Following Aliyah-making Jewish families

Text: Richard Donk | image: Henk Visscher
Sourced with permission from Reformatorisch Dagblad.

Photographer Henk Visscher and journalist Richard Donk (both from the Dutch newspaper Reformatorisch Dagblad) followed two Jewish families who emigrated from Eastern Ukraine to Israel. This (final) article and the two previous ones "Obedience to the Biblical Calling" and "From Soviet apartment to kibbutz" contain a visual report.

The contrast could hardly be bigger. At the one moment we meet the Tzarenko and Pleshkov families in war-torn Ukraine. A few days later the families, proudly, show us their new residences in a kibbutz in the Israeli Negev Desert.

But in the meantime a lot happened of course. Bags were packed – three pieces per person. The emotional goodbyes to family members who stay behind. Grandma waving to her departing loved ones from a balcony. Grandpa’s tear as they depart.

Waiting for a plane that does not arrive. Because of persistent fog that beleaguers the airport of Dnepropetrovsk.

Then, finally, on board and on their way to a new and unknown future that this "aliyah" will bring them. The first steps on the soil of their new homeland, Eretz Yisrael. Followed by a warm welcome by the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption.

And, finally, a Negev Desert sunrise. For the time being, their first home in the Promised Land.

These families will participate in the aliyah program 'First Home in the Homeland' for the next five months. They will focus on learning Hebrew and integrate into the Israeli society!

We will follow these families and update you how on they are doing by publishing a new report by the end of March 2016!

Please continue supporting the Aliyah work!