Launch of vaccine inspires Jews to move to Israel and Israelis to return

The coronavirus crisis has accomplished what decades of government ad campaigns failed: it has brought in hundreds of thousands of Israelis from abroad and made the country more attractive as a home for American Jews. As of July, more than 190,000 Israelis had returned to Israel from abroad, including more than 6,000 who had been outside the country for more than half a year, according to data released by the Foreign Ministry. Many of those who returned early in the pandemic were Israelis working in China, where the effects of the virus were first felt. Israeli embassies and consulates abroad have issued approximately 10,000 travel documents, including the issuance of new passports (often for foreign-born children of Israelis who had not yet been to Israel) and the renewal and extension of passports for the Israelis who plan to return from the beginning of the pandemic. While Israel has had its challenges in handling the pandemic, it still has a markedly lower death rate from the disease than many countries in the world where Israelis tend to live, particularly the US, which has had more. 1,000 deaths per million population. unlike Israel, with 370 deaths per million. Areas where many Israelis live, including cities like New York, have been particularly affected. For example, there have been more than 7,700 deaths in the Brooklyn borough alone since the pandemic began, many of them in the Jewish community. And now, with the vaccination campaign in Israel bringing the Pfizer vaccine to more than a million Israelis in less than two weeks, Israel seems more attractive than ever as a place to live, both for Israelis who have been living abroad and for American Jews who are thinking of moving to Israel. “We have no idea when we’re going to get vaccinated,” said Shira Dicker, a New Yorker, a freelance writer and public relations consultant. Although she is 60, her husband 71 and they have private insurance, “We just don’t know.” Recently, someone she calls a “nominal friend” approached her with a suggestion on “how we could jump the line” to get vaccinated, an offer she calls “sordid” but which she sees as a sign of the times, following the Scandal. of Fraudulent Vaccines from ParCare in New York. Dicker’s sister, Adina Feldman, is a well-known singer in Israel, and Dicker and his family have spent three years in Israel at different times, so even though they do not have Israeli citizenship, “Making aliyah has always been a constant thought.” He has many friends who are seriously thinking about moving to Israel and some who are actually moving now, he said, although he ultimately decided that it was not practical for his family at the moment.

But since the pandemic began, Dicker said: “I was consumed by the belief, which was confirmed, that Israel was the safest place to be during the pandemic.” She and her family were particularly impressed by how Israel handled the first wave and the shutdown and now the launch of the vaccine. “I am not blind to the behavior of some Israelis during the pandemic, who were not following the rules,” he said. But watching his friends in Israel get vaccinated and comparing Israel’s vaccine launch, the fastest in the world, to the crisis management in the US, he said: “I see my friends getting vaccinated in Israel and I feel like the boy who got a pair of socks on Hanukkah and the kids across the street got a puppy. ” If Dicker and his family came to Israel as new immigrants, they would be immediately admitted to one of the country’s four health funds. For returning residents, the process is more complicated. Israeli citizens who have lived abroad for years and failed to meet their Israeli social security payments, as many have not, must pay NIS 12,000 and can then join the health funds when they return, according to a spokesperson for one of the health funds. Solly Boussidan, a journalist in Sao Paolo who was born in Brazil and has Israeli citizenship through her Israeli / French father, has considered coming to Israel to get vaccinated, as have some of her Israeli friends living abroad. His “main impetus” to return to Israel at this point would be “the fact that Israel is using the Pfizer jab,” as he believes that Brazil, which he feels is “ruining” the launch of the vaccine, is more likely to get the AstraZeneca vaccine, which you cannot take for health reasons. One of the reasons Aliya Slepkov-Dror, an Israeli who has worked in the Jewish world nonprofit in Los Angeles for 15 years, returned to Israel last summer with her and her husband, Pini Dror, who works in tourism, it was the coronavirus. “We always knew we wanted to go back,” he said. But this year’s events gave them the push they needed to take the plunge, in particular the Los Angeles Black Lives Matter protests, which took place right on their doorstep – “We woke up to a war scene” – as well as the coronavirus. . While she and her husband are not concerned about themselves, the idea that their parents could get sick with the coronavirus is sobering. “The pandemic has taught us that life is precious and that anything can happen,” he said.