Harry and Adriane Kozlovsky believe that Israel at war is a safer place to be Jewish than the United States.
That’s the primary reason this Orthodox Jewish couple from Pikesville have become newly minted citizens of Israel.
Jewish Agency for Israel data shows that immigration to Israel from several countries has increased since Oct. 7, Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration said, according to The Jerusalem Post. This includes more than a 100% increase in the opening of immigration case files in the United States.
Some Baltimoreans have been among these Americans immigrating to Israel, including former Greenspring resident Michal Shapiro and former Temple Adas Shalom Rabbi John Franken.
For Harry and Adriane Kozlovsky, who landed in Israel last month, their decision to make aliyah was years in the making, but the war with Hamas hastened their permanent move to Efrat, near Jerusalem.
Harry Kozlovsky, 66, said that antisemitism in the U.S. has become untenable. “With what we’re witnessing from our politicians, from our media and the rhetoric, purposely incorrect statements against the state of Israel, the lack of knowledge of history, it requires all of us to self-evaluate where the future of Jewish people will be.”
The couple are longtime members of Ner Tamid. At age 16, in 1973, Harry Kozlovsky was there on Yom Kippur when he heard of the surprise attack and feared the end of Israel. Fifty years later, he was again at Ner Tamid when he heard of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
The attack shined a light on the problem of antisemitism in America. “The band-aid came off the wound after Oct. 7, and the whole world could see how antisemitic we’ve allowed the U.S. to become again, through universities, through politicians, and there’s almost no pushback,” he said.
Harry Kozlovsky, who is the child of two Holocaust survivors, believes that “we must continue to not only educate, but also call out all those in politics and the media that espouse the destruction of Israel and our people.”
Harry Kozlovsky is a senior director for the U.S. subsidiary of Nayax, an Israel-based cashless technology company. Adriane Kozlovsky, 65, is a registered dietitian who works remotely. Both will continue to work their jobs remotely from Israel.
Harry Kozlovsky has served on various boards of the Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore. He also served on the JCC of Greater Baltimore board for 16 years and helped start the Yeshivat Rambam Maimonides Academy in Baltimore in 1991. Their children attended there.
Their son and daughter-in-law now live in the Haredi community of Modiin.
Harry Kozlovsky said their son and some of his friends started doing barbecues for Israeli soldiers near the Gaza border two weeks into the Israel-Hamas war. They have since fed more than 10,000 soldiers. Harry Kozlovsky said he plans on volunteering with this.
“It brings ruach and camaraderie at the most needed times,” he said of these volunteering efforts.
Kozlovsky called Oct. 7 “a tragic failure of the Israel government, but it has exposed the butchery of the enemies of Israel. I hope the government does not cave in, gets as many of the hostages back and destroys as much of Hamas as possible.”
To those Jews who remain in the U.S., he advises “that if you care about the history of the Jewish people, if you care about what happened in the Holocaust and you want to see this tragedy, this travesty that’s been going on since Oct. 7 and what’s been uncovered, you must educate, you must be on the front lines. You must put pressure on the politicians and the media. This Oct. 7 was a wake-up call to all the Jews in America and all over the world that history repeats itself.”
Adriane Kozlovsky said the time was right to make aliyah. She and her husband had missed too many milestones with their grandchildren in Israel. The oldest boy is now 7.
“We have a lot of very close family in Israel, and I’m a very strong believer that God really paved the way,” she said. “Now is the time to go with everything going on the States. It seemed now is the time to come to the place where you call home, where you feel as part of a big family and everyone here is for the same goal.”
