Over 200 new Anglo-Israeli future bloggers!

Welcome home to the more than 200 people, including (yay!) over 70 singles, who made aliyah today on a specially chartered Nefesh B'Nefesh/ Jewish Agency flight. May your absorptions into Israeli society be swift, painless, and complete.

This flight brings the number of American and Canadian olim to almost 3,000 for the year 2004. This is the highest number since 1983, folks! Of course, given that America alone has more than 5.5 million Jews, it's still pretty sad. But the good news is that of those who have made aliyah from North America in the last three years, almost all are still living here (yes, there are records for this). In fact, of the olim who came with Nefesh B'Nefesh just in 2002, almost two-thirds have already bought homes, and almost all are employed.

So if you are thinking about joining the club, now's the time to open that aliyah file and start making plans! We'll keep a spot warm for you!

Pictures from the airport here.

Arutz Sheva coverage of the flight here (includes radio coverage; links are after the article).

Articles about North American aliyah in general here.

Only Simchas page which should announce today's flight here.