US Jews build new lives in Israel By Dan Ephron Boston Globe July 15, 2004 http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/ 2004/07/15/us_jews_build_new_lives_in_israel/ Lod, Israel -- Aaron Goldberg will train dogs for the Israeli police. David Gross hopes to find work as a baker. And Amos Ben Harav plans to study mechanical engineering. The three men were among a planeload of Jews who arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport yesterday from the United States and Canada as new immigrants, ushered to Israel by a private group that has significantly boosted immigration by North American Jews over the past three years, even as violence has surged. The group, Nefesh B'Nefesh (Jewish Souls United), has helped persuade 1,500 American Jews this summer alone to sell their belongings, uproot their families, and begin new lives in Israel. Although that number represents only a fraction of the overall migration to Israel, it highlights an interesting trend. While immigration from other countries has dropped by half since the start of the Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 2000, American Jews keep coming. "When Israel appears to be in some kind of danger, the trend is that immigration to Israel from the US goes up," said Howie Kahn, a counselor for the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel, which helps immigrants adjust to the Jewish state. "There's a little craziness to immigrating. Your family is happy, your kids are in their schools, and suddenly you go to a place where you might not even have a job. It's not necessarily a logical decision, so to look for logic isn't the right approach," he said. While other countries turn away newcomers, Israel has always encouraged Jewish immigration. In a country surrounded by hostile neighbors and obsessed with demographics, aliyah (literally "ascension") is widely perceived here as the Zionist counterweight to the high Arab birthrate in Israel. Incentives offered to immigrants over the years have included free flights to Israel, tax breaks, and lower interest on state-sponsored mortgage loans. Incentives have been reduced slightly in recent years for budget reasons. The policy has helped Israel keep its Jew-to-Arab ratio more or less constant since the 1950s -- at about 4-1. And while most immigrants arrived from regions of economic or political hardship -- Jews from Arab countries in the 1950s and '60s, the Soviet Union in the 1970s, and Russia in the 1990s -- some waves have boosted Israel's economic output. "By coming here, you have sent a strong message to the world that Israel is and always will be the eternal homeland of the Jewish people," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said at an airport hangar yesterday morning, during a 90-minute ceremony for the 400 new Israelis after their 12-hour flight from New York. Israeli folk songs from the 1950s were played over a loudspeaker and a clown twisted balloons in the shape of animals for children. But while immigrants from North America over the years included a few famous figures -- former prime minister Golda Meir and the Arab-hating Rabbi Meir Kahane, for example -- they never amounted to more than a couple of thousand a year. About 140,000 North Americans now live in Israel. Immigration officials say the annual number averaged about 1,500 until Nefesh B'Nefesh was founded three years ago by two American Jews to promote aliyah. It jumped to 2,000 in 2002 and 2,500 the next year. Organizers hope to reach 3,000 this year. Part of the draw is the roughly $20,000 loan Nefesh B'Nefesh gives each family to help defray the cost of starting over in a new country. Nearly all of that financing comes from private philanthropic sources in the United States. The group also handles much of the immigration bureaucracy for the families, which in Israel can be grueling. But organizers say the main reason for their success is their ability to market Israel as a place with spiritual meaning, especially for observant Jews, who made up an estimated 80 percent of the immigrants yesterday. In the past, secular Jews accounted for a greater proportion of immigrants from the United States. Kahn said of the immigration initiative: "They are selling aliyah in various communities like you would sell a product. They use PR people, they have wonderful advertising." Some immigrants said they were frustrated with American life. Kimberley Juroviesky, from Boca Raton, Fla., who was holding her 1-month-old baby, Azaria, was heading for a kibbutz to live communally with other Israelis. She said, "We are looking for a better life for our children. We found Americans too materialistic. They are only looking out for themselves. They live life to work, and buy things." None said they were deterred by the violence. "No amount of terrorism, no amount of economic hardship will stop these immigrants from calling Israel their home," one of the two Nefesh B'Nefesh founders, Tony Gelbart, told the cheering crowd. Aaron Goldberg, who arrived yesterday, would certainly agree. Though he had been to Israel only once before, Goldberg said he had talked to his wife about moving to Israel since they married 15 years ago. Wearing a tzitzit under his shirt -- a fringed garment worn by religious Jews -- Goldberg described quitting his job as a dog trainer in Hollywood, Fla., and packing the belongings of his wife and four children in a clutch of suitcases. "It's quite traumatic, but I feel in my heart that it's the right move," he said at the airport. Goldberg will live in the town of Rehovot, south of Tel Aviv, where he's been offered a job training Israeli police dogs. Amos Ben Harav was among the younger immigrants on the plane. A 19-year-old Boston University student, Ben Harav is transferring to the Technion, Israel's prestigious technical college, to complete his degree in mechanical engineering. Born in Israel, Ben Harav left the country with his parents and moved to Boston before his second birthday. "They moved away from here, but they're proud that I'm moving back," he said. His older brother, who immigrated a year ago and now serves in the Israeli army, showed up at the airport to greet him. Nefesh B'Nefesh says 99 percent of the Jews it has brought to Israel in the past three years have remained here. If true, the program is a raging success. The attrition rate for North American Jews since Israel's founding in 1948 surpasses 30 percent, according to Kahn. But Kahn says the true test for Nefesh B'Nefesh participants will come three years after their arrival, when the $20,000 loan becomes a grant and the immigrants are free to return to the United States without having to pay it back. "Most immigrants who go back tend to do so not necessarily in the first year or two but rather in the first five years," he said. For David Gross, who emigrated from Toronto, the idea of returning seems improbable. "We sold a business, a home, and two cars," said Gross, who owned a restaurant and later worked as a baker. "I think it's safe to say we'll be here for a long time."