opinions & letters
Ukrainian Jews,
Come to Israel!
YEHUDIT KATSOVER AND NADIA MATAR | JNS
W e have tremendous admiration and
appreciation for the dozens of organizations
working to rescue Jews from Ukraine. Words cannot
express our wonder at their courage, dedication,
care and heroism. But on one issue, we cannot be
silent. Various representatives of these aid organiza-
tions have made declarations in the media, such
as “We will soon return to Ukraine and reestablish
the Jewish communities that existed.” In addition,
there are those seeking to direct Jewish refugees
to Poland or Germany.

It seems that the state of Israel, with its emissar-
ies and organizations, has forgotten its primary
role, which is to constitute a focal point for the
ingathering of the exiles of the Jewish people.

So we ask: Why declare the aspiration to
repatriate Jews to Ukraine? Why send Jews to
Germany or Poland? Why strive to reestablish
communities in the Diaspora when their real
home is the land of Israel?
After 1948, the term “Jewish refugee” should
not be used, since every Jew has a home.

It is incumbent upon the rescue organizations
to strive to bring all Jews to the Land of Israel and
ensure a secure Jewish future for them and their
families. We are well aware of shocking global
assimilation statistics and know that outside the
Land of Israel, even in friendly countries, there is
no future for the Jews.

Beyond concern for the personal future of
Ukrainian Jews, moreover, an effort to bring them
to Israel is a necessity for the Jewish state itself,
a country that continues to exist under demo-
graphic threat and must increase the number of
Jews in it.

The call to return Ukrainian Jewish refugees
to Israel is thus beneficial and essential to both
parties. We will cite here the words of a friend who,
approximately 30 years ago, served as a shaliach,
an emissary, during the time he was the principal
of a Jewish school in one of the large communities
in Europe. He was asked what his vision was for
the school. His answer was clear: that the school
would close in 15 years because all the students
and their parents had made aliyah to the land of
Israel. Thanks to that school principal and his clear
worldview, dozens of families did exactly that.

This is the true role of a shaliach: To encourage
and work toward the aliyah of all Jews to their land.

For some reason, in recent years, an erroneous
and dangerous perception has taken hold that the
role of shlichim is to develop, increase and per-
petuate Jewish communities abroad. But the his-
torical and moral role and mission of the state of
Israel is not to be a distant and unrealized vision,
but to serve as an actual home for all world Jewry.

It appears, however, that the shlichim of the
state of Israel are afraid to articulate the call to
the Jews of the Diaspora: “Come home. The land
of Israel belongs to you and you belong to it.”
Instead, they are busy preserving Judaism over-
seas. That is not why the state of Israel, which sent
them on their mission, was established.

A horrific human tragedy
is transpiring in Ukraine,
but latent in that tragedy
is another opportunity
provided by G-d to gather
the dispersed of Israel
to their land.

It is incumbent upon us to internalize the sig-
nificance of the hour. A horrific human tragedy is
transpiring in Ukraine, but latent in that tragedy
is another opportunity provided by G-d to gather
the dispersed of Israel to their land.

This is the moment to proclaim in a loud voice
to all Jews, wherever they may be: “Come home.”
It is time to condemn the Exile and unashamedly
warn people about it, without succumbing to the
dictates of the politically correct and the efforts of
organizations rich with foreign capital that seek
to dilute the Jewish identity of the state of Israel.

This is the time to return to the true Jewish-
Zionist vision.

We have the ability to bring another quarter of
a million Jews to the land of Israel now, as part of
a Jewish immigration drive that will bring many
more good and beloved Jewish brothers and sis-
ters from all over the world.

“If you will it, it is no dream,” said Theodor Herzl.

It is our duty to will it and to take action. JE
Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar are co-chairs
of the Sovereignty Movement founded by Women
in Green.

Statistics Misleading
The editorial “The Battle Over Title 42“ (April
21) misrepresents the statistics concerning the
number of migrants at our southern border. The
article accurately states that there were 1.7 million
“encounters“ at the United-States-Mexican border
last year, representing a 400% increase from the
prior year.

Left unsaid, however, is that of those 1.7 million
encounters, many represent the same person
coming back to the border over and over again.

In other words, if the same person came to the
border four times and was turned back four times,
that represented four encounters, not one.

It therefore suggests that once Title 42 is no
longer enforced as it has been, and migrants are
not turned away wholesale, they’ll be far fewer
encounters at the border because individuals
need only try to cross the border once, not multi-
ple times.

Steven J. Barre, Huntingdon Valley
Keep Seder Plate as Is
Although Rabbi Barry Dov Lerner’s new additions
to the seder plate are quite interesting (Passover:
Renewed and New Meanings,” April 21, I find that
the addition of anything that deviates from the
Haggadah as written pulls Jews away from the
very message that the story of the Exodus intends
to convey — namely that “Ha Shem” did this mir-
acle for us.

The Holocaust is now almost 80 years away
from us, yet we don’t add a piece of striped
pajamas or ash to our seder plate, and yet since
the third century, Jews have been persecuted,
maligned and murdered and yet we have not
justified any new additions to our seder plates.

Salt water on the Passover table represents the
millions upon millions of tears that the Jewish
people have shed for transgressions that have
happened to them.

We just go on, rise even higher from our meager
2% of the United States’ inhabitants, and continue
our ascent. Ha Shem did all of these miracles for
us. Let us not give anything else precedence over
that fact. JE
Ann Krauss, Havertown
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