We're eight miles above the Atlantic Ocean in the cockpit of a Boeing 777. A full moon, melon-yellow, hangs like a giant balloon in the silent sky. "This is the most advanced passenger plane in the world. You only need an experienced pilot when anything goes wrong," says Capt. Gideon Livni. He is an experienced pilot. He's been flying for El Al for 18 years. Before that, he was full-time IAF.

Livni keeps a watchful eye on the rows of illuminated buttons of the flight deck, as the management and satellite communications system propels us eastward from the United States to Israel. But there's time to relish the passenger log: Tonight he's carrying 240 immigrants, among them 104 children. The oldest passenger is 72, the youngest one month old. That doesn't count the guests like me on this chartered flight, invited by Nefesh B'Nefesh, the six-year-old nonprofit organization which spares no effort to catalyze and facilitate immigration of North American and British Jews.

Every Zionist cell of my heart is beating fast when I meet the immigrants at JFK. "Are you making aliya? And are you making aliya?" I ask them. I can spot the immigrants among the well-wishing friends and relatives who have come to wish them a bon voyage.

THE MIX of excitement and weariness is etched in their faces. Despite the help of Nefesh B'Nefesh staff at every juncture of the immigration process, packing and closing up households and planning for a new life remain a huge challenge. A pregnant mother of five from Los Angeles has a blaring headache. A father of five from Queens, originally from Azerbaijan, sounds uncertain as he describes the forthcoming move to Bnei Brak to make sure his children grow up with Jewish values. He asks me if I think I made the right decision by leaving America so long ago and bringing up my children in Israel.

I assure him that I have no regrets. Just the opposite. I moved to Israel in 1971, the bumper year of all time for immigration from the US when, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics, 7,364 Americans took on Israeli citizenship. But as terror and economic troubles of the second intifada combined with a lull in immigration, a mere 1,237 Americans became Israelis in 2000.
That was before Nefesh B'Nefesh reversed this trend. The organization has brought 36 chartered and 22 group aliya flights, totaling more than 16,000 immigrants from the US, Canada and the UK.

At last, the well-wishers depart, and the passengers fill the wide-bodied jet. They applaud as Capt. Livni takes off.

BY THE time these men, women and children land - nine hours and change later - they'll step onto Israeli soil as fully-processed new immigrants. They don't even have to go through passport control or customs. Interior Ministry reps spend a sleepless night walking around the plane with electronic PC-Tablets, the electronic pads that hold the personal details of every immigrant. These were developed by Nefesh B'Nefesh as one of a myriad of technological devices aimed at making the notoriously labor-intensive aliya "paperwork" an anachronism. Their immigrant cards will be waiting at Ben-Gurion Airport, and three days later they can pick up their ID cards at the Nefesh B'Nefesh office in Jerusalem. We veteran Israelis can appreciate this dazzling efficiency even more than the newcomers.

Nonetheless, the operative question remains the same as it was decades ago: Why are you making aliya? I can still pinpoint the exact moment I decided to move to Israel. Why are these Americans Jews, from such a variety of ages, religious practices and lifestyles, uprooting themselves and casting their lots with the Zionist enterprise?

For Beverlyn Baer, 22, in a sleeveless T-shirt, the decision was about falling in love. She discovered Israel on a Birthright Israel free trip, loved it and also one of the soldiers who accompanied her group of college kids. She came back and volunteered in Ramle for five months to get better acquainted with the country and the young man. Her boyfriend will be waiting at the airport and they'll go to either the Golan Heights or Tel Aviv. They haven't decided yet.

Jo Anne Alderstein is a much-heralded immigrant attorney in New York. Today she is an immigrant herself. The events of September 11 were a personal wake-up call. On September 5, 2001, she'd moved into her dream apartment near the World Trade Center. Then her daughter gave birth to a baby in Israel and Alderstein quit unpacking and caught the first flight out. Hence, she missed the terror attack. "If that wasn't a kick in the pants, I don't know what is," she says.

Her dream has changed; her dream apartment is now on Rehov Emek Refaim in Jerusalem. To remind herself, she'll keep a framed magazine cover of the New York skyline before 9/11 next to the words "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand lose its cunning," at the entrance to her Jerusalem apartment. "I should have come 30 years earlier," she says. "I knew I needed to come. The existence of Nefesh B'Nefesh made the transition easier."

Indeed, the organization is an endless font of practical information: your rights as immigrants, where to go for Hebrew classes, how to arrange health insurance and register the kids for school, how to release your shipment from customs. It also provides financial aid. But the greatest innovation is the warm welcome and encouragement; there's nothing ambivalent about its belief in aliya as the ultimate tool for self-realization and for building the State of Israel.

EBULLIENCE OVERCOMES tiredness on the flight. The immigrants can hardly sit still and catch up on their sleep. No steward reprimands them as they crowd the aisles, introducing themselves to others, jotting down names, ideas. Immigration means starting all over in acquiring the contacts of people who will be your friends and provide a safety net for you.

At one bulkhead seat, a young religious couple from New York are rocking their eight-month-old daughter. The father turns out to be an Israeli, the son of American immigrants. On a visit to the US, he met Jenny Rosenfeld, a graduate student in English literature, at a Shabbat dinner table. It was love at first sight for both of them. They married and waited for her to complete her doctorate. His name is Pinhas Roth and he's from the Ramot neighborhood of Jerusalem.