Page 24 - Issue 21

Israel passed the Law of Return in 1950, two years
after its founding as a state. It states that Jews
around the world have the right to immigrate to
Israel. It was amended in 1970 to include non-
Jewish family members, so as not to break up
families and to aid those who face persecution due
to their Jewish roots.

Before the founding of the state, the Zionist
movement coordinated waves of aliyah, including
when legal Jewish immigration was restricted
under the British Mandate during and after World
War Two. Since Israel’s founding, successive waves
of aliyah have arrived. In the 1950s, there was an
influx of Jews displaced by the Holocaust and by
turmoil across the Middle East and North Africa. In
the 1980s and 1990s, hundreds of thousands of
Jews from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia
immigrated to Israel.

Today, Israel has the highest proportion of
immigrants of any country in the world, as one
third of Israelis are themselves immigrants, and
another third are the immediate offspring of
immigrants.

“The States is going a bit haywire right now”

Before deciding to make aliyah, Tamura worked for
two years managing Habonim Dror North America
Workshop, the longest-running gap year program
in Israel.

“Covid threatened our ability to run that program,
and it was still really important to run it and sign up
kids,” she said. “There hasn't been a year when