Jerusalem Watchman

Leaving the darkened, impromptu “synagogue” of the old welcoming hall - where the now dry and peeling water feature once painted silvery signatures on the ceiling – we wander into the reception area.

Here, by vivid contrast, all is light and activity as the crowd continues to swell. There’s nothing wrong with my sons’ food radars. They make a beeline for the free cappuccino stand, then pick out muffins and crisp packets from the trestle tables. Nefesh b’Nefesh (Soul to soul) – the organization that is sponsoring the two flights of new immigrants we have come to meet (and these are just two of numerous planeloads that will carry their precious burdens to Israel this summer) – has laid out a feast.

And music. Well, a solo artist – lanky lad standing on a small stage, his fingers dancing over a keyboard while his left leg shakes to the beat. He belts out the well-known and beloved “Am yisrael chai!” (“The nation of Israel lives”), “Haveinu shalom aleichem” and others.

While the boys settle down to munch, I mingle, filming on my mini DV camera. I’m immersed in a hubbub of Jewish Israeli life, all ages, all levels of belief or non-belief, girls with bared midriffs, women with wigs and long-sleeves, boys in jeans and t-shirts, men in hats and coats. Mothers cradle babies and an elderly couple peer at each other through thick-lensed spectacles.

Smiling and laughing – I don’t see anyone who is not expressing elation, anticipation and happiness in some way – the crowd almost drowns the singer. But he doesn’t look put out at all. To his left, an empty microphone waits in front of the words – “Welcome home!” The atmosphere suddenly got into me, bubbling in my soul like soda. I realized I was grinning at all these strangers – and enjoying how easily they smiled back.

I am so glad I came. So thankful I am doing this. Something wonderful is about to happen in this small hall decorated with posters and festooned with balloons and flags – the national flag with its startling blue star leaping out of the crisp white background.

A voice penetrates the skein of chatter and laughs. “Olim (immigrants) from the first plane, from the United States, will arrive in a few minutes. Let’s go out to meet them.” It isn’t quite a stampede, but we all head quickly onto the cordoned-off tarmac outside the doors through which millions of Jews and tourists entered the State of Israel before the new terminal took its place.  Tacked above the stairs, the words in large silver steel letters still proclaim the greeting: “Welcome to Israel.”

It’s quiet here. Away in the distance, out of sight, planes are taxiing in from the runways, or heading out towards them amid all the activity of a major international airport. Every few minutes another aircraft spears its way into the morning sky. Except for a faint roar, even its screaming jets are not heard here.

Within our view a few El Al aircraft stand silently, empty; between them and us the large, lifeless apron. We peer out, looking for the first glimpse of the first bus. A shout, and a push for the barriers as the squat Airport Authority vehicle trundles towards us. Posters specially prepared with messages of welcome are unfolded; boy and girl soldiers in their brown uniforms quickly deploy into a two-lined greeting party and start to sing – looking totally unabashed.  The lanky pianist moves to a keyboard set up out here and strikes up again, his leg jerking away as banners and flags wave furiously beneath him.

The bus pulls up, its doors open, and my eyes sweep the length of the vehicle, eager to take in and capture in my memory the expressions of the new arrivals as they see the party gathered in their honor.

It’s my imagination, I know, but it seems there is a split second of silence before the sounds of joy and greeting erupt, engulfing them like a wave.

Like the Jews in the hall, the new arrivals are a mix of religious and secular. Two things unite them – their smiles, and the stickers on their chests bearing the word “oleh” or “olah” – male and female “immigrant.”

But it’s much more than “immigrant.” It literally means “one who goes up.” So too “aliyah,” means more than simply “immigration,” it means “going up.” For wherever he or she comes from in the world, the Jew always goes “up” to Zion – to Israel. And should they leave, or emigrate (as tragically too many do), then they “go down.”

These were coming up – and as we watch them, men and women, boys and girls, swaddled infants, elderly, even the crippled – I am mesmerized, and moved, trying foolishly to keep the tears from spilling over. I am witnessing something awesome, astonishing; in human terms almost inexplicable.It feels like I am on another planet.

In the world I know, being a Jew has always been risky, and as for living in Israel, surrounded by untold millions of enemies, it’s kind of like playing Russian roulette. But here are Jews, proud to be Jews and overjoyed to be entering Israel to stay.

Unlike most of the hundreds of thousands who have come over the past years, these Jews aren’t fleeing vicious expressions of antisemitism, or exploding through a just-demolished communist curtain. The people before me have left the United States – one of the most prosperous and beautiful countries in the world, a nation which more than any other has been a truly good and safe place for Jews to live, to settle, to build their lives.

They have given it all up, and are coming home to a land about whose future only three things are assured: that there will be more war, that the international community’s dislike of this nation will intensify; and that the Messiah will come.

Make no mistake about it – it’s not just the future that can seem rather rocky. Just living daily life in this land is no Saturday-afternoon walk along the Potomac! Many pay a very real price to come and settle here.

My thoughts wander briefly to a new immigrant family – husband, pregnant wife, two little girls – who made the move from my former homeland, South Africa, earlier this year.
 
To make aliyah, David and Miriam (not their real names) had to say goodbye to everything they have ever known, sell their successful business, give up their beautiful large home in its lovely garden situated in one of the most picturesque parts of that country, take their girls out of school, bid farewell to their parents, their siblings and their extended families, give away their dogs, and board a plane that quickly left it all behind as it scooted up across the continent of Africa.

Unlike the people we’re welcoming today, David, Miriam and their girls were the only ones on board their flight making aliyah. There was no support group to travel with them, and no welcoming party ran to meet them with open arms.

They came through the crowded Terminal 3, pretty much alone into their new homeland. And while the immigration services by no means deserted them, this young family has had to pretty much find its own way, struggling with virtually no Hebrew, dealing with the culture shock, and facing so many other challenges day in day out – enough to take a great deal of the “shine” out of making such a life-changing move. But they have persevered – like so many before them - and they will not give up.

We have become good friends, and my family – I have lived here for close on 20 years; our children were all born here – are amazed and humbled by the courage, resolve and faith of David, Miriam and their little girls.

The joyful sound of a shofar trumpets me back to the present. All around me is dancing, singing, embracing, weeping and laughter – a great deal of laughter.

Some images fix themselves in my mind: A woman wrapped in an Israeli flag. An overwhelmed little boy oleh – he must have been four or five - who doesn’t want to walk through the crowd and eventually tries to clamber back aboard the empty bus that has just brought him from the plane.  An entire family – parents and teenage children – making the move together. The “Welcome home Sabba and Safta” poster that greets a grandma and grandpa.

We make our way with the new arrivals back into the reception hall, past the empty Passport Control booths whose neon signs that used to read “Israel Passport Holders” or “Foreign Passport Holders” now flash the red letters spelling “Welcome Home.”

There are speeches from Nefesh B’Nefesh staff, words from a rabbi and an official greeting on behalf of the Israeli government brought by Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit.

A few minutes later the second flight arrives, this one from London. It’s intriguing to me - watching them alight from the airport buses to the same festive and hearty reception – how different the British are from the Americans (more reserved, less boisterous) and yet how similar their original and new nationality makes them. I marvel at the thought that Jews have immigrated to this land from more than 100 different countries in this unprecedented restoration of a nation that was scattered to the four winds two millennia ago.

They come, marked by the vastly differing societies and cultures their forebears have lived in – sometimes for centuries. And what brings them all together to comprise the nearly six million Jewish Israelis that live here today, is their Jewishness, and the Holy Spirit of God.

For more than a hundred years, His Spirit has been moving on the Jews, calling them, wooing them, leading them, and sometimes driving them, to come home. Though a great many of Israel’s Jews do not know, or will not accept this, they are being brought here by divine decree for a divine appointment. Their long-awaited appointment with their God.

He loves His Chosen People with an undying love and passion. And He has set a time and a place to meet with them as a nation, and turn them into His nation, once again.

That place is the Land of Israel. That time is now. God’s time to favor Zion, His SET time, has come.

Quite quickly, the new olim leave to be processed. Within an hour or so they will all be on their way to absorption centers, new apartments or the homes of relatives in different parts of the land – a land that is strange to many of them now, but which they are already deeply, viscerally, tied to.

As my sons and I leave Ben Gurion and make our way back to our Jerusalem home, they, like most boys would be, are back in the fantasy world of their books, but my heart is pulsating with thoughts.

To basically the entire world, what we participated in this morning is a non-event. And to many of those who DO know about the ongoing immigration of Jews to Israel, the phenomenon may well appear crazy. It almost seems crazy to me. Leave all that prosperity and security and family love to come to this hated, endangered and mostly unloved little land?

But I know it is not crazy. God is at work. As spiritual darkness spreads across the face of this God-rejecting world, and gross darkness covers the people, the light of God’s glory is rising over Israel, heralding the soon-coming of the King.

As the Bible says: When the LORD builds up Zion, He will appear in His glory! (Psalm 102: 16)