Despite what you may think, now is the precise moment when we have to call upon the time to call upon Jews around the world and tell them: Come home; make aliyah.
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Despite our almost instinctive inclination to link aliyah with resurgent antisemitism in areas where there is a large Jewish population, this time the impetus to make aliyah must be different.
This time, we should not make a pitch about how it's inherently safer here, or less secure where you are; sometimes that's true, and sometimes, as you and we both know, it's the opposite.
This time around, we have to tell them the following: "Come to Israel because it's the land of your destiny; it isn't just safe haven. Come here to help us make Israel a better and safer place. Come here because, despite all the challenges and hardships, you can live as Jews, look like Jews, dress as Jews, and take pride in being Jewish without hiding, fearing, or being forced to assimilate"
We should tell them they should come not necessarily because it's bad where they are currently living; rather, they should come to help us build something better and more diverse here, and to help us collectively address the threat that has been clearly made by the Arabs of the Land of Israel and our enemies to transform the State of Israel from a nation-state of the Jewish people into a "state of all its citizens." This way, we can preserve the Jewish majority here, and perhaps even expand it.
The State of Israel must now offer Jews around the world to come here and be partners in shaping its values and internal identity. This also includes a significant shift in how the establishment relates to non-Orthodox streams as part of the post-war political restructuring. This won't be done clandestinely so as to bypass the religious and ultra-Orthodox parties but with them. We all need to learn to talk to each other.
The wave of aliyah that we are likely to see now – there are already early signs of it – is a good opportunity to recall that even before this land became a haven for refugees from hatred and persecution, it was a land of our destiny; that we might be here today because of our strength, but even before that, because of an inherent right; that security is an essential means like no other, but only a tool to exercise the right to live specifically here, and that "here" is not just limited to the place of birth.
The State of Israel arose from the past; without the religious-cultural and historical-national context that relies on Jewish religion and heritage, it has no right to exist specifically here.
This is the justification for our life in the Land of Israel and the State of Israel, and it is also the justification for calling upon Jews worldwide to come to the Land of Israel and participate in our great and fragile miracle.
When Ethiopian Jews arrived in Israel during Operation Solomon more than 30 years ago, then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir waited on the tarmac and asked one of the girls who had greeted him what her name was. She replied, through an interpreter, "Jerusalem." Shamir didn't hide his amazement and asked again, "Is that your name?" And she repeated, "Jerusalem." Jews in prosperous countries, our generation, don't have a similar tradition, but they also know that the clear realization of Zionism is in Zion. We need them no less than they need us. Here. With us.
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