What would make a family sell their home, leave their friends and move to a small country in the Middle East? For more than three million Jews since 1948, the answer has been the same. They wanted to live in Israel, the land God promised to Abraham and his children. Israel has a special day to honor them, and this week Israeli schools celebrate it. It is called Yom HaAliyah.
What does Aliyah mean?
Aliyah is a Hebrew word that means going up. When a Jew moves to Israel, Israelis say that person made Aliyah, because moving to the Land of Israel is seen as a spiritual rise. A person who makes Aliyah is called an oleh, or an olah for a woman.
The idea is very old. In the Bible, people always went up to Jerusalem, and the Psalms that pilgrims sang on their way to the Temple are called the Songs of Ascents. Today, Israel's Law of Return gives every Jew in the world the right to move to Israel and become a citizen.
Where does Yom HaAliyah come from?
In 2016, the Knesset passed a law that created Yom HaAliyah, the Day of Aliyah. The official date is the tenth day of the Hebrew month of Nisan. According to the Book of Joshua, this was the day the people of Israel crossed the Jordan River and entered the Promised Land.
Since Nisan usually falls during the school holiday before Passover, Israeli schools mark the day in the autumn instead, on the seventh of Cheshvan. This date falls in the week when synagogues read the Torah portion called Lech Lecha. In that portion, God tells Abram to leave his country and go to the land He will show him. Abraham's journey is the first Aliyah in history, so it is the perfect week for children to learn about the people who followed him. This year the school observance falls on October 18.
The great Aliyah stories of modern Israel
The return of the Jewish people to their land did not happen all at once. It came in waves, and each wave has its own story of courage.
The first pioneers
In the 1880s, small groups of young Jews from Russia and Romania arrived in a land that was poor and full of swamps. They built farms and villages with their own hands. Some of the towns they founded, like Rishon LeZion and Zichron Yaakov, are thriving cities today.
Operation Magic Carpet
Soon after Israel was founded, almost the entire Jewish community of Yemen was flown to Israel in 1949 and 1950. Many of them had never seen an airplane before. They believed they were seeing the promise of Isaiah 40:31 come true, that they would rise up with wings like eagles.
Operation Moses and Operation Solomon
The Jews of Ethiopia waited for centuries to return to Jerusalem. In 1984, thousands of them walked across the desert to Sudan, where Israel secretly flew them out in Operation Moses. In 1991, Israel carried out Operation Solomon and brought more than fourteen thousand Ethiopian Jews to Israel in about a day and a half. One of the planes carried more passengers than any airliner had ever carried before.
When the Soviet Union opened its gates in the late 1980s and 1990s, about one million Jews moved to Israel. Scientists, doctors, engineers and musicians arrived together, and they changed Israeli society and its economy for the better.
Jews still make Aliyah every year from the United States, France, Britain, South America and many other countries. Since October 7, 2023, many Jews in the West have started to think seriously about moving to Israel, and organizations like Nefesh B'Nefesh help families from North America and Britain with every step of the move.
From Abraham to the newest family that landed at Ben Gurion Airport this morning, the story of Aliyah is the story of the Jewish people coming home. Every person who makes Aliyah adds a new chapter to a promise that is thousands of years old. This Yom HaAliyah, celebrate them and pray for the ones who are still on their way. Explore gifts from Israel at The Israel Store.
