24 Tevet, 5763
Jerusalem

Upcoming Events for the Week of 29 December
(Open to Press Coverage)

On Monday, 30 December, Prime Minister will visit a Jewish Agency absorption center in Jerusalem, to highlight this past year's Aliyah. Jewish Agency Chairman Sallai Meridor and Deputy Minister of Absorption Yuli Edelstein will accompany him. Details will be issued in a separate announcement.

Friday-Tuesday, 27 - 31 December

·         Jerusalem, Ramada Renaissance Hotel. The worldwide "Orthodox General Assembly" (OGA). 300 Rabbis, leaders of Jewish organizations and educators will convene for deliberations on the form and content of the Jewish nature of the State of Israel, as well as Israel-Diaspora relationships. The assembly is organized by the WZO's Center for Religious Affairs in the Diaspora.

Sunday, 29 December

·         Jerusalem, Jewish Agency Building, 10:00. Daylong seminar on pre-military preparatory colleges (Mechinot Ha Kdam-Tzvaïot) and the Jewish Agency. Heads of both religious and secular preparatory colleges will participate in deliberations on the integration of new immigrants into these frameworks and future cooperation.

·         Marseille, France. Aliyah celebration for the 300^th immigrant this year to make Aliyah from the Marseille-Nice region. The event will take place in the Consistoire of Marseille with the participation of the Israel consulate.

Sunday-Friday, 29 December - 3 January

·         15 students from the USA and the UK, who serve as on-campus educational program coordinators will participate in weeklong training session to give them public information tools. They will also tour Jewish Agency absorption centers and projects.

Sunday-Thursday, 29 December - 2 January

·         Jerusalem. Jewish Educational Technology Course. Sixty Jewish educators from Israel and abroad will receive training in distance learning via the Internet. The Jewish Agency's Education Department, the Jewish Agency Israel Department's Global Jewish Contact Center, and the Israel-Diaspora Relations Division of the Ministry of Education will conduct this in-service training course.

Monday-Friday, 30 December - 3 January

·         "Master your Future," a pilot tour for Masters degree opportunities in Israel. Fifteen university graduates from Great Britain will visit Israel on a week's four tour to learn about opportunities for obtaining advanced degrees in Israeli institutions of higher education.

Monday-Wednesday, 30 December - 8 January.

·         Kahal L'Kahal Seminar for US Professionals working with Russian Émigrés. The Department of Jewish Zionist Education of the Jewish Agency in New York along with UJA-Federation of New York and the Joint Program for Jewish Education has organized an 11-day traveling seminar in Israel for 20 professionals of Jewish centers in New York, who work with FSU émigrés. After having visited Moscow the participants will visit schools and programs in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem to learn about how Israel integrates FSU immigrants. They will visit absorption centers, educational preparatory programs such as the Sela pre-university program, visit community centers and meet with colleagues in the fields of social work and education. The last three days of the program will be devoted to meetings with Israeli counterparts through Partnership 2000 New York-Jerusalem. The group will be briefed about the current realities facing Israel and participate in various aspects of Israeli life.

Tuesday, 31 December

·         Ma'aleh HaHamisha Guest House, 19:30. The annual Conference of the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS). Three hundred students from throughout the world will convene to discuss the situation of anti-Semitism on campus, the problem of assimilation, and challenges facing Zionist and Jewish education. The participants will meet with their Israeli peers. The conference will be held under the aegis of Jewish Agency Chairman Sallai Meridor.

Wednesday-Thursday, 1 - 2 January

·         A group of children from Moscow, who had been held hostage, will be guests of honor in Israel. Twelve children who had been held hostage during the takeover of the Moscow theatre last October, will visit Israel as guests of the Jewish Agency, El-Al, the Ministry of Tourism and the "Tel-Aviv-Moscow" Non-Profit Organization.

Anticipated Aliyah Statistics for the Coming Week

·         During the coming week 554 immigrants will arrive in Israel. Of these 271 will be from Argentina, 87 from Uruguay, 63 from France, 24 from Russia, 20 from the Central Asian republics of the Former Soviet Union and the southern Caucasus, and the remainder from the USA, South Africa, UK, Italy and elsewhere.

Landmarks in the History of Zionism, Israel and the Jewish People

·         29 December 1901. The Jewish National Fund was established.

·         3 January 1919. Paris. Chaim Weizmann and the Emir Feisal signed an agreement for developing Palestine and the Arab state.

·         4 January 1985. Operation Moses, the rescue operation, which brought Ethiopian immigrants to Israel. Later, during Operation Solomon, in 1991, 15,000 Ethiopians were evacuated to Israel in 36 hours. Today the Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel numbers approximately 80,000.