500 more new immigrants coming by year's end

Olim-bearing flights due to arrive from Moscow, New York, London, and Johannesburg.

By MAX SOCOL
Some 500 more new immigrants are expected to arrive in Israel before the year ends, the Jewish Agency reported, publishing a schedule of olim-bearing flights due to arrive from Moscow, New York, London, and Johannesburg by the end of the month. The first plane, due Tuesday afternoon, is expected from Moscow with dozens of Russian immigrants. They will be greeted at a festive ceremony at the airport that will include lighting the third Hanukka candle. Among the new arrivals will be many young people enrolled in the Jewish Agency's Kibbutz Ulpan program, through which immigrants live, work, and study Hebrew on a participating kibbutz. Also expected are a number of engineers, who will be integrated into industries in the Negev. In a statement Monday, Noga Miliniak, the director of the agency's Aliya Department, said that "the arrival of hundreds of new immigrants this month is a real holiday for Israel." The newest wave of immigrants is good news after a difficult year for aliya. As of November, there has been a 15% decline in immigration from last year.