Meir Halimi, a 100-year-old man originating from the French city of Nice, made aliyah on Wednesday and died the day after, according to French Jewish Agency director Arie Abitbol who spoke to Qualita, an organization for French immigrants.
After months of administrative struggle, Abitbol explained, the Jewish Agency French office finally allowed Halimi to make aliyah, accompanied on the plane by his son.
Living in a lonely retirement home, the only dream Meir had was to make aliyah and to spend his last years in Israel. Unfortunately, Meir could only spent his last day as an Israeli citizen. cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); });
Nefesh B’ Nefesh said 5,593 people have submitted aliyah applications between April-October 2020, a 250% increase from the number of applications during the same months the previous year.Haley Cohen contributed to this report.