Israel – Israeli authorities say 16,200 Jews moved to the country in 2009, the first yearly increase in a decade.
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The quasi-governmental Jewish Agency handles immigration to Israel. In a statement, it said in 2008, almost 14,000 Jews came to live in Israel.
The statement said 7,120 immigrants came from the former Soviet Union this year, and 5,300 came from English-speaking countries. Both increased over 2008.
The overall number of new arrivals has been dropping since immigration from the former Soviet Union peaked in the 1990s. Sunday’s statement said a total of 221,000 Jews immigrated over the past decade.
Israel offers automatic citizenship to Jews who move there. About 80 percent of the nation’s 7 million residents are Jewish. Most of the rest are Arabs.
They should better b careful not to have the same end like the yamenite jews
And they are still freezing the construction?…
How many of the immigrants from the former Soviet Union were actually Jews? We have been buying ourselves trouble on this issue for a long time, and it’s begun to surface in such problems as debates over conversion, anti-Semitism in Israel itself, and increased rates of alcoholism. While I can understand why someone would want to leave Russian, why should they be covered under the Law of Return unless they are actually Jewish (at least by someone’s definition) and identify as such.
Ye… hope they won’t bo disappointed when they hear the X-mas songs on the national radio, and find X-mas trees in public places. I am… 🙁
Russian non Jews were admitted because they would vote for the socialist, non religious parties. It was a political decision.