Aliyah and Integration Minister Ofir Sofer and Jewish Agency Chairman Doron Almog pose with new immigrants who arrived from France at the end of October 2023 immediately following the start of the Gaza war.
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Imagine this: A nation is at war, yet two thousand people a month are clamoring to move there. Yet, this is the reality.
Since the beginning of the Hamas-Israel war through the end of 2025, some 57,000 Jews made aliyah (immigration to Israel), according to the Jewish Agency and the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration. Most of the immigrants came from Russia, then (in descending order) the United States, Canada, France and Great Britain. Skyrocketing antisemitism worldwide and the war in Ukraine are the primary causes.
Charlotte Roth, 96, surrounded by family members after landing in Israel on February 18, 2026, where she moved from Ohio, USA.
Among them are 120 Holocaust survivors. The oldest is Charlotte Roth, 96, who was born in Czechoslovakia and survived Auschwitz (JNS, February 18, 2026). Her family of five generations includes four children, nine grandchildren, 26 great-grandchildren and 11 great-great-grandchildren.
Kosher cuisine in Damascus? The Jewish community of Syria once numbered 30,000, but only six elderly Jews remain today. The dozen unused synagogues of Damascus date to the 15th century.
The new Syrian leadership wants Syrian Jews to return, however, and is organizing a kosher kitchen in the Royal Semiramis Hotel in Syria’s capital. In preparation, the Muslim staff, including Chef Abd Alrahman Qahwahji, learned the rules of kosher cuisine for the first time in their lives (The New York Times, February 10, 2026).
In 2023, 19.2 million deaths, one third of all deaths worldwide, were due to heart disease. It afflicts 250 million people worldwide. The most common test to determine heart blockage is the stress test, which involves walking on a treadmill. It is only 68 percent accurate, however, because the required physical exertion is too much for many elderly people, those who are at most risk. There are other tests (e.g. CT angiography), but they are expensive and not widely available.
East of Tel Aviv, AccuLine has developed a four-minute test, CORA, that is non-invasive, requires no physical exertion, needles or radiation, and can be done at the local doctor’s office instead of in a hospital. Tests were conducted in seven Israeli hospitals with an accuracy of 99 percent by examining data from cardiac electrical activity, blood oxygen saturation, and respiratory phase.
Further testing is being conducted in 20 US hospitals, partnering with the Mayo Clinic, and with funding by health-insurance organizations among others. (sharingfromisrael.substack.com, February 6, 2026)