Israel preparing to receive 50,000 Jewish refugees from Ukraine
Israel is preparing for a wave of Aliya (immigration) of Jewish refugees fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, possibly some 50,000 in the coming months, the largest wave of Aliyah since the 1990s.
Ukrainian refugees who fled war zones in Ukraine arrive at Ben Gurion international airport on a rescue flight with the support of the Keren Hayesod fundraising organization. Lod, Mar 9, 2022. Photo by Gideon Markowicz/TPS
Furthermore, Israel can expect a wave of immigration from Russia, Jews fleeing the country’s failing economy.
So far, more than 2,000 new immigrants from Ukraine have made Aliyah to Israel, and more than 15,000 Jews and those entitled to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return have applied for Aliyah to Israel.
According to data from the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption, so far 14,000 applications have been received from Russian citizens seeking to immigrate to Israel and about 7,000 applications from Ukraine.
Two additional flights of Jewish Ukrainian refugees arrived in Israel on Wednesday evening carrying 150 Jews from Poland and 100 from Romania. Another 420 arrived at the beginning of the week from Moldova.
The Jewish Agency has also initiated a humanitarian aid operation called ‘Torenu’ (Our Turn), to collect basic necessities from the Israeli public and transfer them to Jewish Agency centres active along the Ukrainian border in four bordering countries. These items mainly consist of winter equipment like sleeping bags, blankets, coats, gloves, hats and scarves and hygienic items like soap, shampoo, deodorant, toilet paper and toothpaste.
The Jewish Agency has raised more than $19 million since the beginning of the war to support humanitarian and rescue operations along the Ukrainian border. The current needs of this operation stand at over $85 million.
TPS
