Two hundred twenty new immigrants from France arrived Tuesday in Israel, and received their new Israeli ID cards at a special ceremony at the Western Wall hosted by Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky and the Ministers of Interior and Immigrant Absorption. Among the new immigrants are a group of realtors who already received training and certification in France to work as real estate agents in Israel.
Last week, 150 new immigrants arrived from South America on a first-ever chartered flight for olim, with some 50 new immigrants from Brazil, 50 from A rgentina and the rest from Uruguay and Peru.
Over the summer some 5,000 new immigrants are expected to arrive in Israel, many of them on 20 special olim flights, run in partnership with Nefesh B'Nefesh in North America and the AMI organization in France.
The Jewish Agency anticipates an increase of 15% in the number of immigrants compared with 2008.
