One-third of latest olim from Russia left after a month

Some 1,800 of the Russian Jews who immigrated to Israel over the last two months since the war began have returned to Russia with their new Israeli passports, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Aliyah and Integration Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata learned the extent of the abandonment over the last week. A senior official in the ministry said the minister “was shocked by the abandonment data,” and cited it as the antithesis of Israel’s generosity toward the Russian olim. The official noted that 5,600 Russian beneficiaries of the Law of Return immigrated to Israel over the past two months as part of Operation: Returning Home. They traveled on flights funded by the Israeli government, received an envelope with cash upon landing, and then took a taxi to a hotel, all fully subsidized by the Israeli taxpayer.

In the same hotel, where most stayed for about a month, a variety of services were offered to them, including banking, social, and medical services, privileges that ordinary immigrants are not entitled to. These olim from Russia were compared to refugees from the devastated Ukraine, and were treated as such.

“The information we received was that Russian Jews feel that the Iron Curtain is expected to come down again, so we decided to allow them these special benefits,” said a senior official in the aliyah ministry. “But when a third of those immigrants take advantage of the kindness of the State of Israel and then leave in order to continue living in Russia, this is a serious problem.”

Tamano-Shata has decided to bring the proffered hotel accommodations to an

an enforced window of opportunity to reflect not only on the worst atrocity that has befallen mankind in general, and the Jewish people specifically, but that those standing silently are doing so in the

reborn Jewish state.

As Prime Minister Naftali Bennett stated in his very dignified address, the biggest threat to Israel today is not necessarily from outside our borders – from Iran, or Hezbollah or Hamas. It’s from within: the deep political chasm tearing the country apart.

This was easy to see at the official memorial ceremony at Yad Vashem on Wednesday night. Bennett and opposition head Benjamin Netanyahu meters away from each other and sullenly staring straight ahead, unable to even look each other in the eye.

Their personal animosity couldn’t be hidden or veiled for an hour, as the chilling, emotional stories of Holocaust survival from the ceremony’s torch lighters unfolded before them.

What does that mean about our future as a country?

Built on the ashes of the victims – but also on the sheer will and bravery of the survivors who arrived here – Israel is an unruly, cacophonous testimony to the unwillingness of Jews to recede into history.

We’ve surmounted untold obstacles in creating this modern miracle – and many more await us in our path. But they can only be met with a unified front that has room in its tent for dissenting views, opposing ideologies, and contrasting visions – while agreeing on the major point that Israel must remain strong, and we can rely only on ourselves for our survival.

The siren on Holocaust Remembrance Day is only two minutes. As inadequate as that may be to try to comprehend the massive loss of Jewish lives, it is enough time to recall the past, bask in the present – and worry about the