Israel’s goal for the coming decade is to bring half a million Jewish immigrants from the United States, South America and France, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Sunday.
“It is doubtful whether there are more important issues for our future and the essence of both Israel and Israeli society than the Jewish immigration matter,” he said during his opening address to a conference marking Immigration and Absorption Week, organized by Yediot Aharonot newspaper.
The newspaper had published reports on the situation of Jews in the world. It said there are about 14.5 million, including 6.8 million in Israel, about 5.4 million in the United States, and about 460,000 in France. The rest are present in many countries, mostly in Western Europe, while their numbers dropped in Eastern Europe and Latin America.
Ethiopia’s Jews have slammed Bennett’s focus on bringing Jews from developed countries.
About 15,000 citizens have been waiting for years in tents near Addis Ababa for Jewish Agency planes to come and pick them up, but Israel refrains from bringing them because the Orthodox religious establishment does not recognize them as Jews.
In response to the criticisms, Bennett said reports by the Jewish Agency indicated that more than 92 percent of the Jews in the world live in developed countries.
Columnist and political analyst for Maariv newspapers Ben Caspit said these developed countries have a higher standard of living compared to Israel, and people’s lifestyle is influenced by it, especially in modern values and openness.
They have social and democratic freedoms that are immeasurably higher than that in Israel, which constitutes an obstacle to Israel and the Zionist movement to achieve their goal, he stressed.
The number of Jews across the world is constantly dropping, except in Israel. This drop is due to marrying and shifting into other religions, Caspit explained.
Some have even stopped identifying themselves as a Jew, he added, noting that the Orthodox Jewish religious leadership recognizes the Jew only if he is born to a Jewish mother.
