ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question: What is it about Berlin that attracts many Israelis to move there?
Diaspora-Israel Day is a new holiday which was initiated by project Domim-aLike, which is a joint program of the Israeli Reform movement and the Israeli government. It is a holiday celebrating the ongoing connections between Jewish communities worldwide, and the continuous sense of peoplehood among them. The festival cherishes thousands of years of united and full Jewish life in different places around the world. The holiday is celebrated on the seventh day of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan, which this year fell on the 27th of October.
There are no really accurate statistics on how many Israelis are currently living abroad. Different sources place the number somewhere between half a million and a million people. One of the most popular destinations for these expats is Berlin, home to an estimated 10- to 15,000 Israelis. We recently met a few of them and briefly spoke with them about their own experiences there. We asked them where in Israel they were from, why they decided to emigrate to Berlin and what they were doing there, and also what they most like about living in that city. Then we had a more in-depth conversation with Polina Garaev, an Israeli journalist who is also based in Berlin.
