December 30, 2009

By James Becks

It now seems that the aliyah, or the emigration of Jews to Eretz Israel, is on the increase. In fact, the number of Brits making their way from the UK to Israel has increased by a huge 34 percent. This is the largest increase in new emigrants heading to Israel in 2009.

The Jewish Agency for Israel has announced a global increase of about 17 percent overall. The largest number of new emigrants was 3,767 from the United States and Canada. However, there were 835 British citizens that made this journey, which does show the largest increase in emigration volume.

Natan Sharansky, the Jewish Agency chairman, said that every new emigrant strengthens the country and is a strategic asset to all of Israel. A spokesman for the Jewish Agency, Michael Jankelowitz, said that he thinks that British Jews have a really strong Jewish consciousness. He also thinks that they are making a concerted effort in Britain to encourage people to take the plunge and move to Israel.

Of course, Michael Jankelowitz also added that, interestingly, what he thinks that they are seeing in the figures is that most emigrants are coming from the free world and democratic countries. These are people that are not running away from anything. These are people that are choosing this life, because they prefer to live in Israel. This is something that they all find very encouraging.

Experts are not sure why there has been such a big increase in the number of people that are leaving their homes and heading to Israel. However, no matter what the reason, there has been a 17 percent global increase in people making the trip.