Israel more than doubled, the United States contributed but 0.6 percent of the total immigrants, as compared with 23 percent from eastern lands. God literally brought .them in from the east, but He has been selecting them from the west, just as the prophet said. There are two reasons for the small number of American Jews who have responded to the call of Zion ism. F irst is the fact that (accord ing to Ben Gurion) “Jews in Amer ica are too comfortable to be dis turbed. They prefer the ‘fleshpots’ and easy life of America to a pio neering life in Israel. For them Zion ism is a theoretical proposition, a ‘backdoor’ charity for their poor re lations.” The second and by far the most important reason, is that God still has a use for them in the United Stftt6Sa William Hull, “When the State of Israel came into existence on May 15, 1948, the total Jewish popula tion was 655,000. Within four and a half years, an additional 707,650 Jewish had come into the country. Most of these had come in almost as destitute a condition as the refugees from Arab Iraq. They had to be pro vided, in many cases, with shoes, clothing, beds, bedding, homes, fur niture, kitchen equipment and many other things. Employment had to be created for the men, schools provid ed for the children and hospitals for the sick. Teachers, doctors, nurses, instructors, all had to be supplied in increasing num bers. Soon immi grants were arriving at the rate of one thousand a day. One thousand destitute, starving human beings; among them were many small chil dren, tired, sick, ciying. All had to be fed, housed and finally integrat ed into the new state. “If the people of Israel had had to depend on their own resources it would have been impossible to pro vide for such numbers of immi grants. Sufficient that the people of Israel shared their food, clothing, 30
such immigrants were arriving from Baghdad at the rate of almost one thousand a day and had to be pro vided with all the necessities of life. Yet they were back “home” after such a long time, and the President, Dr. Weizmann, could say, “Now we see the end of the Babylonian cap tivity!” FROM THE WEST The promise of God to regather the Jews embraced the four comers of the earth — north, south, east and west. Delitsch, “I t is significant that a different word was used for the gathering from each point of the compass. Thus, for the east he said avi, ‘I will bring.’ ” No resistance or hindrance is suggested in this gathering, and none was encoun tered. Even in Iraq, once the Jews had made up their minds to leave, the door was opened for them to go without any actual physical hin drance. William Hull, “For the west, God used the Hebrew word acabtsecha, ‘I will collect’ (assemble, gather). The west contained thirty times as many Jews as were contained in the east. Yet the ingathering from the west has not been in proportion. Thus we see that ‘to bring’ indi cates a sweeping ingathering, while ‘to collect’ indicates a selective in gathering. This is the way it has happened. From the west, a handful here, a few from there.” In the west, the largest center of Jewish life is in the United States. In fact, this country, with over five million Jews, has the largest Jewish Community in the world, far exceed ing the number of Jews in the State of Israel. One would expect that Jewish emigration from the United States would have been in large fig ures as soon as Israel’s gates were open, but this was not the case. In the four and one half year period from the founding of the new state, during which time the population of
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