{"id":8186,"date":"2009-02-08T15:16:06","date_gmt":"2009-02-08T23:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=8186"},"modified":"2009-02-08T15:16:06","modified_gmt":"2009-02-08T23:16:06","slug":"conservative-judaism-pushes-aliyah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=8186","title":{"rendered":"Conservative Judaism Pushes Aliyah"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.jpost.com\/servlet\/Satellite?cid=1233304711911&#038;pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter\">From The Jerusalem Post<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>The Conservative Movement will launch a campaign to encourage immigration to Israel from North and South America during the movement&#8217;s annual Rabbinical Assembly convention this week in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;In the next two to three years we want to at least double aliya to Israel from North America,&quot; said Tzvi Graetz, executive director of Mercaz Olami, the Conservative Movement&#8217;s international political arm.<\/p>\n<p>In 2008 there were 399 Conservative immigrants from North America, which represents 15% of the total, according to Jewish Agency statistics provided by Graetz.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Our rabbis will be talking more about aliya in the synagogue. Rabbis will also be made aware of the tools available to potential olim, such as the Conservative Movement&#8217;s special <em>shaliah <\/em>aliya Naomi Freedman.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Freedman was appointed as the movement&#8217;s special liaison for immigration to Israel in December. She is based in New York.<\/p>\n<p>Rabbi Andy Sacks, director of the Masorti [Conservative] Movement&#8217;s Rabbinical Assembly in Israel, said the timing of the new campaign was the result of an internal decision-making process.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;There are a few people in the movement&#8217;s leadership, such as Rabbi Graetz and Rabbi Paul Freedman, chair of the Aliya Committee, who see aliya as very important,&quot; he said. &quot;Although the Conservative Movement has always been Zionist, this campaign is a little bit radical.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Sacks doubted that the current economic crisis would significantly increase immigration to Israel from North America. But he estimated it might have an impact on aliya from South America.<\/p>\n<p>Graetz said the decision to launch the campaign was also connected to the success of Nefesh B&#8217;nefesh.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We saw what they were doing and we reached the conclusion in the movement that we are not doing enough to encourage aliya,&quot; he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From The Jerusalem Post: The Conservative Movement will launch a campaign to encourage immigration to Israel from North and South America during the movement&#8217;s annual Rabbinical Assembly convention this week in Jerusalem. &quot;In the next two to three years we &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=8186\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,37],"tags":[16138,29781,3146,3920,16139,16140],"class_list":["post-8186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservative-judaism","category-israel","tag-aliya-to-israel","tag-conservative-judaism","tag-conservative-movement","tag-jerusalem-post","tag-paul-freedman","tag-rabbi-paul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}