Operation Returning Home
Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has the start of Operation ‘Returning Home’ to bring the Jews of Ukraine, who are in danger, and Jews from the surrounding area.
PM Naftali Bennett. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)
He told Ministerial Committee on Aliyah and Integration: “This is an important moment, a moment for which we have been destined, and for which the State of Israel was established. The mission with which are charged is great and composed of many smaller missions and small details, and we need to understand the larger mission.
The larger mission is to open the door and open the heart, to welcome our brothers and sisters who are fleeing a harsh war, to make certain that they have as smooth an integration as possible and a welcome that will do much to soften the trauma that they have experienced, an inconceivable trauma – to uproot yourself within hours or days and go to a faraway and different country.
For this, we all need to excel, not fall into unnecessary bureaucracy, to show flexibility and understanding for the high emotion, to understand that we in the bureaucracy and the government need to bring ourselves to the oleh [immigrant]; it is not the oleh who needs to run all over the place here.
At the same time, we also need to prepare for the day after the welcome. The olim [immigrants]will need a place to live, jobs, education and health. One of the things that I have done in recent days is to talk to olim from previous waves of aliyah [immigration] and hear from them about their experiences and about the mistakes so that we might learn to do things better.
This is a major challenge for us all, both in the government and Israeli society. I have no doubt that Israeli society and the Israeli public can rise to the occasion and we will do so.”
