Open door policy

December 29, 2010 - 9:28 AM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, News 

New immigrants arrive on a Nefesh B'Nefesh flight.

I thought it was beginning to feel more crowded here. Two recent statistical reports help explain why.

2010 saw record-breaking tourism to Israel as well as a 16% rise in the rate of immigration to the country. Good news indeed, unless you’re stuck in a traffic jam on the Ayalon Freeway wondering where all these people came from.

And even then, you’d have be a pretty major Scrooge to complain. After all, it’s why Israel’s here, isn’t it? More than 19,000 people move to the country in 2010, well up from 2009, according to the Immigrant Absorption Ministry and the Jewish Agency for Israel reported jointly on Tuesday.

And the surprise is that they’re coming at a younger age – an average of just below 30 – and many are coming from Western countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Switzerland. According to Ruth Eglash’s story on the report in The Jerusalem Post, the largest group of immigrants – 40% – still came from the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Germany, with 7,700 people.

Other immigrants came from as widespread locations as Malta, Japan and Rwanda, China, Monaco, Japan, Hong Kong, Honduras, and Malawi.

South American countries showed the biggest leap in immigration with Jews from the troubled community in Venezuela increasing their numbers by 280%, from 38 people in 2009 to 150 people in 2010. As far as English-speaking immigrants, a total of 3,980 olim arrived here from North America, an increase of 6% over the previous year’s 3,767; from the UK there was a drop, 760 people made aliya compared to 853 in 2009; and 1,470 South African olim arrived in Israel this year, an increase of 8% from 2009’s 1,233.

While it’s the Jews making aliya, it’s the non-Jews who are bolstering the number of tourists to the country. 69% of all incoming tourists in 2010 were Christian, 23% were Jewish, and the remainder either from other religions or with no religious affiliation.

According to Tourism Ministry figures, 38% of the visitors defined the purpose of their trip as pilgrimage, 15% said it was for a holiday and leisure and 13% for touring and sight-seeing. A total of 69% of visitors defined the purpose of their trip as tourism.

The most visited sites included the Western Wall (77%), the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem (73%), the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (61%), the Via Dolorosa (60%) and the Mount of Olives (55%).

Tourism Minister Stas Meseznikov said that the satisfaction level of tourists visiting Israel was also very good, with the country as a whole scoring 4.3 out of 5 in service satisfaction surveys conducted by the ministry.

The big victory will be seen if this year’s new immigrants to the country also give 4.3 scores on their absorption process. Welcome, new countrymen and tourists alike! Just watch out for the Ayalon during rush hour.

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Foto Friday – Nigeria-Tel Aviv

August 28, 2009 - 12:33 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, coexistence, Food, Foto Friday, General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Movies, Music, Travel 

Nigerian festival 4The Embassy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria celebrated the Tel Aviv Centennial this week with a festival of arts, culture and cuisine. The festivities, which will culminate on Sunday, included Nigerian gourmet meals prepared under the direction of Chef Charlie Fadida, executive chef of the Tel Aviv Sheraton hotel, together with the dynamic Janet Olisa, wife of the Nigerian Ambassador and a team of Nigerian culinary experts. This came in addition to performances, at the annual Jaffa Nights festival, of traditional African music, song and dance performed by troupes from Nigeria.

Nigerian festival

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Victor_Politi_3The festival also included the opening of a photography exhibition, “Nigeria Through the Eyes of A Passerby”, by Victor Politis. An award-winning photographer and entrepreneur, Politis is founder and CEO of PRI, an international project development and financial advisory company with a focus on emerging markets. His business travels have also afforded him the opportunity to explore his passion for photography and documenting an ever- globalizing world. More about Politis can be found here.

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The Nigerian Festival Week includes a film festival featuring the best of “Nollywood“. The Nigerian movie industry, it transpires, is the third largest in the world in terms of number of films produced annually. I did not know that! The festival is held under the auspices of the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, the Nigerian Friendship Association and other organizations from Israel and overseas.

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Aliyah deals

June 13, 2008 - 4:04 PM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: General, Israeliness, Travel 

Just read this week that the Absorption Ministry and El Al are offering special benefits to Israelis living abroad who move back to Israel during this 60th anniversary year. The ‘yordim’ who become ‘olim’ will be charged a flat rate airfare by El Al from any destination, and will be allowed extra baggage, a discount on shipping their belongings, as well as tax breaks for ten years, help finding work and programs for returning doctors, scientists and other researchers.
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Sweet deal. I didn’t even get a free ticket when I made aliyah. Granted, snafu of my own, but this could be the opportunity to fix things. Now, my husband has been angling for a flat screen TV, and was thinking of asking friends of friends of friends who are making aliyah this summer to leave some space on their lift for a TV for us, as well as some lawn furniture. Forget the Americans; we need to find ourselves some real, returning Israelis. So anyone out there, let us know! And we’ll be happy to have you for dinner once you get here.

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