Comments (0)Go North, $10 Million Aliyah Project Urges
December 11, 2008New York
JTA Wire Service
A $10 million initiative urging Jews to immigrate to Israel’s North was launched.
Nefesh B’Nefesh, a nonprofit that provides incentives to Anglo-Jews to make aliyah, will work with the New Jersey-based Russell Berrie Foundation to help more than 1,000 Jews make the move over the next three years, the organizations announced Monday. The project also will be funded in part by Israeli philanthropists and the nation’s government.
According to Nefesh B’Nefesh, the groups will provide grants of up to $25,000 to make the move, as well as subsidies for transportation or car purchases, employment services and help with social networking.
It is a strategic project, Nefesh B’Nefesh and Israeli government officials say.
“The Ministry for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee sees the absorption of olim from Western countries in Israel’s Northern region as a top priority in order to strengthen the existing population and bring an added vibrancy to the this beautiful area,” said Yaakov Edry, Israel’s minister of the Development of the Negev and Galilee.
“The ministry will do all that is in its power to ensure these pioneer olim will integrate and acclimate in the best possible way. We allocated extensive resources to make sure they have a high quality of life, good education and can easily find jobs,” he said. “This is a vital endeavor, today more than ever.”
Supplies Enter Gaza as Livni Calls for Deterrence
Israel allowed supplies into the Gaza Strip as its foreign minister said Palestinian rockets should be met with something stronger than a blockade.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the border crossings between Israel and the Gaza Strip opened Tuesday to allow 70 trucks of food and medical supplies, as well as cooking gas, into the terrorist Hamas-controlled territory. International journalists also were allowed to enter.
Following the lifting of the blockade, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told a Tel Aviv University conference that blockading Gaza was not an effective deterrent to Palestinian gunfire and that a military response to every rocket was warranted.
“We are living in an area where image has meaning, and when the image is weakened, that harms Israel’s deterrence capability,” Livni said.
Likud Eschews Centrist Candidates
The Likud Party chose hard-liners over more moderate candidates in a vote to elect the opposition party’s Knesset list.
Two of party leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s favorites—moderates Benny Begin, a former Likud lawmaker, and Moshe Ya’alon, a former army chief—made the top 10 in Monday’s primary.
Far-right candidate Moshe Feiglin, who Netanyahu worked hard to marginalize in an attempt to make the party look more centrist, took the 20th slot, likely ensuring the Jewish Leadership movement leader a Knesset seat.
Polls show the Likud likely to win about 35 seats in the next Knesset. National elections are scheduled for Feb. 10.
The party primary voting hours were extended to 1 a.m. Tuesday due to problems with the computerized voting system.
Meanwhile, the public council of the Habayit Hayehudi Party, which was formed when four religious parties joined together, chose its leader Tuesday.
Rabbi Danny Hershkowitz, a Beersheva professor and the head of the academic faculty and a mathematician at the Technion, will lead the party. Supporters had urged the council to choose a more well-known candidate as leader of a party that includes the National Union and National Religious parties.
This story reprinted courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.