The plight of Argentine Jews hammered by the collapse of their country\’s economy was forcefully brought home to a contingent of Los Angeles Jews this month.
Nearly 400 North American Jews — 150 under the age of 12 — who made aliyah in what is believed to be the largest group of North Americans to immigrate at one time to Israel.
Los Angeles has just bid farewell to one of its most acclaimed and popular Torah teachers.
The conscience of the Jewish state has spoken through the recent landmark ruling of Israel\’s Supreme Court. It has taken an important step toward removing the pariah stigma from tens of thousands of Jews who converted to Judaism by the rabbinic authority of non-Orthodox rabbis, but ignored by the Jewish state.
Here\’s my suggestion for a new definition for aliyah — anytime a Jew takes it upon him or herself to travel to Israel, for a week, a month, a year or a lifetime, it should be considered the fulfillment of a mitzvah, an obligation to God and to the Jewish People.
Natan Sharansky, Israel\’s interior minister, said he empathizes with the suffering of the 18,000 Ethiopians who have gathered at dusty transit camps, and he promised to streamline the process of applying for immigration to Israel.
The old-time Zionist religion had it that the only good Diaspora Jew was the one who made aliyah and settled in the ancestral land.
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