Jews abroad love Israel, though fewer call it home

By Daniel Trotta

NEW YORK (Reuters) - David Borowich was raised as a Zionist in America, and when he was a teenager and his neighbors made Aliyah -- literally the ascent, or immigration to Israel -- he knew he would soon follow.

Borowich went further than some olim -- those who make Aliyah -- by serving in the Israeli armed forces as a tank gunner, and planned to raise his family there.

Yet he returned to the United States for graduate school and now, as a financial professional in the New York area, has stayed in America, though he visits Israel frequently.

As Israel turns 60, Jews from around the world view the homeland with a range of emotions, whether reverence and awe, or disillusionment and aloofness. And for the first time since its founding in 1948, the country may be losing more emigrants than immigrants it receives, some experts say.

But Jews love Israel even if they decide not to live there, says Borowich, founder of Dor Chadash, a group that seeks to build ties between Israel and American Jews.

"Jews around the world walk with their heads up a little higher because there is a state of Israel," he said.

"Whether a Jew decides to live in Israel or not, there is an inextricable link between their Jewish identity and the fact that we have a Jewish homeland."

Israel's Jewish population has grown from less than 800,000 at its founding on May 14, 1948, to roughly 5.5 million out of a total Israel population of 7.3 million today. There have been several waves of immigration from around the world. Roughly a million former Soviet Jews have migrated to Israel since 1989.

Annual immigration has slowed to less than 20,000, down from nearly 200,000 in 1990, when Russian Jews migrated in mass.

Some experts say globalization and improved living conditions in Russia may be reversing the flow, though they caution that meaningful statistics may take years to collect.

"We know that about ... 17,000 to 20,000 have left Israel. How many are students and how many will come back is very difficult to say," said Colette Avital, an Israeli parliamentarian who has chaired the immigration committee.

"...There is unfortunately some kind of emigration brain drain in the past few years which can be a reason for some of us to worry," she said.

SOME MAY RETURN

Some people leave for business and education opportunities abroad and may still return. Others flee the hardships of a country at conflict with its neighbors, or have difficulty adjusting to Middle Eastern culture or speaking Hebrew.

"I stayed there for two weeks and I got the experience that in reality life there is not as brilliant and as dizzy as we imagine it beforehand," said Alexander Axelrod of Moscow.