Unpleasant fact
Your October 13 editorial “User-friendly aliya” is a mixture of reality with some fantasy.
Reality: “Israel’s future depends on its single most important resource, its citizens...” and to encourage aliya, the government must “allocate the resources” to assist immigrants’ integration into a new life in Israel. Fantasy: “Today, Jews immigrate to Israel not just out of idealism or because they seek refuge from persecution, but because they know they can improve their standard of living and their professional options.”
Regarding the latter, I don’t know to whom the editorial writer is referring.
What is producing the current wave of French aliya is the increasing rise of antisemitism and victimization at the hands of resident antisemites, Muslim and others. As the age-old sickness becomes more prominent, small numbers of Jews have realized the danger and left homes, businesses, professions, friends and family.
Anyone observing the flow of migration sees that it is Israelis leaving their homeland to raise their living standard and seeking professional opportunities, which are limited in number here. For example, we lose scientists who move on to laboratories in the US, frustrated that insufficient funds are budgeted to offer them the proper facilities in Israel.
It is a very unpleasant fact (not disclosed in the editorial) that substantial numbers of immigrants (and, one might add, native Israelis) leave, having lost the battle to the lack of affordable housing, the unreasonably high cost of living, low salaries, a lack of success in finding a job in their profession, and overcoming the obstacles to getting professionally licensed.
Attracting and retaining the best and the brightest needs to be a cardinal goal for every Israeli leader. It is not practiced by our politicians, who, being more concerned with elections and coalitions, are not courageous enough to take on vested interests, which is the only way to make life more livable for those hoping to make a life here, both immigrant and native-born. BERNARD SMITH Jerusalem