a trailer park.

Suppose "Next Year in Netanya", Netanya is gone just when I decide to move in?

Suppose "Next Year in Jerusalem", Jerusalem is gone by the time I get there? After all, Mahmoud Abbas now says the Western Wall is his. Why not? Only Israeli "intransigence" (a word re-coined by Steven Spielberg) would keep Abbas from the Kotel and all the rest. A Jerusalem void of Jews would be seen by the world as a step forward. In Hebrew, forward is read as Kadima.

What if I decide to make my ascent to Beit El and by the time I get there, there is no place to set a ladder, if you are Jewish, like Jacob?

Suppose I pick up to move my family to Hadera and by the time I arrive Sharon and company have already established it as part of an Arab-only state?

What if I decide to make Ashkelon my new home but Sharon has already shaken hands with Abbas and Ashkelon is a done deal?

Suppose Ashdod is just right for my family and no agreement has been reached between Sharon and Abbas, but Condoleezza Rice phones Sharon (boss to employee) and tells Sharon that Ashdod is needed for a Palestinian state, and that the people who live there already, if they are Jewish, had better get packing? So forget Ashdod.

Pardes Hanna. I stayed there once when I was deep into Krav Maga, Israeli martial arts. I thought, then, that this would be the place. But suppose Pardes Hanna is to be wrapped up with a ribbon and handed over to the Palestinian Arabs, for the promise that they will murder fewer Jews today than they did yesterday? Peace, in other words.

An Egyptian military man was once asked if he is against the existence of a Jewish State. No, he said, that is okay, as long as all of Israel is confined to Tel Aviv's main boulevard, Dizengoff Street. Sharon and company must have been listening, as well as the U.S State Department, headed by Condi Rice, for that is the pattern.

Aliya means Dizengoff Street.

Suppose I stay put until Israel decides to act like it's for real.

Friday, January 13, 2006

Issue 14 "Vayechi" 5766



Shalom! We are proud to present another issue of Kummunique.
This issue is filled with Aliyah and Eretz Yisrael inspiration - so enjoy!

In this issue you will find:

1. "A Letter From Brocha"
2. "The Jewschool - Kumah Debate" by Yishai Fleisher
3. "True Jewish Heroes" by Ze'ev Orenstein
4. "A Question of Belonging" by Elaine Margolin


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1. "A Letter From Brocha"
Hello Yishai,

My name is Brocha, I don't know if you remember me but I went on a birthright trip with you. Dror, & I think her name was Tzofiah, were the Madricim. I was the one that fell on Mesadah, hurt my knee and wrist and needed to go to the emergency room, How could you forget that lol!! Also when we were on the bus one day you gave me your Israeli flag and told me that this flag had been yours for a while but that I could have it. It meant a lot to me and I still have it hanging proudly in my apt. I have moved around a lot, and was as far away from frumkeit as one can be, but that flag always hung proudly in whatever apt. I had. And when I moved i never left that flag behind. I took some rough roads in the past few years but I am now finding my way back into yiddishkeit. It is very hard but I am trying every day to be a better and more spiritual person.

I received the Kumah video in a random forwarded e-mail from someone I don't know and the second I saw the word Kumah your name popped into my head and I just wanted to e-mail you and see where your life has led you in the past few years.

I would love to hear back from you, and would also love to share my story with you and whoever may benefit from it.

Sincerely,
Brocha

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2. "The Jewschool - Kumah Debate" by Yishai Fleisher
http://jewschool.com/?p=9833 and on http://www.kumah.org

In an Blog entery entitled "An Open Letter to Kumah" Mobius wrote amongst other things:

"Furthermore, we are faced with the fact that since January 2000 roughly 100,000 Israelis have emigrated from Israel, disillusioned with the Zionist dream, weary of Zionist rhetoric, and infuriated as all-hell with overzealous datim like yourselves. For every new oleh, there is a yored (or two even) willing to take his or her place in America or elsewhere abroad. The proof is in the pudding: A thriving Israeli expatriate scene and a once-again vibrant Jewish community in Germany. Germany!"

This is what I wrote in response to this and other accusations:

"Dear Mobius,

This is what you write on your facebook entry:

"Judaism has always been revolutionary. It seems though that every few decades the tradition becomes ensnared in a rigidity and conservatism which defies its radical roots. Jewschool is an open revolt. "

We at Kumah are for a real revolution. Not a revolution that goes against the rabbis or the establishment. Not a revolution that feels a great need to insult others or to curse to get the message across. Our revolution is a simple one: to break free of the galut, to break free of the trap of materialism, and to choose Israel.

Your long winded diatribes about how everybody is leaving Israel are meaningless because of one simple fact: the majority of Jewish people will be living in the Land of Israel within the next few years. Yes, this is due in part to Diaspora assimilation, but it is also due to a higher Jewish birthrate in Israel, and of course Aliyah. Israel is the home of the Jewish future.

Ezekeiel 37:
21 Tell them: Thus speaks the Lord GOD: I will take the Israelites from among the nations to which they have come, and gather them from all sides to bring them back to their land.
22 I will make them one nation upon the land, in the mountains of Israel, and there shall be one prince for them all. Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms.

Two Kingdoms will be reunited! What are these two kingdoms? The two great centers of Judaism today - USA and Israel.

Where will they be reunited? On the mountains of Israel.

Jeremiah 31
8 Behold, I will bring them back from the land of the north [AMERICA]; I will gather them from the ends of the world, with the blind and the lame in their midst, The mothers and those with child; they shall return as an immense throng.
9 They departed in tears, but I will console them and guide them; I will lead them to brooks of water, on a level road, so that none shall stumble. For I am a father to Israel, Ephraim is my first-born.
10 Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, proclaim it on distant coasts, and say: He who scattered Israel, now gathers them together, he guards them as a shepherd his flock.
11 The LORD shall ransom Jacob, he shall redeem him from the hand of his conqueror.
12 Shouting, they shall mount the heights of Zion, they shall come streaming to the LORD'S blessings: The grain, the wine, and the oil, the sheep and the oxen; They themselves shall be like watered gardens, never again shall they languish.

The best part is that our revolution is not just talk, it's real, it's happening. Our movie's climax are the pictures of new immigrants, real people arriving. They are not running away from anything - they are choosing Israel.

Yes - I am a Zionist and I believe Hashem is recalling the family back home. The birth of the State of Israel following the Holocaust, the return of the Jewish people to their Biblical homeland, miraculous wars, amazing success - with all the challenges - I LOVE Israel, I love its air, I love its people. I see PAST THE CYNICISM which seems to be in vogue on this site.

We're done with galut, and we are going to build an amazing Israel.
Mobius, I invite you to help spread the message of the real Revolution. "

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3. "True Jewish Heroes" by Ze'ev Orenstein
http://www.israpundit.com/archives/2006/01/true_jewish_her.php

Without Aliyah, the State of Israel would be lost.

I am not speaking merely in terms of demography, where, in the Jewish State of Israel, every time a Jew makes Aliyah or a Jewish child is born, it serves as one of the greatest expressions of Jewish / Zionist fulfillment that one can actualize today - as it helps to ensure the continued vitality of the Jewish State of Israel.

No, Aliyah plays a much greater role in strengthening the Jewish State of Israel than simply bumping up the Jewish population statistics.

To see how great a role olim play in Israeli society all one needs to do is follow Ariel Sharon's medical situation, and see who has been treating him since his stroke last week.

Sharon's Argentinean-born surgical team:

The surgical team that has performed brain surgery three times on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reportedly treats him like any other patient, with no shaky hands or thoughts that the whole nation - and much of the world - is watching...

The chief surgeon is Dr. Jose Cohen, who, five years ago - living and working as a neurosurgeon in Argentina - would never have dreamed that he would perform lifesaving operations on Israel's leader.

Cohen, 39, was born and trained as a physician in Rosario, and subsequently specialized in Buenos Aires before coming on aliya four years ago to work at Hadassah. He is on call by his stroke unit 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Regarded as "an angel" by many of his patients, he heads a multidisciplinary team of some 20 physicians, nurses, computer experts, technicians and others...

(Felix) Umansky, 62, immigrated in 1973 and did his specialty in neurosurgery at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva. He spent three years in the early 1980s at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Since 1984, Umansky has been at Hadassah, becoming a full professor at the Hebrew University Medical Faculty in 1991. He is an expert in surgery of the base of the skull and has conducted much basic and clinical research on microanatomy of the brain...

The three-member anesthesiology team that has taken part in Sharon's surgeries consists of Dr. Yoram Weiss, who was born in Tel Aviv in 1959; and brothers Dr. Ya'acov and Dr. David Gozal, born in 1959 and 1958 in Morocco. They both immigrated from France.
I have no doubt that all of these immensely gifted individuals could have excelled in their respective fields in their countries of birth. Yet, I doubt whether these doctors - these Jews - would have ever had the opportunity to contribute to the Jewish People on as grand a scale (and stage) had they decided against moving to Israel - had they decided against coming Home and devoting their talents and energies to their people and to their Homeland.
These doctors are true Jewish heroes and role models - at least they are in my eyes.

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4. "A Question Of Belonging" by Elaine Margolin
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1134309584745&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

ALIYA: Three Generations of American-Jewish Immigration to Israel
By Liel Leibovitz
St. Martin's Press
288pp., $24.95

Liel Leibovitz's stirring book brought me in touch with my dead father - at least the part of him that always longed for Israel. Before our family metastasized into bits and pieces shredded amidst the American continent, he would sit at our family dinner table in Long Island arguing with my mother about some of our neighbors who were contemplating making aliya; he was smitten with the idea, she frightened to death of it.

He would show us pictures of Israeli soldiers, tall and tan, their faces smiling, and his emotionally fevered pitch would escalate as he tried to imagine the emergence of the young Jewish state and its brave new warriors. My father's fervor soon cooled, but mine didn't, and I remember feeling the first pangs of alienation from my own country, wondering where exactly I belonged.

Perhaps this question of belonging is one all of us have to answer; it is a nagging quagmire for most American Jews who often feel as if they are straddling two separate realities. American life requires a constant division between our public and private selves, and being an American Jew involves an intricate and continual internal negotiation with ourselves and others. Often, many of us are pushing away longings we don't even understand.

Leibovitz, the cultural editor of the Jewish Week in Manhattan and a native of Israel where his family has lived for multiple generations, tackles the thorny issues of identity and place and how they are fused in the Jewish imagination. He chronicles the lives of three American Jewish families who made aliya to Israel in 1947, 1969 and 2001, respectively.

These moving biographical essays are not fairy-tales; they are often gritty retellings of the physical, emotional and cultural obstacles each family faced in order to become Israelis.

Leibovitz believes the decision to make aliya is an emotional one, a chance to relish the exuberance one feels when "one walks down the streets of Jerusalem, realizing that one's ancestors walked those same streets centuries ago. It is present when one experiences the depth of spirituality in Israel, the sort of spirituality that relies less on texts and ceremonies and prayers, and more on the air and the sea."

HIS FIRST story is the most compelling. Marlin Levin had returned home to Pennsylvania in 1946 after serving in the Intelligence Corps as a cryptographer. He had seen a tremendous amount of combat and was an eyewitness to the liberation of the concentration camps. Soon after returning home he found himself listless and depressed, uncertain about his future. His only obsession was to read all he could get his hands on about the struggling Jewish community in Palestine.

Fighting a growing lethargy that threatened to overtake him, Levin asked himself how he could "go to war with Germany and Japan, to fight for an ephemeral and enticing idea, freedom, yet not budge when his own people were standing trial? How could he, who had listened to his grandmother haltingly tell stories of pogroms in her native Russia, he who had witnessed the aftermath of the Holocaust, not join the struggle to ensure that such atrocities were never committed again against the Jewish people?"

Levin soon left with his young wife for Palestine in 1947, where he immediately found work as a journalist and assisted the Haganah in breaking codes - the same kind of work he had done during the Second World War. Levin, now in his 80s, can still recall the difficulties and thrills of his early years in Israel, and the joy he felt in being part of the creation of the Jewish State.

In the second essay, Leibovitz tells us about the Ginsberg family, who made aliya to a kibbutz in Israel in 1962. Mike Ginsberg's father had died suddenly, and his mother had brought him and his three brothers there in order to start a new life. Feeling ill at ease at first, the family slowly adjusted to the new customs and language. Before he married and raised three sons, Mike Ginsberg would serve in the Israeli Army, where he remains in charge of security near the Lebanese border to this day.

Ginsberg came to Israel over 40 years ago, when he was still in his teens, yet he can remember his early and intense infatuation with the Israeli Army. He remembers watching the Independence Day Parade in Haifa shortly after his arrival in Israel, thinking, "Here were Jews who could handle guns better than Bugsy Siegel and were even braver than Sandy Koufax. Here were warriors."

The third story is about Sharon and Danny Kalker and their four children. The Kalkers, an Orthodox family from Queens, arrived in 2001 to live in Hashmonaim, a small community just a few miles east of the Green Line. Marital tensions and career disappointments threatened their family's adjustment at first, but eventually each member of the family slowly learned to find their own way.

Leibovitz is a fine writer and is able to leap easily into the consciousness of another. He is not an invisible narrator; his presence and passion are felt throughout these pages. One senses he is still on his own personal journey; he is a truth-seeker, a romantic, and an Israeli perched upon a rooftop in New York trying to answer for himself the question his three families have already mastered: "Where do I really belong?"

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