Why leave the UK for this? by Dominic Casciani BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk August 16, 2006 Emigration is a life-changing experience - but for British Jews who move to Israel it can also fulfil a religious and cultural dream. So how do they feel about moving to what the rest of the world regards as a war zone? Sharon Saltoun hugs her parents, Shoshi and Ischeskel, and smiles. Shoshi holds back tears - those happy tears tinged with sadness that parents shed as children fly the nest. "We'll take good care of her," says the rep from Nefesh B'Nefesh, the organisation taking a coach load of British Jews to Heathrow Airport to embark on a new life in Israel. She is one of 145 Britons to charter an El Al plane to collectively complete a personal journey to "make Aliyah", or emigrate, to Israel. Their landing at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv on Wednesday will be co-ordinated with two similar flights from Canada and the United States. The 800 passengers make up one of the largest single days of emigration from the West that Israel has experienced in recent years. Aliyah, which literally means "going up", is not new; Israel has famously brought in a million Russian and 22,000 Ethiopian Jews, with varying degrees of success in terms of their ability to integrate. But it is only thanks to the lowering of costs - particularly in air travel and resettlement - that a viable market in "returning" to Israel has grown. And it's the dream of being an Oleh hadach - new immigrant - that Londoner Sharon Saltoun, 25, is following. "I'm going home," says British-born Sharon. "It's a place that I have wanted to go for many years. My mother is Israeli and our family have survived there for many years in difficult times. But I am also going for the good times." Homeward bound So what makes someone want to do it? In Sharon's case, she wants to be part of the Jewish nation, something personally important to her - although she adds that she'll probably miss Britain's diversity. She's been making increasingly longer trips to the country and doing voluntary work in the emergency services. She now feels it's the right time to make the leap, and hopes to work in IT. Nefesh B'Nefesh (NBN) is the Israeli organisation behind this wave of emigrations from the UK. The five-year-old body's name loosely translates as "soul by soul" and it encourages Jews from North America and now the UK to emigrate. By the end of 2006 it will have helped to create 10,000 new Israeli citizens, something that happens the moment they step onto the soil. The organisation works closely with the government, and during flights the business class cabin usually turns into a flying bureaucracy as Absorption Ministry officials and others rubber-stamp passengers' papers. "This is a historic yearning," says Charley Levine, spokesman for NBN and a former Texan. "These people are already down the road idealistically and we are there to help them. "Many of them are religiously-natured but others have a different motivation. To say you are a Jew because of your religion is not the whole story. You are part of a people with a shared history and culture. It's the story of a Jewish civilisation to want to return to Israel." Disputed land That historic yearning also has a political purpose. Israel needs emigres from the West to strategically strengthen its links with the countries that most support it. Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon once said he wanted most of the world's Jews in Israel by 2020. In contrast, critics of Israel note that the campaign for a "right to return" for Palestinian families who lived inside Israel's borders prior to 1948 is one of the conflict's running sores, and the arrival of emigres has often been associated with the building of controversial settlements in areas claimed by the Palestinians. Mr Levine says that all emigrants harbour doubts about that conflict - not least in the current crisis. But most regard their movement as a "triumph of history over headlines". It's a view shared by Londoners Albert and Rebecca Aminoff, whose children Talia, two, and Aaron, three months, comprise the youngest departing family. "We have always wanted to go," says Rebecca. "We even talked about it on our first date. "I know we have our Jewish community here but Israel, its environment is much larger. I don't want people to think that I am some kind of religious zealot, because I'm not, but Israel has kedushah - a holiness of the soil - that makes me feel closer to God." Does she not worry about being caught up in any future conflicts? "I'm a mother, I worry about my children all the time but we are not stupid, we are not going to live in one of the trouble spots. "We took a long time to work out that we would be going and talked about it a lot. We believe that this is our country we are going to and that gives us protection. I could get on the Tube tomorrow here in London and the risks are the same." Is Albert concerned that his baby boy will probably one day be required to pull on an army uniform? "No, I haven't thought about it in those terms," he says. "It's years away and things can change." Warm welcome Aaron Bernstein, his wife Nechama and their seven-month-old Yitzchok, have already made the psychological leap past security concerns. "We've made some long trips and have generally been more there than here so the time is right," says Aaron, who hopes to be a rabbi. "Nowhere is safe when you think about it. God brings us into this world and will take us from it when he sees the time is right." As the group's bus readies to depart from a sleepy cul-de-sac in Hendon, the atmosphere palpably lifts to one of overwhelming excitement. Walter Bingham, who is covering the journey for Israeli National Radio and is a recent emigrant himself, having left the UK two years earlier, says nothing compares to the reception on arrival. "People are wonderful to you," he says. "You're not a 'bloody immigrant' - none of that talk you get here in England. You're someone coming home who hears: 'Baruch haba! Welcome here!"