Recent headlines in the Israeli media have reported a worldwide increase in aliyah (immigration to Israel)—the highest jump in 10 years. Both the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption and the Jewish Agency announced that there had been a 17 percent increase in aliyah in 2009 compared with 2008 (excluding Ethiopian immigration).

Ebenezer Israel felt very privileged to join some of our United Kingdom team members in welcoming new olim (immigrants) from the UK, France, and South Africa at a ceremony held here in Jerusalem at the end of last year.

For me personally, it was very exciting to hear Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky welcome the immigrants. Speaking of his own aliyah, this former Soviet refusenik and Prisoner of Zion told them: “I had an easy task—I had to break [through] the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union. But you had a much more difficult task—you had to break [through] the Golden Curtain.” The latter was a reference to the materialism and wealth that many Jews in the West have to leave behind when moving to Israel.

Listening to Sharansky brought back memories of the early 1980s, when my wife and I walked with thousands of other people through the streets of Amsterdam, waving torches and banners and loudly proclaiming, according to Exodus 5:1, “Let My people go!” We also stood with many Christians in front of the Soviet embassy in The Hague, fasting and praying for the freedom of Soviet Jewry. We again loudly declared, “Let My people go!” Indeed, we believed God’s Word regarding the exodus far greater than the one from Egypt—that the Jewish people would come from the land of the north and from all lands (Jeremiah 16:14, 15; 23:7, 8).

It is our belief that we are on the threshold of a massive aliyah and need to be ready to assist ever-greater numbers of olim, as we witness continually rising violence and public demonstrations against Jews everywhere, along with economic shakings. Therefore, we are sounding the shofar, so to speak, and challenging believers everywhere to help the Jews in their return to Israel while they still have the freedom and opportunity to do so.

Thousands of years ago, the prophets foretold that the days would come when the Jewish people living in exile would return to this Land of their forefathers and be settled here forever. Isaiah prophesied that the Gentiles would be called upon to help prepare the way and bring them back to their Land. This challenging task is Ebenezer’s mandate.