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Aliyah
Aliyah (Hebrew word "ascent" or "going up", plural aliyot) is Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel (and since its establishment in 1948, the State of Israel). The opposite action, Jewish emigration away from Israel, is called Yerida ("descent"). Aliyah is widely regarded as an important Jewish cultural concept and a fundamental concept of Zionism that is enshrined in Israel's Law of Return, which permits any Jew the legal right to assisted immigration and settlement in Israel, as well as automatic Israeli citizenship. A Jew who makes aliyah is called an oleh (masculine singular) or olah (feminine singular), the plural for both is olim. Many Jews espouse aliyah as a return to the Promised Land, and regard it as the fulfilment of God's biblical promise to the descendants of the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Aliyah is included as a commandment by some opinions on the enumeration of the 613 commandments. In Zionist discourse, the term aliyah includes both voluntary immigration for ideological, emotional, or practical reasons and, on the other hand, mass flight of persecuted populations of Jews. The vast majority of Israeli Jews today trace their family's recent roots to outside of the country. While many have actively chosen to settle in Israel rather than some other country, many had little or no choice about leaving their previous home countries. While Israel is commonly recognized as "a country of immigrants", it is also, in large measure, a country of refugees. It should be noted that although mass return to the Land of Israel was a recurring theme among generations of diaspora Jews, particularly in Passover and Yom Kippur prayers which traditionally concluded with, "Next year in Jerusalem", and in the thrice-daily Amidah (Standing prayer), this return was specifically conceived in terms associated with the coming of the Jewish Messiah. Jews prayed for their Messiah to come, who was to redeem the Land of Israel from gentile rule and return world Jewry to the land under a Halachic theocracy. |