December 26, 2007 / 17 Tevet 5768
Dear friends,
At the moment that I'm writing you, 40 new immigrants from Iran are coming down the gangplank from an El Al plane that has just landed at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel.
This is a moving moment, watching the new immigrants from Iran unite with their families in Israel whom they have not seen for many long years. This action, that has taken place in the closing days of the year 2007, boosts the number of olim from Iran who arrived this year to 200 people. This represents a threefold increase in comparison with the previous year during which 65 immigrants from Iran arrived in Israel.
This is a very emotional day for the Jewish people, the State of Israel and for the Jewish Agency that since its establishment 80 years ago, has been in the forefront of the effort to increase immigration to Israel and has stood by Jewish communities in distress throughout the world. This project was facilitated by the cooperation between the Jewish Agency and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews headed by Rabbi Yehiel Eckstein which decided to award special assistance to the immigrants in the amount of $10,000 per capita in addition to the standard absorption basket provided immigrants by the government of Israel. The support is also awarded by the Zionist Federation of Iranian Jews in New York and other bodies who have joined hands to assist the immigration and absorption of Iranian immigrants in Israel.
At a time that Iranian Jews languish under conditions of intensified anti-Semitic phenomena, harassment by government institutions, the closure of schools and a prohibition on studying the Hebrew language, I take satisfaction that the Jewish Agency and its partners are leading this historic measure of immigration from Iran to Israel and the reunification of the immigrants with their families in Israel.
I take this opportunity to thank the leadership and the dedicated workers of the Immigration and Absorption Department and our partners throughout the Jewish world and in Israel who labor jointly with us on behalf of aliyah in general and on behalf of aliyah from countries of distress in particular. Together we will continue lending a hand to every Jew throughout the world.
Sincerely,
Zeev Bielski
zeevik@jafi.org