Smotrich outlines 10-year plan to bring one million olim from North America, Europe

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is spearheading a national initiative to bring one million Jewish immigrants from North America and Europe to Israel within the next decade. He is advocating for new legislation that would permit entire diaspora communities to acquire land and housing without navigating Israel's conventional tender process.

“

We now need to take aliyah and deal with it at the same scale, the same investment, the same intensity with which we dealt with security and settlement.

Smotrich presented the outline to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approximately six weeks ago. He argued that while the government has focused on security and settlement advancements, the critical area of aliyah, or Jewish immigration, has been neglected. "We now need to take aliyah and deal with it at the same scale, the same investment, the same intensity with which we dealt with security and settlement," he stated.

The cornerstone of the plan involves a return to large-scale public construction, mirroring the programs initiated by Ariel Sharon in the 1990s, which successfully housed tens of thousands of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Despite opposition from his own Finance Ministry's professional staff, Smotrich is determined to proceed. He noted the financial disparity, stating, "Sell an estate in South Africa and you will not buy a one-room apartment here. Sell a villa in the suburbs of Paris and you will buy a two-room apartment in Ra'anana."

“

Sell an estate in South Africa and you will not buy a one-room apartment here. Sell a villa in the suburbs of Paris and you will buy a two-room apartment in Ra'anana.

The proposed legislation would exempt community absorption projects from standard tender and planning requirements. This would enable the state to allocate blocks of buildings or entire neighborhoods to incoming communities, pre-planned with schools, synagogues, and other communal facilities. Smotrich cited the strong communal institutions of French Jewry as a model, envisioning immigrants arriving with their existing community structures intact. He clarified that the intention is for these neighborhoods to be within existing Israeli cities, not separate enclaves, though he expressed a desire to avoid a situation where immigrants primarily speak French in Israel after a century.

“

Come with your rabbi, come with your school, come with your community.

Framing the program as both ideological and economic, Smotrich declared, "As finance minister, this is not an expense, it is an investment." He pointed to the significant role immigration has played in Israel's economic growth over recent decades, suggesting that the arrival of a million immigrants would similarly fuel the nation's development.

“

As finance minister, this is not an expense, it is an investment.