Aliya

Aliya, n., also aliyah. pl. aliyas or aliyot. The immigration of Jews into Israel. Why would American Jews--not just materially successful in this country but perhaps for the first time in the two-thousand-year Jewish Diaspora truly socially accepted and at home--choose to leave the material comforts, safety, and peace of the United States for the uncertainty and violence of Israel? Still, aliya is a phenomenon that affects all American Jews. Understanding this phenomenon means understanding what is arguably the fundamental question of American Jewry; it is that question that Liel Leibovitz…