What attracts young Jewish people to Israel and why it is important ?

by gideon2020
February 23, 2013	
http://bit.ly/what-attracts

When Iris told her parents that she has decided to make alia and 
shortly after that left for Israel to begin her new life, no one 
understood why she did that. Iris is a very pretty and bright young 
woman from a well-to-do, large loving family. She has an advanced 
college degree, the right connections, and she is fun to be with. 
She could have had a very comfortable and meaningful life in 
America.

When a year later another very pretty and bright young woman 
from our Jewish social circles, Lisa, announced that she is making 
alia after graduation from a prestigious US law school, we were 
surprised again. Lisa is also a very likeable motivated young 
woman who could have a bright social and professional life in 
America.

Neither Iris nor Lisa has another motivation to leave home except 
for their desire to build their life in Israel. Iris and Lisa are good 
friends and there is no doubt that their own decisions were 
influenced by each other's decision. Yet, they are not the only 
young American professional Jews who are now trading the 
comfort of their life in America for a challenging life in Israel. 
Needless to say that when Iris's and Lisa's younger siblings and 
cousins began showing the same interest we knew what's coming.

Although it is an individual decision, there is a common theme 
to this growing trend; both Iris and Lisa were very active in Jewish 
student organizations in college. They visited Israel numerous 
times while still in college, taking advantage of every Taglit-Birthright 
program that paid for their airline ticket and provided them with 
minimal living arrangements. Both of them found programs that 
allowed them to spend a year in Israel in one kind or another 
student exchange program. In the process they met many other 
Jewish young people from all over the world who came to Israel 
using the same methods. Together they created a large network of 
people with the same pro-Israeli attitude and when the time came 
to choose where they wanted to live their life, Israel wasn't a 
strange, faraway place, but a second home that they knew very well.

Why giving up the comfort of life in America and moving to Israel? 
A place where everything is more intense (cost of living, military 
service, political system, state-religion conflicts, etc.). I never 
really asked them that question, but I think that I know the answer. 
They are ready to start a family. What is better place to look for 
a Jewish soul mate than Israel, where almost everyone they meet 
is Jewish? This is not the only reason: They want to raise a Jewish 
family in a place where Jews are the majority and their children 
could grow up free to fall in love with anyone in their class 
without worrying that it might lead to a mixed marriage. 
A place where most people feel the same way they do about 
Judaism and Israel; a place where their children will not be seen 
as different because of their religious affiliation.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing for the America Jewish 
community that many young bright Jewish people leave their 
comfortable nests and move to Israel? I think that the answer 
could be found in the History of Jewish people in the past 
150 years or so. This is not the first time that this question is
being asked; around that time, young Jewish people left their 
comfortable homes in Europe and moved to the malaria infested, 
unforgiving country, which at that time wasn't much more than 
a wasteland. These young motivated people were called Zionists. 
Their parents were faced with the same difficulties that Jewish 
parent are facing now; seeing their children move to a challenging 
place to build their homes. However, looking back there is 
no doubt that the young motivated people made the right decision; 
150 years later Jewish communities all over the world are 
benefited from the State of Israel; the country that gives the 
Jewish people pride, support and protection, the country that 
became the center of the Jewish universe.

I have no doubt that the migration of the well-educated and 
motivated young professionals to Israel begins a new chapter 
in the Jewish-Israeli history on its continued progress toward 
excellence, prosperity, and humanity. I can only wish that I could 
live few hundred years more to see the fruits of their action.

I do not believe that Iris and Lisa are thinking in these terms, 
yet, their decision to make alia is strengthening the Jewish 
community worldwide, including the one in their hometown 
in America.