KUMMUNIQUE

Shalom! We are proud to present another issue of Kummunique.

This issue is filled the awesome Kiddush Hashem of Western Aliyah that is coming to Israel in a time of war. These past two weeks have seen amazing media coverage of the courage and tenacity of the Jewish people's return to the Land of Israel. I have included some of the best articles that have appeared. Please enjoy this very special, and extra-long, issue of Kummunique.

In this issue you will find:

1. "New Arrivals Remind Us Of Our Destiny" by Alan D. Abbey
2. "Missiles Don't Deter Planeload Of Immigrants From North America" By Dina Kraft
3. "Former Monsey Woman To Publish Book On Experiences In Israel" by Hema Easley
4. "Newly Arrived Immigrants Struggle To Cope With Their First Taste Of War" by By Daphna Berman
5. "Peace In Jerusalem's Anglo Scene" by Jacob Berkman
6. "Olmert: These Days Demand Sacrifice" by Moran Zelikovich

Also, enjoy our new hour-long audio from the last Nefesh B'Nefesh arrival:

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1. "New Arrivals Remind Us Of Our Destiny" by Alan D. Abbey
From YNET

Ceremony for 250 N. American 'olim' at airport welcome breather from Katyusha pounding

We got up and out of the house early today, just before the pounding began. I don't mean the Katyushas that have been harming our countrymen, friends, and relatives in the North, but what we call the "chunka chunka" machine, a noisy pile driver that is digging a deep hole for a new apartment building across the street from ours.

The pile driver bangs away all day, from 7 a.m. to about 7 p.m., and on Fridays, too. The builder seems to be in a hurry to get his new apartment complex in the ground.

We needed to be out early to attend a ceremony at Ben-Gurion Airport marking the arrival of 250 North American olim (new immigrants), among them a young cousin of mine.

The flight was the 17th "boatload" of North American immigrants to Israel organized by Nefesh B'Nefesh (Soul to Soul), a five-year-old private agency that has revolutionized the way Americans move to Israel operating in cooperation with the Jewish Agency for Israel .

The ceremony was admirably well organized, with ample shade, food, water bottles, Israeli flags, balloons, and even candy for the kids. One of the speakers made the offhand remark that Ben-Gurion Airport is probably the only airport in the world that is set up to welcome groups of immigrants with moving ceremonies.

We all rushed to one side of the open-sided hangar on the tarmac to see the gleaming white El Al 777 airplane release its passengers. Shouts rang out as people recognized friends and relatives. A roar went up from the crowd of more than 500 when one exuberant new oleh jumped up and down and waved his arms as he emerged from the plane at the top of the staircase.

'Aliyah answer to Hizbullah'

A few minutes later we all rushed to where the new arrivals were coming into the area set aside for the ceremony. Applause, cheers, and tears broke out as the newcomers pressed through the tightly packed throngs and broke out of the narrow corridor as they found their greeters. We hugged our cousin tightly when we saw him.

The symbolism of today's arrival is too obvious to be missed: North Americans giving up their cushy existence in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave for a more difficult life in the dusty foothills of their ancient forefathers in a time of war. When much of Beirut has been reduced to rubble, firefights are flashing across the Israel-Lebanon border, hundreds of Israelis have been injured, and thousands are in and out of bomb shelters, dozens of families are beginning new lives with joy and courage.

I don't generally agree with Bibi Netanyahu, one of the welcoming speakers, but I'm happy to quote him today: "Aliyah is the answer to Hizbullah." For once, he's right. Israel, still a small country, needs all the immigrants it can get.

This won't be the final battle

That's not to overcome the alleged demographic time bomb (that is, the purported eventual majority of Arabs in the land of Israel because of higher Arab birthrates). Nor is it to become cannon fodder for the IDF.

Most of the immigrants I saw today – with the exception of a few like my cousin, who has already served in the Army and will do his reserve duty – are too old to join the Army, even though their children probably will.

It's because the immigrants are choosing meaningful lives of building the Jewish state for themselves and future generations over their materially richer lives in what I like to call the "Old Country." It's a needed reminder of the idealism that built this country, and that idealism is not dead.

Obviously, all of today's immigrants began planning their trip months or even years ago, and their arrival today was coincidental. Or was it?

Our morale is high: There is a great deal of unity in the country, and support for the necessary but difficult task of reducing Hizbullah's power to rubble without destroying all of Lebanon. We need to clip Syria's and Iran's wings without drawing them into a Doomsday battle.

This won't be the final battle; this is not Armageddon come to life (death?) out of the pages of the Bible. This one of the periodic efforts to remind the Arab world that Israel is (1) strong, (2) united, and (3) here to stay. It's not a lesson that lasts forever. As they say, in every generation some descendant of Amalek rises up with the intention of destroying Israel and the Jewish people.

But the sooner we get finished with knocking down the Katyushas the sooner we can get back to our real work: Building the Jewish state and securing the future of the Jewish people.
When we returned home, the "chunka chunka" machine was still banging away. I listened to it with fresh appreciation: It was the sound of building, not destruction, a sound we in Israel prefer above all others.

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2. "Missiles Don't Deter Planeload Of Immigrants From North America" By Dina Kraft
From the St. Louis Jewish Light

NEW YORK/TEL AVIV — Susan Rubin held her 22-year-old son close, tears spilling down her cheeks while news photographers zoomed in on what an American Jewish mother looks like as she watches her son immigrate to Israel in the midst of war.

"Just let me cry," she told her son, Stephen, who graduated from college a month ago. But Rubin said her sadness comes not only from the ongoing fighting and her son's intentions to join an Israeli army combat unit, but simply from how much she'll miss him.

"People ask me, 'How can you let him go?' I say how can I not let him go?" said Rubin, an editor and researcher from Bala Cynwyd, a Philadelphia suburb. "We raise our children to go forth, but it doesn't mean our hearts aren't breaking."

Rubin's son was one of 239 North American immigrants who left New York on Wednesday and arrived in Israel the following day on a flight chartered by Nefesh B'Nefesh, an organization devoted to facilitating North American aliyah. The group helps ease the aliyah process by streamlining the immigration process and providing financial grants and social services.

Organizers expect to welcome the 10,000th immigrant from Nefesh B'Nefesh later this summer. The group's efforts are funded predominately by a handful of philanthropic families, and it also receives funding and support from the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency for Israel.

Against a backdrop of war and uncertainty, farewells were especially emotional as families and friends bid their loved ones good-bye at New York's JFK Airport. Sisters parted from brothers, parents from children and grandchildren. Long good-byes were punctuated with hugs, grasped hands and tears.

"I'll miss them, but I'm proud of them," said writer Joe Rapaport, 64, as his son and daughter-in-law and their five children checked in suitcases and strollers piled high on carts.

Inbar Rapaport, 33, pregnant with her sixth child, stood at the check-in counter and said the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah had not deterred the family from making aliyah, as she and her husband had intended for years.

"I'm happy that they're trying to get Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon," the Harvard-educated lawyer said. "I'd be happier if Israel was at peace, but it's not."

Her immediate concerns are practical: She worries that the shipment from the home the family just sold in Teaneck, N.J., will be delayed because the Haifa port has been closed due to missile attacks on the city.

Shachar, 9, the eldest of the Rapaport children, has been following the daily headlines.

"I was a little scared that we're moving. I thought that coming in we might have to fly in the north of the country and that a rocket might hurt the plane," he said.

But he added quickly, "I think the plane has anti-rocket" equipment.

Nefesh B'Nefesh established a hotline after hostilities flared across Israel's border with Lebanon last week. About 20 families who were planning to live in the North canceled their places on the flight, choosing to go a few weeks later, when they hope the crisis will have passed.

Rabbi Yehoshua Fass, Nefesh B'Nefesh's co-founder and executive director, fielded dozens of calls and e-mails over the past week from anxious immigrants-to-be and their relatives. He commended those planning to live in the North who had delayed their immigration.

"It's too traumatic to take children from stable homes to a shelter," he told JTA as the plane approached Israel's coast.

Many of those who make aliyah with Nefesh B'Nefesh are part of large Orthodox families.

Fass, who immigrated on the first flight the group organized five years ago, said the immigrants' determination to leave comfortable homes and lives in North America, especially with Israeli cities under rocket fire, sends a powerful message.

"It's the ultimate act of solidarity," he said. "In their minds it's not a conflict, it's like the 'for better or worse,' it's like marriage. They understand they're getting married to Israel."

Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greeted the immigrants in a festive ceremony at the airport.

"What's the best answer to Hezbollah?" asked Netanyahu, who currently heads Israel's political opposition as head of the Likud Party. "You are the best answer."

"It's a testament to the Jewish spirit," he told JTA.

The immigrants were greeted like rock stars as they descended from buses to the welcoming ceremony. Guests, including friends and relatives, waved small Israeli flags and greeted them with cheers and applause.

Sara Goldstein, 41, from Merrick, N.Y., walked on the tarmac with her husband and four children. Her daughter Tali, 10, clutched the handle of a box containing the family pet, a Persian cat born around Purim and named Ahasuerus.

The fighting was no reason to delay her family's plans, she said.

"We've been planning this for a while," Tali said, checking that the family's belongings were all in tow. "We're very comfortable here."

Charlotte Kolodly, 89 years old and about four-and-a-half feet tall, also wasn't deterred by the missiles.

"It doesn't keep me back because Hashem keeps his eyes over Zion," she said.

The European-born mother of seven, a grandmother and great-grandmother to dozens, had planned on making aliyah 25 years ago, but passed at the time because her husband had a heart attack.

On Thursday, she landed in Israel escorted by one of her grandsons.

"Now I can do it," Kolodly said, her small frame swallowed up by her airplane seat. "I don't have to take care of my children anymore. My children have to take care of me."

Rubin said he first came to Israel on a birthright israel trip.

The current fighting had only strengthened his resolve to contribute to the country, he said. He will study Hebrew and work on a kibbutz in the North before joining the army in November.

"I know many of my opinions are pretty naive. I know I'm pretty idealistic," he said. "I guess I wouldn't be doing this otherwise."

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3. "Former Monsey Woman To Publish Book On Experiences In Israel" by Hema Easley
From The Journal News

Monsey native Laura Ben-David grew up with the allure of Israel — a special place for the Jewish people, a homeland for Jews.

In her freshman year, she traveled to Israel, seeing the length and the breadth of the country. She fell in love with the land.

It wasn't surprising then, that when she married a man who shared her love of Israel, the couple decided to move there.

In 2002, with four young children in tow, the Ben-Davids made aliyah, or a permanent move to Israel. They were among the first planeload of Americans to immigrate to Israel with Nefesh B'Nefesh, a Jerusalem-based company that helps American and Canadian Jews move to Israel.

Their move came at the height of the intifada, a time where suicide bombings by Palestinians were routine, Israelis lived in fear of the next explosion and Israeli tanks rolled into the West Bank and Gaza. But the Ben-Davids were undeterred, as they are now in their commitment to Israel despite the conflict between the country and Lebanon.

"Israel is part of who we are. It's a part of our psyche that Israel is the place where we should live," said Ben-David, who is now a mother of five and lives in Neve Daniel, a small town 10 minutes south of Jerusalem. "People thought we were nuts. But this is it. We're here. This is not a trial."

In the days before their departure, Ben-David began keeping a journal of her experiences. She's continued to write daily, and now e-mails excerpts to friends and family, replete with anecdotes about her interaction with local people, the challenges she faced and the impression Israel was making on her.

Her friends in turn sent it to others, and soon Ben-David was inundated with requests to be included in her e-mail list. People wrote to say they were vicariously living her aliyah experience. Soon her e-mails began circulating among hundreds if not thousands of people in the United States.

Four years later, Ben-David's journal will be published as a book called "Moving up — An Aliyah Journal." Aliyah is Hebrew for "ascent" or "moving up." The book will be available in Israel and the United States by the end of summer.

The anecdotes in her journal include how she and the planeload of Americans who arrived in Israel in July 2002 were greeted like stars. Benjamin Netanyahu, former prime minister of Israel, the media and even regular Israeli citizens showed up at the airport to greet the immigrants.

Much attention was given because the Americans arrived at a time when such immigration had dropped to a trickle. And while some Jews from Europe and other parts of the world still went to Israel to escape discrimination or for a better life, the Americans, relatively wealthy and well integrated into American society, were seen as having given up a better life to go there.

"Someone who emigrated from South Africa said to me, 'I know why I came. But why did you come?' " said Ben-David, recounting a conversation she had soon after moving to Israel. "We are not running away from something. We are just arriving. It's making a statement that living in Israel is very important to us."

The move did come with challenges and hardships. The most difficult were the differences in language and culture.

While the Ben-Davids spoke some Hebrew, it was rudimentary. But they found that everything from job interviews and buying medicine to schooling, parent-teacher meetings, grocery shopping and socializing was conducted in Hebrew.

Bureaucracy proved to be much more pervasive than in America in everything from banking to getting a driver's license. Culturally, every person acted as if he or she were a family member, said Ben-David, freely offering advice on how she should dress her children and what to feed them.

Also, everyone was on first-name basis, irrespective of age.

Some amenities that Americans take for granted are not available. Hot water has to be heated before taking a shower. Common American foods like pasta and peanut butter, while available, were expensive compared to pita, cheese and vegetables.

Above all, the threat of violence was always present, given the volatility of the region. But residents took it in stride, said Ben-David, and went about their business.

And so does she. With shelling in the north, Ben-David recently canceled a holiday weekend in that area. Apart from that, she hasn't made any changes to her life, which included a planned visit to Rockland this week.

"I have no regrets about moving to Israel. I want to live in the place of my history," Ben-David said. "Israel is like your mother. You go to Disneyland when it's a good time. You go to your mother when it's good or bad. We'll weather it out. We're here through the good and the bad."

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4. "Newly Arrived Immigrants Struggle To Cope With Their First Taste Of War" by By Daphna Berman
From Haaretz

Two weeks ago, Marti and Kalman Leebhoff moved their family from California's San Fernando Valley to Mitzpe Netofa, a tranquil and somewhat secluded community halfway between Carmiel and Tiberias. They opted to forgo the chaos of Jerusalem and decided against areas with large Anglo populations like Efrat or Neve Daniel in the Gush Etzion bloc, simply because they didn't want to deal with the security situation and the sometimes harsh realities of living in a West Bank settlement. Immigrating to a foreign country, they figured, would be a hard enough transition.

And this week, as the family sought refuge in Jerusalem, their suitcases still sitting unpacked in an apartment up north that has yet to become a home, the irony was not lost on them.

"We plan, plan, plan, but then it all goes spiraling out of control," Marti said. "We've spoken to some friends and Mitzpe Netofa hasn't been hit, but it's pretty empty, so we didn't think it would be good psychologically for the kids. We are obviously worried also about safety."

"We were on such a high from aliyah, and now we're just in a state of limbo," she added. "Our bank account information, our clothes and everything else are still up North. It's been a little traumatic and we don't know how long we'll have to be in Jerusalem. We're now staying with family, but how long can we remain at my brother-in-law's? Should we rent an apartment and wait until things calm down?

"We came on the first Nefesh B'Nefesh flight [of 2006] so we could have a lot of time to get acclimated before the kids start school. Now, I just feel exhausted and I'm not sure what I should do."

To be sure, the first few weeks of becoming Israeli have not been easy for the Leebhoff family. They have no regrets and insist that they will remain in Israel for the long haul. But as an afterthought almost, Marti does admit that she sometimes feels like crying.

"We are here in our country and that's what is important," she says. "If I was in the States and not here, I probably would have been more unsettled. But once in a while, I do feel like weeping. This has been such a transition."

The Leebhoffs are not alone. Just this month, nearly 500 North American immigrants arrived here on two separate chartered flights with Nefesh B'Nefesh and the Jewish Agency. Yesterday, some 220 immigrants arrived, amid much fanfare and media curiosity. The original number was 240, but some immigrants postponed their trip until later this summer because of the security situation.

"We've definitely been busier than usual," said Tzvi Richter, director of the department of social services at Nefesh B'Nefesh, which organized support groups and information sessions Wednesday night in Jerusalem and Ra'anana for new immigrants. "For our olim, this type of situation is very new and there's a sense of uncertainty. People want to know how to explain the situation to family back home or how to explain this to their kids in a way they can understand.

"Every situation takes some getting used to and for sabras [native Israelis], uncertainty has been part of their lives and they've learned to go on with a routine. But for some people who are new at this, it's sometimes difficult to go on with their lives," Richter said.

Susie Enteen immigrated earlier this month with her husband and their two sons from South Florida and says that being in a war takes some getting used to. "I don't know if I feel scared, because scared means changing my actions, which I haven't done," she said. "But it has been emotionally tough. We're always watching the news when my kids aren't around and I just feel like turning it off and watching a comedy or something stupid. I feel like I can't watch the news anymore. This sounds funny, but I want to get on with my life here and I don't want to hear about killing, dying and shelling."

On a more practical note, the Enteens are also waiting to move into their Mevasseret Zion home. But the shipment from Florida that contains their beds, toys and furniture has yet to arrive. And even if it does, the port in Haifa is closed and they've been told that they - like other newcomers - will have to wait.

According to Ruth Bar-On, executive director of the Israel Crisis Management Center (SELAH), which provides assistance to new immigrants, one of the most difficult issues facing recent arrivals to the country is the lack of built-in support systems from family and good friends that many veteran Israelis have. Immigrants, she said, often also deal with pressures from family abroad.

"Sometimes, the decision to make aliyah wasn't a consensus and so immigrants have to deal with parents, in-laws or friends who ask why they even moved to Israel in the first place. In these situations, instead of support from family, you have another source of anxiety," Bar-On said.

For many immigrants, however, the idealism that drove them to move here proves to be an important source of comfort during times of crisis and war, she noted. "Immigrants from the West gave up comforts to live here because they wanted to be part of the country and that gives them incredible resilience. They know why they are here and that gives them strength."

Meanwhile, other immigrants say that they've mostly continued on with their daily lives. Leeds-born Channah Graham, who lives in Tel Aviv, has scoped out an Internet map of the city to locate the closest bomb shelter, but otherwise, she says, her routine has mostly continued.

"I've never lived through this and neither have my parents, so in that way, it's very strange," she admitted. "And the other day, I was speaking to my friends about our local bomb shelters - which was probably one of the weirdest conversations I've ever had," she added with a laugh.

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5. "Peace In Jerusalem's Anglo Scene" by Jacob Berkman
From the Jewish Standard

It's Thursday night, and I've found myself at Sugar Hill, a shoebox bar somewhere off of Ben Yehuda Street, downtown Jerusalem's main drag. The bar has three booths, is covered with a wall-to-wall collage of posters featuring reggae singers and hippie rock icons, and a friend who I haven't spoken with in years is filling in as a guest bartender because the bar's owner fell down a flight of stairs earlier in the afternoon.

I've been in Israel for only a few hours, but already I know that I am where I want to be — and it's not because a friend bartending generally leads to free beers.

Despite the turmoil in the north, everything in Jerusalem seems suspiciously calm. And the streets that spindle off Ben Yehuda Street are a little more crowded than normal, bloated by northerners who have fled to take refuge in Jerusalem and by tour groups who have canceled their northern travels, say those who live in the area. It's a testament to how safe Jerusalem actually feels.

For an American who debated furiously whether this was the right time to visit Israel for the first time in eight years, the peacefulness here is reassuring.

The crowd that I've fallen into helps. It's something like the Upper West Side of Manhattan that I've left, a tinge yuppie, but it's more open, more inviting, and it gives me no reason to feel hesitant about approaching anyone. Amid the roughly 700,000 Jewish and non-Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem, there is a sub-set of English-speaking young people in their 20s and early 30s who have either made aliyah or who are living and working here for extended periods of time in a sort of pre-aliyah phase, whom I would call moderately religious. They keep Shabbos to some degree, and some study in yeshivas or at universities. And of Jerusalem's many Anglo sub-sets — there are the religious hippies, the hardcore yeshiva-ites, the progressives, and the older retirees, among others — this is perhaps the most Anglo.

Most in this scene work, primarily at jobs that don't use the education they received in other parts of the world.

But they're here not necessarily to make money. They're here to live in Israel, and that is the thread that bonds them.

"There are probably about 500 of us," says Ahuva Berger, who made aliyah from Brooklyn two years ago through Nefesh B'Nefesh. "And it might be a [relatively] big community, but it is very small," she says, explaining that everyone knows everyone else to some degree.

Most live in neighborhoods within walking distance of downtown, such as the German Colony, Nachlaot, and Rechavia, because it is a very social crowd. By night, they hit various bars downtown, and by day, especially on the weekends, they live very much an outdoor café lifestyle, sitting for hours brunching at one of the number of cappuccino stops off Emek Refaim Street, a mile or so away from downtown.

And while many are now Israeli, they are not native Israeli; most still speak English, and many of those who do eventually master Hebrew never lose their foreign accents, says Berger, sipping a beer.

But hanging on to English, combined with being a foreigner and having cultural differences with native Israelis, has drawn them all to move here, and that makes the group very cohesive, and very open to more of their own, she says.

It's not uncommon for a new person to meet one Anglo, who will then introduce that person to everyone he or she knows as if they were best friends, says Eli Gurock, the bartender for the evening. That's what happened to him when he moved to Israel from Passaic four years ago.

The group becomes a de facto support group and a pseudo family, says Berger, who described her first day essentially like this: She made aliyah, got to the country without knowing anyone, found an apartment, and then basically said to herself, "Now what?"

As the tiny bar fills with English speakers, the "now what?" plays itself out in front of us, as Moshe Fisch, who has just arrived in Israel to spend two years studying at a progressive yeshiva called Pardes, shows up with a new friend. As the night progresses, the 29-year-old Yeshiva of North Jersey product from Teaneck is introduced around the bars. He drinks a few beers and picks up new friends along the way.

And the glue that holds them together is a devotion to their new homeland.

"There's a togetherness here because we all love this country," says Michael Berezin, 27, who made aliyah form New York in 2001. "We're all here for the ideology. We all could have stayed where we were and had better jobs, but we decided we should be in Israel."

Berezin is typical of the crowd in that he studied in the states to become a psychologist. But here he is a marketer for a credit-card company.

"Israel is a different mindset," he says. "You do what you have to do to pay the bills."

And right now, most are quite happy to be in Jerusalem, especially because it feels safe.

During the early years of the second intifada, which started in 2000, those who lived here say that Jerusalem was empty, people were afraid to go out, and tourism dried up.

But the feeling now is different. Israel beefed up security everywhere, and you cannot even get into a coffee shop without first passing through a metal-detector-bearing security guard. Now, since the war so far has only affected the north, there is an almost superficial euphoric feeling — though beneath it lies an anxiety that few seem to want to talk about.

But when you get them started, there is a certain aggressiveness about Israel's offensive in Lebanon. "We have to do this," says Berezin. "We have to show that Lebanon can't f___ with us."

But still, the war is here.

It's there and visible Friday morning at brunch at Tal Bagels, an outdoor café on Emek Refaim Street. The scene might be replicated on the streets of Manhattan at outdoor cafés every Sunday morning in New York. A fluid group of Anglos sits around a few round tables pushed together. Some brunchers come and go, some sit for hours, catching up on who's getting married, who's not, reminiscing about the creature comforts they want — PowerAde powder, clothes from the Gap — and about the jobs they could have if they were back where they came from. One had a cushy job working for a fashion company. One has degree after degree and now is a marketer for a tech firm. But the conversation stops momentarily when someone gets a call with news that a friend has been called up to the reserves.

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6. "Olmert: These Days Demand Sacrifice" by Moran Zelikovich
From YNET

PM welcomes 650 new immigrants from France, who arrived in Israel despite security situation; 'Israel is happy and proud on such a day,' he tells olim. Julian Dahan from French Riviera: 'Only here I feel at home'

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert welcomed Tuesday some 650 new immigrants (olim) from France who arrived at the Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv despite the worrying security situation in the country.

"The current days demand of each of us, old or young, to make a big sacrifice," the PM told the newcomers. "Israel's enemies fire missiles from the north and south designed to hit Israeli residents in their homes and places of work. Sometimes they succeed and cause us much pain," he added.

"Their weapons, even when they hurt us, are nothing like the powerful, secret weapon we possess: The Jewish people that love the State of Israel, live here and want to protect this country. They don't understand the special bond between the Jewish people across the world, and the special feeling of love and mutual commitment that prevails between all Jews, regardless of where they are," Olmert stated.

'We can overcome our enemies'

In his speech the PM hinted that the military campaign Israel is involved in may last for quite some time: "We are a strong people. We have the stamina required for prolonged battles, and we will carry on with this operation in order to obtain all our goals and overcome the enemies trying to harm the State of Israel and its people."

Olmert greeted the olim, saying that on a day when new immigrants arrive in the country, the entire state rejoices. "On a day when Jews who live in a western country, who have a choice, who are persecuted by no one, decide to come here – on such a day the State of Israel stands proud and happy, and it says to you: Welcome to the land of Israel."

The number of olim that arrived today with the assistance of the Jewish Agency, represents a new record matched only by aliya in the 70s . In the coming weeks another 700 new immigrants are expected to come from France.

Minister of Immigration and Absorption Zeev Boim explained: "The olim come here despite the war and out of Zionism and faith. In spite of the war there have been no cancellations. This certainly isn't 'distress immigration' but a move done out of choice."

'First of all – we want falafel'

One of the new olim, Julian Dahan, 29, who came here from the French Riviera, is unmoved by the fact he had left his classy lifestyle behind: "Everything in France is superficial. In any other place in the world I felt like I'm waiting for something, only here I feel like I'm home." Dahan claimed that he is not scared by the rockets: "It's a lot more dangerous in France, there are a lot of petty criminals and crime."

The Fabian family from Marseille–Yvonne and Jean Pierre with their two children – are also not afraid: "We're not scared and don't feel like we're at war. The only thing we're concerned about is how our lives will change and how we'll manage to integrate here."

Tami Gansia and Raul Vaknin who emigrated from Toulouse, have their minds set on one thing only: "First of all, to eat falafel. Then we'll worry about the rest. Life is good where you make it good, anywhere in the world. It was important for me to immigrate to Israel in order to prevent assimilation. I have an adolescent son and a grown up son who has been living in Israel for five years, and we wish to live next to him in Netanya," Tami stated.