Israel National Radio’s Aliyah Revolution show hosted renowned Canadian media personality Ralph Benmergui. Host Go’el Jasper answered Benmergui’s concerns as to whether Israel wants him.
Benmergui, an avid listener to the Aliyah Revolution Show, hosts a jazz radio program in Toronto and visited Arutz-7 studios in Beit El with a team from Canada’s Vision TV. The Aliyah Revolution has broadcast for years on Arutz-7 radio and deals with logistical, spiritual, theoretical, theological and practical aspects of immigrating to Israel.
Benmergui confided that he has for a long time struggled with a desire to move to the Jewish state. Born in Tangiers, Benmergui has hosted an array of Canada’s top radio and TV shows and though his body is in the West, his heart is in the East. “There are times when I thought, ‘Making Aliyah (immigrating to Israel) would be alright.’ But there are other times when I thought – ‘You know, I don’t think they want me.’”
Host Go’el Jasper responded: “What are you talking about? Of course we want you.” Jasper joked: “There are times when I feel like they don’t want me.”
The Canadian Jewish media personality continued to elaborate, saying he feels like it is only religious Jews who are moving to Israel today. “I’ve noticed lately that the kind of Aliyah happening from North America is religious,” Benmergui lamented. “If you are religious you come here.”
Jasper: Well I say, if you come here you are religious
Benmergui: What does that mean?
Jasper: It means that this is the homeland of the Jewish people and if you come here you are de facto “religious” – you are identifying with the Jewish people.
Benmergui: What if you are secular? I am not secular, I’m religious, but I’m not Orthodox in any way. I’m a liberal Jew from Canada. So for me, I always think, ‘I don’t think they are looking for me right now. I think they are looking for a different kind of person.’ I mean, who is a Jew, really, once we get into going to a place like Israel – all that stuff. So it makes it a little – I mean I listen to your show, because there is always a part of me that thinks ‘Maybe I should do it. Maybe really I should do it.’
Jasper: Well it’s interesting. We have asked that question in the past. Do we really want every Jew? And I’m telling you: Yeah, we do. We do. And I’ll give you the proof. If someone is a secular Jew living in Portland, Oregon. Or you’re from Canada, so, Portland, Maine – a little closer to where you are. And they do everything they can to hide the fact that they are Jewish. They don’t want to have anything to do with it. But their last name is Goldberg. So no matter what they do, they feel everyone is always going to look at them as ‘the Jew.’ But [that kind of Jew] comes to Tel Aviv and nobody is ever gonna think of them as ‘the Jew’ – everyone’s Jewish. You can lead a happy, secular, if you like, life and for the rest of your life never be thought of as ‘the Jew’ again.
Benmergui: OK, do you want Jews to come here and make Aliyah who say ‘I don’t believe in settlements. Do you want Jews who say ‘I don’t think Orthodox should control education.’
Jasper: I want all Jews to live here. Listen, we have plenty of those as is. I understand where the question is coming from, but what I try to promote on this show is that no matter what kind of Jew you are – this a place where you can live. This is my night job. In my day job I interact with companies all over the country – usually with secular Jews. Not only are they great people, but they are happy with their lives here. I don’t think it is a matter of religiosity or whether you are on the right or left. If you are a Jew, this is the place to live.
Benmergui: What about the people who say it’s tough to make a living? I hear that a lot from people.
Jasper: They are right – it is tough to make a living. If your focus is on material things, it is tough to make a living. Not as tough as it used to be, though. The advances in terms of the business world here in general and specifically in the world of technology and health care have changed the rules in terms of what income can be like here. However, in general you are not going to make the same salary. I have a friend who is a doctor. He is making ten percent of what he was making in the states.
Benmergui: Is he happy?
Jasper: He is very happy.
[…]
Benmergui: You know…when I think of who comes now and I think of getting on that plane – I don’t know if I would. I don’t know if I’d come for religious reasons. I know I certainly wouldn’t come here to live on a settlement – so I don’t know whether I am supposed to be one of those people – G-d love you for coming – but I don’t know if I can be one of them.
Jasper: What we normally talk about on this show is about how you can live the Jewish existence that you want – no matter what your Jewish intensity is – in this land.
Benmergui: So tell me how I, as a liberal, progressive Jew, can live the life I want here? What is my Aliyah? What is my function?
Jasper: [feigning psychic powers –ed.] I see you living in the town of -- No. Listen, we have known each other for 45 minutes. I have no idea where you would live –
Benmergui: Well roughly, would it be Raanana, would it be…
Jasper: I think Israel is in desperate need of a radio show focused on Jazz. We don’t have that today.
Benmergui: There is that whole issue of the Conservative and Reform movements in Israel. It seems to be growing. That is a good reason to come.
Jasper: Is it growing?
Benmergui: Yeah, they are growing.
Jasper: The more Jews come to live here by choice, the more you will have Jews getting together to do things the way they did in their country of origin. You see the Anglos – and the North Americans more specifically – making serious progress in terms of the business world, in terms of the political echelon, in terms of education and all aspects of life.
Benmergui: What do you say to people in mixed marriages who in their heart want to make Aliyah. Where do they fit?
Jasper: I don’t know. Where do they fit? I don’t know. Listen, you’d have to ask the Chief Rabbinate that question. I know that every Jew is welcome to live here. I am not in a mixed marriage so I am not familiar.
Benmergui: There are a lot of people in North America who have married out of the faith and are trying to find some way to console themselves and still want to be Jewish. I just don’t know, are they Jewish enough to live here because now they have a mixed marriage…
[A caller: Rob from New Castle, Pennsylvania]
Rob: Shalom, Shalom and the same to your guest. I was calling because I heard your guest. My wife is a Presbyterian and we decided we wanted to make Aliyah. I discovered Israel National Radio cruisin’ through the Internet one day. It was the first time I was even exposed to the word Aliyah. I talked to my rabbi about it last night because we are having our Orthodox wedding Monday. My wife surprised me by converting. She kept it secret and told me a week before that she is becoming Jewish. The worst thing about it is that now she reads Hebrew better than I do.
Benmergui: So now you are going to come to Israel?
Rob: Oh yes, definitely. In fact, we are sort of bummed out that we have to first make a pilot trip and all that stuff. I had never been to Boston before I lived there, to Philly or to New York City before I lived those places. I don’t understand why I have to visit Israel before I live there.
Benmergui: Can I ask you something? When you got married to your wife, who you obviously loved enough to get married to – and she was Presbyterian - did you think you had to leave your Jewishness behind?
Rob: No, my Jewishness was mine and it didn’t matter if she was a supporter of my faith or not, because it was what I believed. I was just fortunate that I had a wife who found it on her own – she started reading the Old Testament I have here. She was very intrigued by it and made the decision on her own. It was never – ‘Hey honey, I want you to convert.’
Benmergui: Would you have made Aliyah if your wife hadn’t converted?
Rob: Yeah. We made the decision even before she ever thought about converting.
Jasper: The pilot trip is only a requirement via Nefesh B’Nefesh because they want the Aliyah to stick. They want to make sure that people know what they are getting into and the kind of commitment they are making. But I want you to know that if I hadn’t done my pilot trip - first of all, I don’t know if I would have the job I have now – and it also gave me the ability to learn about the country and how it works here. I know it is a drag to have to drop a couple thousand dollars on just a pilot trip when you are worrying how you are going to make it financially here. But long-term I think it’s the right move…Thanks for calling in Rob. We wish you all the luck in the world with your Aliyah.
Rob: Ah, there’s no luck to it. We just make it work – that’s all. Hashem blesses us and we work to do good things.
Benmergui: He’s interesting. That’s fantastic.
Jasper: We get a lot of interesting people. One reason why, is that Aliyah is an out-of-the-box thing. It is not something that people in the mainstream think about doing all the time. You gotta think outside of the box and once you are out of that box, you get people who think that way in a lot of ways.
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