Recently, I found a letter that had been written by Emily’s great grandfather to his grandchild, my wife’s mother. It had been written from Philadelphia in 1922 and told of his family who had lived all together and happy in Odessa for many generations. In 1900, in the face of pogroms and persecution of the Jews, the family was broken apart and made to move from their home. Several of the family members emigrated to Palestine and her great-grandfather and the rest of the family came to Philadelphia. His letter gave me a great deal of insight into the complexities of decision making which have been involved in Jewish immigration patterns down through the ages.
What causes a person to move away from a place where his or her family has lived for generations? Whatever the reason, whether oppression or a decision to try to improve their lives in some way, the common thread that runs throughout all of our peoples’ wanderings is HOPE. Hope for a better life, hope for the freedom to live in a land where we could be proud to be Jewish, hope to raise our children as Jews.
Abraham was the role model of Jewish immigration. Our Torah tells of his feeling the call from God to “Lech l’cha,” “Go forth from your native land, from your birthplace, from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” [Gen. 12:1]
And so Judaism was born, as Abraham and Sarah moved from their home in Mesopotamia to the land that would become Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, to dedicate his life to the one God. And ever since that moment, Judaism has been inextricably tied to the land of Israel.Continue reading
