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Jerusalem-There is a potential for 100,000 American Jews to immigrate to Israel over the next 10 to15 years, a former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. said on Friday. Such an influx would have a positive impact on the economy and political system here as well as on the already close Israeli-U.S. ties, Ambassador Danny Ayalon told Cybercast News Service. Ayalon, who was ambassador to Washington from 2002-2006, is now co-chairman of Nefesh B'Nefesh (NBN), an organization founded in the U.S. in 2002 to help North American (and later British) Jews immigrate to Israel.The quasi-governmental organization responsible for immigration, the Jewish Agency, credits NBN with boosting the number of North Americans coming to the country in the last six years.According to preliminary statistics released on Thursday by NBN, an estimated 19,330 Jews have immigrated to Israel this year. That is down from 21,305 last year.The 2007 number marks the lowest immigration to Israel since 1988, before Jews were allowed to leave the former Soviet Union. Some 900,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union have immigrated to Israel since 1990.The numbers from North America are much smaller than those form the former Soviet states, but they have been growing steadily since 2002.This year nearly 3,200 North American Jews - about the same as last year -- are expected to immigrate to Israel, including nearly 200 who will arrive on an NBN charter flight next week.Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has relied on immigration of Jews from around the world to augment its population. Since then, some 3 million Jews have moved to the country.According to Israeli law, every Jew in the world is allowed to become a citizen of Israel, provided he or she does not pose a security or health threat to the nation.The issue of demographics has played an important role in Israeli politics during the last few years. Because the Jewish birthrate is generally lower than that of the Palestinians, many Israelis on the political left believe that Israel must remove Jewish communities from the West Bank (land many Jews believe God promised as an eternal inheritance in the Bible) in order to make way for a Palestinian State and retain the Jewish character of Israel.Others say the demographic argument is a propaganda tool.The Jewish community in the United States is the largest in the world outside of Israel, with about 7 million Jews. It is only natural to try to tap into that reservoir, said Ayalon. (France has the third largest Jewish population in the world at around 500,000.)"There is a potential of about 100,000 Jews who would like to [immigrate] because of family ties, ideology and connection to the land of Israel," Ayalon said.Still, 100,000 immigrants is only about 1.5 percent of the total of American Jews. Ayalon said that American Jews (and Americans in general) are used to a high standard of living. "American Jews are very comfortable in America. They feel American first and Jewish later," he said. It takes a bold step for them to move to Israel, he added.Israel provides a certain minimal amount of help and benefits, including free Hebrew classes to new immigrants. But the red tape and financial burden can often be daunting.NBN provides generous grants to Jews wanting to immigrate to Israel from the U.S. and Canada as well as assistance in finding a job and navigating through the Israeli bureaucracy.NBN maximizes the potential of immigration for Western Jews, Ayalon said.Ayalon said American emigration to Israel strengthens the kinship between Israel and the U.S. and would also help to build a "human bridge" between the two "natural allies" that share "common values."Among the benefits for Israel, he said, would be a greater impact on the "political culture."In the last few years Israel's political system has been shaken by numerous corruption investigations into its leaders and lawmakers. Many Israelis agree that the political system needs an overhaul, but it won't happen from the inside out.The political system here won't change overnight, Ayalon said. It will only change as a result of a grassroots effort, and the more Americans that come here and get involved in that effort, the better, he said.As in the days of Noah....
