Come home….NOW!

This is an open letter to my nieces and nephews and their progeny but it is directed at all Jews living outside of Israel.

I know that you are having an international phone conversation in remembrance of Oma and Opa (German for grandfather and grandmother). However, I don’t know exactly who it is for as there are so many grandparents in the 791 progeny כן ירבו of our family.

Be that as it may, I wanted to take this opportunity to make a heartfelt request/suggestion to all of you. It is that you should begin your plans to make aliya to Israel and do it sooner rather than later. I don’t have to tell you about the increasing level of antisemitism occurring in the U.S. The number of incidents is alarming and includes an incident that even happened to my daughter, Tamar, in Seattle a few weeks ago.

As members of the Hirsch family, I am sure that you recall hearing about how my father, David Hirsch, after returning from his torturous stay in the  Sachenhausen concentration camp and before leaving Germany, detoured to Holland to try to convince his brother  Shimon, to leave as well. As you know, Shimon felt that would be safe in Holland from the Nazi onslaught and didn’t listen. Subsequently, he and his whole family were murdered.

Maybe the situation in the U.S. today is not quite at the point of Nazi Germany in the 1930s but are you willing to wait? The smart members of your families already live in Israel. You also send your sons and daughters to study in Israel but most of them return to the U.S.   WHY?

All of you are always dedicated to performing mitzvot and should be commended for that, but by living in Israel you can perform additional ones that you can’t perform by staying in Galut. We just read the portion of שלח לך in the Tora where we read of the tragedy of the spies’ negative report about the Land of Israel. I implore you not to find excuses like they did about not entering the land. You are blessed with amazing talents and could use them in Israel easily. Not one of you is too old to come.

In the 1970s I had an occasion to visit with David Ben Gurion. I asked him whether there would be room in Israel if all the Jews in the world were to move there. His answer was an emphatic YES. So don’t worry. There’s plenty of space for you.

Do this before it’s too late. Don’t allow a repeat of the Shimon Hirsch ז”ל denial of the truth.

I am passionate about encouraging aliya and have been active in that endeavor since 1973. Besides, I would like to see you more often.