By: Laurina Driesse

This year witnessed a massive surge in Jewish immigration to Israel, and the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem responded with a banner year for our Aliyah and Integration efforts, as we have assisted over 5,000 Jews in making Israel their new home in 2022.

Thanks to your generous support, the Christian Embassy was once again a key player in the return of Jewish families to their ancestral homeland! Largely due to the brutal war in Ukraine and the economic and political uncertainty in Russia, latest figures show that well over 65,000 Jews have made Aliyah this year, with some 80% coming from the former Soviet republics. This is nearly double the number of Jewish immigrants to Israel in recent years.

With our latest Aliyah and Integration efforts, the ICEJ has now assisted more than 167,000 olim (newcomers) to Israel since our founding in 1980.

Let’s take a look at what we have accomplished together just this year!

Our Aliyah support for 2022 included pre-Aliyah assistance (sponsoring Aliyah camps and seminars), plus bus transportation, accommodations enroute, and flights for 3,982 Jewish immigrants. Among them were 1,092 Ukrainian Jews desperate to escape their war-torn cities.

This included 190 Holocaust survivors plus an additional 100 frail elderly Jews who were all rescued from Ukraine and provided special accommodations, transport and medical care along the way to Israel. Our staff were privileged to welcome 17 of these Holocaust survivors from Ukraine into the ICEJ’s unique assisted-living home in Haifa.

Early in the Ukraine refugee crisis, the ICEJ’s Finnish branch delivered two truckloads (30 cubic meters) containing 17,000 humanitarian aid items, weighing 2.5 tons, to Poland for dispersal among needy Jewish families suddenly uprooted from their homes.

In the midst of the crisis, the Jewish Agency established an Aliyah assistance hotline so people could access urgent Aliyah information. A flood of calls was not long in coming. The emergency hotline took a total of 152,162 calls. At one point, in order to assure that desperate people received the information they needed immediately, our own hotline for Holocaust survivors stepped in to help answer calls when Jewish Agency representatives could not answer immediately. It was an honor to be on the front lines making sure that no call was left unanswered.  

But this is not all.

In addition, our support extended to ensuring that new arrivals landed softly in their homeland and integrated as smoothly and quickly as possible into Israeli society. Through the ICEJ’s integration programs this year, we assisted approximately 1,551 new immigrants, including:

>  79 immigrants from the FSU received assistance with professional recertification. Sixteen of these immigrants included doctors and 34 received vocational training in the hi-tech industry in Beersheva.

>  23 Ethiopian students (ages 18-35), each with at least 8-to-11 years of schooling, were sponsored by the ICEJ to join a special 9-month course that enabled them to complete their high school studies. We know this essential educational foundation will open doors of opportunity for them in Israel.

>  20 Ethiopian arrivals participated in after-school educational program for Ethiopian children.

>  30 Immigrants from the FSU received nursing recertification so they can practice their profession in Israel.  

>  70 Immigrants from the FSU were assisted with doctor recertification/education tract in Haifa. This included 17 nurses and 13 family members.

>  10 Ukrainian teens who arrived in Israel without their parents participated in a six-month integration program which gave them accommodations and included Hebrew lessons, seminars and army preparation.

>  20 Homes were furnished for new immigrants arriving from Ukraine, which impacted an estimated 60 immigrants.

>  490 welcome packs were given out to new olim. These welcome packs benefited 252 immigrants from the FSU and 728 immigrants from Ukraine who had to begin anew, having left all behind.

>  Some 200 immigrants from various nations were assisted through a special mentoring program that provides practical guidance to immigrants adjusting to life in Israel or helps those who fell into difficult circumstances. (50 families were helped with an average of four people per family.)

>  29 Ukrainian immigrant families received subsidized dental treatment.

>  50 FSU immigrant families were helped with their accommodation in Israel for their first two weeks, and provided with household and electrical appliances, as well as linen and bedding.

Support also was given to Lana, a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant and single mother who went through an arduous journey to reach Israel with only her cat and a backpack. Two weeks after arriving in Israel, she had a job and things were looking up. However, after just three days on the job, she was run over by an electric bicyclist and broke both her legs. The ICEJ assisted her towards food, medical and living expenses.

Meanwhile, the ICEJ Homecare team also crisscrossed Israel this year bringing love and comfort to those in their care. Homecare nurse Corrie van Maanen visits 10 to 15 families each week and, in addition, she visits another 100 people twice a year at the holidays to bring special Passover and Rosh HaShana gifts to many Jewish immigrants who are now elderly and lonely or have special needs. A trusted relationship has been built up over more than 25 years and the visits are so appreciated by all in Corrie’s care.

Know that your support toward the work of Aliyah and Integration is making a huge life-changing difference in helping Jews from around the world return home to Israel and in assisting them to settle in their Land. The surge in Aliyah is expected to continue well into 2023, so please keep supporting the ICEJ’s Aliyah efforts by donating at: give.icej.org/aliyah