The Right of Return

Stand for Israel  |  July 5, 2022

For those of us who stand for Israel, those of us who are people of faith, we take the biblical promise of aliyah (immigration to Israel) and the right to return to Israel very seriously:

“He will raise a banner for the nations
    and gather the exiles of Israel;
he will assemble the scattered people of Judah
    from the four quarters of the earth.” (Isaiah 11:12)

And, on July 5, 1950, the young nation of Israel took this promise so seriously that they passed it into law, with the Right of Return.

Yes, on a day to meant to coincide with the death of Theodor Herzl – the father of modern Zionism – the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) declared unanimously that “Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh” (“oleh” being the singular Hebrew term for “olim” or immigrants).

And what is interesting is that this is not a right granted by the nation of Israel, but by God:

“This law does not provide for the State to bestow the right to settle upon the Jew living abroad; it affirms that this right is inherent in him from the very fact of being a Jew; the State does not grant the right of return to the Jews of the diaspora. This right preceeds the State; this right builds the State; its source is to be found in the historic and never broken connection between the Jewish people and the homeland.”

Let us rejoice that this inherent and God-given right is available to all of God’s children, and let us praise God that His people continue to exercise this right and make aliyah, returning to their historic and biblical homeland.