Israel rolled out the red carpet at Ben Gurion Airport yesterday afternoon for the 240 new North American olim who arrived on the special “Kadima Aliya” El Al flight from New York.
Wearing the blue T-shirts emblazoned with the words, “I made aliya on El Al” given them upon departure, the new Israelis descended from the 747 jet to the strains of “Hayvaynu Shalom Aleichem,” played by the youth aliya orchestra of Haifa. ‘
In the official welcoming ceremony that followed, Deputy Premier David Levy urged the olim to “make your contribution like those who came before you,” a sentiment also expressed by Elaine Kapp, chairman of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel (AACI). “The land,” Levy continued, “is not only for those who are already here but for those who are coming new and in the future.”
THE FORERUNNER OF MASS ALIYA
He later told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he hopes this planeload — the largest contingent of North American olim ever to arrive on one flight — would be the forerunner of mass aliya. When asked what factors would bring this about, he replied, “Freedom, education and homes.”
Rafael Kotlowitz, head of the Jewish Agency aliya department, told the olim that there had been a surge of aliya from the West since 1973. He called for a program of public rental housing to meet the immigrants housing problems.
Moshe Schechter, director of the Israel Aliya Center in New York which arranged the special flight to mark the 18 years since its inception, said the Center hopes for 4000 North American olim in 1983. Earlier he informed JTA that the July and August numbers are expected to total 600.
As the exhausted but exhilarated olim mounted buses for the airport buildings, they were each handed a rose, courtesy of the Council for Flowers in Israel. They proceeded to a large room where Na’amat/Pioneer Women served sandwiches and cold drinks as nine AACI volunteers began to “walk them through” the initial part of the absorption process.
NEW YORK LEADS WITH 36 FAMILIES
Sixteen states and two Canadian provinces were represented among the olim on the flight. New York led with 36 families followed by California with 10. Also among them were 30 returning Israel is, the spouses and children of North American olim. Joining them on the plane were 80 participants in the “Mivtza Elef” (Project 1000), a summer work program for people contemplating aliya.
The 117 olim children on the flight, who were remarkably well-behaved, included 20 infants, most of them in bassinets. The youngest oleh was a five-and-a-half week-old boy, Shmuel Dov Feifer, the eight-pound dark haired son of Sharon and Avrum Feifer of Brooklyn.
Also on the flight — and also very well-behaved –were Fred and Renee Schiller’s dog, Lucky (“We’ve changed the name to Mazal,” said the olim from Spring Valley, N. Y.) who slept on their laps, and Annie, the cat, brought along from Flushing, N.Y. by William and Melanie Schoanfield and their three children.
About 40 percent of the olim on the flight consisted of observant people, a percentage typical of current North American aliya, according to Schechter.
FROM OBSERVERS TO PARTNERS
Naftali Lavie, the Israel Consul General in New York, warmly congratulated the olim on graduating from “observers of Israel’s development” to being “partners in the historic endeavor of building a homeland for the Jewish people. “
Fred Schiller, a former president of the North American Aliya movement (Naam), also spoke as he did later, at the airport. In that second ceremony he told how, while in the process of packing, he and his wife came across something greatly treasured. “It was the blue and white Jewish National Fund box used for years by my parents and grandparents” to carry out their Zionist commitment. “We are following in that tradition, ” he said.
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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.
