By Marney Blom
Ever wonder why Israel’s national airline is called El Al? The two words are Hebrew and are found in the Bible, in the eleventh chapter of the book of Hosea. They translate simply as go upwards towards the Most High, according to Young’s Literal Translation of the Bible. For the Jewish faithful they ring of a spiritual ascent to the Holy Land — Israel.
For the past twenty months, El Al has fallen short of its lofty aspirations. Thanks to the coronavirus, the yearly flood of millions of visitors has been reduced to a trickle.
Despite a population of more than 80% double-jabbed citizens, recent reports of a spike in COVID cases has placed further restrictions on incoming traffic. As of August 11, 2021, travellers from 18 countries, including the United States, Ukraine, Italy, Iceland, Germany, Netherlands, Greece, Egypt, Czech Republic, France and Tunisia, are required to quarantine for seven days with at least two negative COVID tests — according to a new set of regulations. Another 42 countries have been designated red (from which travel is forbidden) or orange (for which there are travel warnings and require quarantine).
Furthermore, the apparent endless string of viral variants has many members of the Jewish community outside of Israel rethinking their future.
“… the corona pandemic has led to a change in the way Diaspora Jews look at the Jewish state, from the Zionist to the Haredim to the progressives.” says New York’s Rabbi Elchanan Poupko. Hit hard by high numbers infected by the virus, pockets of Poupko’s Jewish community felt “stranded and abandoned by state policies.” Israel, on the other hand, handled the outbreak swiftly and more effectively resulting in far fewer fatalities, contends the rabbi in Arutz Sheva’s The Aliyah Apocalypse is Coming. “Once the airways reopen, and a ravaged world economy emerges,” he says, “it is likely we will see … Americans from all walks of life … find the fast track back to Israel.”
The escalation of North American Jewry applying to immigrate to Israel confirms Poupko’s prediction. According to the Jewish non-profit Nefesh B’Nefesh, record-breaking immigration from North America is projected for 2021, with 5,000 expected to arrive in the month of August. These numbers represent both a 42% increase over the annual average and a historic high. This month alone, Nefesh B’Nefesh will organize and facilitate the arrival of 40 group flights from North America in partnership with the Jewish Agency, Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael and JNF-USA.
Clearly, many members of the North American Jewish community are not wasting any time, nor can they afford to, argues Rabbi Sgt. Major Jeremy Gimpel. “We have no idea how this global pandemic is going to unfold, but I have a deep, terrible feeling that it is not going to be pretty.” An American immigrant to Israel himself, he reaches millions of listeners in 120 countries on his Israel Inspired podcast. “Right now there is still a window of opportunity to make it to Israel … before the global upheaval. Don’t waste a minute, pack now and move to Israel while you still can.”
To some, Rabbi Gimpel’s impassioned plea sounds alarmist and extreme, to others it bears resemblance to the pre-WWII warnings of Ze’ev Jabotinsky to the Jews of central and eastern Europe. “Catastrophe is approaching. … the volcano that will soon spew out its flames of extermination,” he told them in 1938. Tragically, history proved his predictions to be correct.
“Every single prophet in the Tenach (Old Testament) spoke the same prophecy: the return of the Jewish people from the nations back to the land of Israel,” noted Rabbi Gimpel in his podcast The Final Return of the Jews. “It is the most prophesied event in the Bible. It is going to happen.”
What Rabbi Gimpel cannot tell you is whether the Hebrew prophets, peering into the future, could see the blue and white stripes of the El Al fleets crisscrossing the globe, carrying Jewish immigrants up and away back to land of Israel.
Marney Blom is news director for the Acts News Network.
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