The first group of 90 American Jews will soon depart for Israel under the coordination and guidance of the Student Mobilization for Israel (SMI). The goal of SMI is “to change the nature of aliya from a personal choice to a community obligation,” Barry Topf told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an interview during a reception held for the group several days ago at 515 Park Avenue. Topf is a new immigrant and the director of the SMI’s Jerusalem branch which will open July 17 under the auspices of the Jewish Agency’s Aliya Department.
Yehoshua Yadlin, director of the Aliya Department of the Jewish Agency in the United States, in a short address to the gathering, echoed Topf’s sentiments. He remarked, “to decide to make aliya, it is not necessary to ask what you can do for Israel: rather see what Israel can offer you–a challenge, a feeling of being needed, motivation or a personal identity.” All the prospective olim interviewed by the JTA concurred in their reasons for making aliya. They expressed the similar belief that they could only lead a “meaningful, inspiring and rewarding life” in Israel.
Marc Schulman, the founder and chairman of the SMI, is a 20-year-old New Yorker and graduate of Columbia University. He leaves for Israel July 10 and until his November induction in the Israeli army will assist other olim in the SMI center in Jerusalem, When asked to explain his decision to make aliya, he replied: “There are two reasons, ideological and personal. Ideologically, I believe that the only place for a Jew to live is in Israel; personally, I love the country and could not live any place else.”
Sam Marcus, a 21-year-old New Yorker and graduate of City College of New York, has already lived in Israel one year attending Yeshiva Hakotel. He returned for a visit with his family before his entrance into the army. He stated, in response to why he chose to make aliya: “During my junior year abroad at the yeshiva, I definitely decided that I prefer to help build and work for a Jewish country rather than an American one.” He added, “My reasons are purely emotional, not religious.”
FULL JEWISH LIFE IN ISRAEL
A fifty-year-old widow and mother of two daughters, one 16 and the other 26, who has been residing in Israel for the past two years, one of the few adult members of the group, confronts her more difficult problem of adjustment realistically and happily. The widow, who asked that her name be withheld, said; “I want to live in Israel no matter how hard it is for me to adjust to the new way of life, I love the feeling of being among my own people and belonging to the land.”
When asked how she expected to resolve the more practical aspects of resettlement, such as the financial, she replied, “I work in New York; why can’t I work just as well in Israel.” Another major factor in her choice to go on aliya is, as she expressed it, “I want my daughter to grow up there. It is an incomparably better life than one she can have in New York.”
Her 16-year-old daughter explained that she hopes to attend Hebrew University, complete a degree in psychology and then enter the army. In answer to the questions who, her mother or her, had to urge whom to make aliya, she said, “neither of us needed to influence the other. We both wanted this equally.” She added that her personal reason for wanting to go on aliya is. “I don’t think that a Jew can live a full life any place else in the world.”
The SMI was created in reaction to Yasir Arafat’s appearance at the United Nations and Gen. George S. Brown’s anti-Semitic statements in November 1974. The SMI’s only precept is “activism,” both through political means and the promotion and encouragement of aliya, prospective olim and SMI members stated, Sharon Fridman, member of SMI executive board and N.Y. alternate representative to the national board, explained that the reception “represented a gesture of congratulations and a sign that these new olim have the security of a group behind them.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
