Aliyah is already expected to reach record highs in Israel next year, with an estimated 30,000 new immigrants set to arrive to the country.
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein who helped break the Jewish Agencies’ monopoly on Aliyah, and was one of the original funders of Nefesh B’Nefesh, is now taking his knowledge and the backing of his organization to focus on doubling if not tripling the rate of Aliyah from a host of countries.
Eckstein, who is the director of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) hopes to bring between 4,000-6,000 Jews from Moldova, France, Turkey, Uruguay, Venezuela and the Ukraine to Israel next year. “4,000 is a very conservative number I think,” said Eckstein, “it will more likely be closer to six.”
The IFCJ started a new program in November of 2014, to bring Jews from countries other than North America on Aliyah to Israel. The program met with such resounding success that within the first year they succeeded at bringing 2,000 Jews on Aliyah, which is nearly ten percent of all the immigrants to Israel in the past year.
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Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein with some of the 224 Ukrainian Jewish refugees arrive in Israel on his organization's first "Fellowship Aliya" flight, December 22, 2014. (photo credit: International Fellowship of Christians and Jews)
