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Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Jews: World's Biggest Religious Migrant Group

Nadene Goldfoot
Twenty-five percent of Jews have migrated. We have been called "the Wandering Jew" by others for good reason, only it didn't happen because we liked to just wander.

 That's the highest migration rate of all religions.  Most people stay put.  We've had more than our share of reasons to have to move.  Let's see, there's been the Crusades, the Inquisition, and  being thrown out of England. Being confined in the Pale of Settlement in Eastern Europe didn't keep us happy to be there at all,  not when our very  young boys were conscripted into the Russian army and sent to the front lines.  We weren't allowed into Russia without a special pass, so after hearing about America, had to sneak out many times to get there in the cover of night.

We even left the Ottoman Empire to strike out into Eastern Europe.  After getting there, the Empire found they needed some of our skills and sent proposals back which some took up and returned.  England even changed their minds and allowed us back in again at a much later date.  One route many Jews took when things got so bad in Eastern Europe in the late 1800's was to emigrate to England.  From there many chose to venture into Ireland and Wales.  Later, some even went as far as South Africa from there.  A lot had come from Vilnius, Lithuania.

Today most Jews live either in the USA or Israel with a sprinkling in other countries, such as South Africa.
Mostly, we have moved out of fear for our lives and the desire to live in a safe environment. There was a community of Jews in Malma, Sweden who settled there as refugees from WWII, but now many have been driven out by incoming Muslim immigrants who are not friendly towards Jews.

When Israel was created in 1948, there were many Jews living in Arab countries for the past  several thousand years. They were considered Dminnis, or 3rd class citizens, but were allowed to be there.  With Israel created, they were forced to leave,  so they migrated to Israel, ready or not.  As many as the displaced Arabs were, this same number were welcomed into Israel.

When the 1st and 2nd temples fell in Jerusalem, we were taken away as prisoners to become slaves.  It was the conquerors way of redistribution of the population.  They ousted Jews and replaced them with their own people.

It's been found that only 3% of the world migrates.  Of course, we are the very smallest of all the religions, being less than 1% of the world population, something like 0.23%.  Christians make up 1/3 of the world population and 49% have been found to migrate. 74% of the USA is made up of Christians of which many have migrated lately from Mexico and Central America and are Christians.

The USA is not the first choice for Muslims.  They tend to migrate first to Saudi Arabia, Russia, Germany, France, Jordan and Pakistan.  Two million Muslims have immigrated to the USA.

I made aliyah to Israel from the USA in 1980.  The biggest treat of all was to meet Jews from all over the world.  I could't believe how many different English accents existed!  I remember one time my Hebrew class was interrupted with the admission of about 10 students from South America.  How  our Hebrew teacher handled all these immigrats speaking all sorts of languages amazed me.  She spoke only English and Hebrew that I knew.  Besides people, we were able to receive TV programs imported from other countries as well, like England and the USA and Australia.  We also had TV programming from Jordan and Egypt and Syria.  This was the ingathering that has been prophecized.  Our earnest hope is that we can live in peace now that we are again home.  Jews are tired of being migrants.  It's much more fun to be a tourist.




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