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The chief Sephardi rabbi of Israel, Shlomo Amar (R), offered words of welcome before breaking a hala bread and dipping it in salt, according to an ancient Jewish tradition, and then handed out pieces to the new arrivals.
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TEL AVIV (AFP)---Four hundred new Jewish immigrants from 23 countries landed on Monday on Israeli soil, as part of special events this week to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish state.
The minister of immigrant absorption, Yaacov Edery, and Jewish Agency chief Zeev Bielsky met the new arrivals who arrived on flights from Moscow and Paris at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv.
"I am moved to be able to celebrate the 60 years of the state of the Israel by welcoming hundreds of new immigrants," said Edery, who himself immigrated from Morocco in 1959.
Children from a Jerusalem school greeted the immigrants with red roses.
"I have had a dream since childhood when in 1948 my parents told me about the possibility of living in Israel and 60 years later, here I am," said Richard Dana, a retiree from Corsica who plans to live in Ashdod, a coastal town south of Tel Aviv.
"It is the most wonderful moment of my life," said another immigrant from France, David Benhamou, 27, who is a singer with the stage name Shai.
The chief Sephardi rabbi of Israel, Shlomo Amar, offered words of welcome before breaking a hala bread and dipping it in salt, according to an ancient Jewish tradition, and then handed out pieces to the new arrivals.
The 400 immigrants will take up residence in about 50 towns around Israel, according to the Jewish Agency, a governmental organisation charged with immigration.
In the past few years, the immigration of Jews to Israel has been in decline, hitting the lowest level in 20 years in 2007 with fewer than 20,000 new arrivals.
Since the founding of Israel in 1948, three million immigrants have come to settle in Israel, more than one million of them from the former Soviet Union.
Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, but the event will be officially celebrated on Thursday in line with the Hebrew lunar calendar.
