Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on February 16, 2015

Israel is calling its people home.

Thats how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded to Saturdays deadly shooting at a Denmark synagogue, saying that such attacks are likely to continue and that Israel would welcome any European Jews who decide to move there, Reuters reported.

The Copenhagen shooting an echo of last months Paris attacks occurred first at a caf holding a freedom-of-speech event, then at a synagogue. Two were killed, including a Jewish security guard.

This wave of attacks and the murderous anti-Semitic assaults that are part of it is expected to go on," Mr. Netanyahu said during his weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem Sunday.

Jews deserve protection in every country but we say to Jews, to our brothers and sisters, Israel is your home, he added. We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass immigration from Europe."

The prime ministers call comes as his cabinet approved a $46 million budget to finance the growing number of European Jews immigrating into Israel in order to flee violence, political turmoil, and rising anti-Semitism, according to Israeli publication Haaretz.

Jewish immigrants from Ukraine soared from less than 2,000 in 2013 to almost 6,000 in 2014, according to Israels Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, while nearly 7,000 Jews from France alone migrated into Israel in 2014.

Israels Law of Return, passed in 1950, gives Jews worldwide the right to settle in Israel. It also comes with a range of financial benefits that include everything from free airport transportation when the immigrant arrives to income tax benefits and rental and mortgage assistance.

In return, Israel ensures itself a growing, skilled population of Jewish nationals. As Bloomberg put it: With experience in fields ranging from telecommunications to biotech to finance, those people could have an effect not unlike the Protestant Huguenots driven from France in the 16th and 17th centuries, who became an economic engine in the U.S., Canada, and several European countries.

Following the attacks on Saturday, Naftali Bennett, Israels Minister of the Economy, echoed Netanyahus call: Jews can and should have the right to live anywhere, he told Israeli news site Ynetnews, but if there are Jews who are concerned about their future, we are certainly waiting for them.

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In wake of Copenhagen attacks, Netanyahu calls on Danish Jews to migrate to Israel

Category: Synagogue
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