As religious immigration rises, OU expands presence in Israel, investing in integration
After 47 years in Israel, one of North America’s largest Orthodox institutions switches strategy to operate in neighborhood hubs, reflecting changing community trends
Zev Stub is the Times of Israel's Diaspora Affairs correspondent.
When it moved its office from central Jerusalem to a larger facility in the Har Hotzvim Hi-Tech Park this week, one of North America’s largest Orthodox institutions cemented a strategic decision to invest more in its Israeli operations, reflecting changing perceptions about the relationship between religious communities in Israel and the Diaspora.
The Orthodox Union has had a presence in Israel for 47 years. Now, however, its management is investing more resources in developing the organization’s programs for new North American immigrants to Israel and expanding its services for English-speaking communities living there.
“It is very clear that the OU in America is now seeing the centrality of the State of Israel in its future,” said OU Israel president Stuart Hershkowitz. “I have been told very clearly that the focus will now be much more on Israel, and our budgets here have gone up substantially.”
Hershkowitz said the organization will focus more on integrating new immigrants to Israel through an innovative decentralized model with hubs in different neighborhoods that will allow it to better connect with local communities.
“For many years, we expected people to come to us for programs and services,” Hershkowitz said. “Now, the plan is for us to go out to them.”
Increasing integration
The goal of the new klita (immigrant integration) initiative, as Hershkowitz calls it, is to provide more of the types of community infrastructure that will help English-speaking religious immigrants feel at home in Israel.
Immigration numbers from North America have risen continuously in recent years, even after the Hamas-led terror onslaught of October 7, 2023, with some 4,000 people moving to Israel in 2024 alone. Some 65% of families moving from the US identify as Orthodox, according to data from Nefesh B’Nefesh, an organization that helps North Americans navigate the bureaucracy of immigration.
“As more and more English speakers [move to Israel] at different stages of their lives, the OU is trying to address their needs to help them thrive culturally, spiritually, and religiously,” said OU Israel director of marketing Laya Bejell.
“People go through significant lifestyle changes when they move to Israel,” Bejell said. “Many people tell us that in America, they had social lives built around their synagogues and community centers, while that dynamic doesn’t work the same way here. So we’re trying to create those communities here.”
These include weekly Torah classes in synagogues in the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Rehavia, Baka, Arnona, Ramot and others, as well as in the towns of Modiin and Ma’ale Adumim. More communities around the country will be added in the future, Hershkowitz said.
Women’s programming in Rehavia on Monday nights also attracts large crowds, partially because it addresses an audience typically underserved by other organizations, the OU noted.
These are in addition to a variety of social programs the OU has in place, including Yachad Israel for individuals with disabilities, JLIC Israel (Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus) for students on 10 university campuses, and the NCSY Israel (formerly known abroad as the National Conference of Synagogue Youth) youth movement.
Other activities run by OU Israel include youth initiatives, charities, volunteer programs, continuing education classes for women and retirees, summer camps, tours, and events.
“We already have centers working with youth in 19 cities around Israel,” Hershkowitz said. “Now, we are looking to add more services that aren’t being provided by other aliyah [immigration] organizations,” such as Nefesh B’Nefesh, AACI (Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel), Yad L’Olim, and others.
Growing in Israel
The shift has come gradually for the OU, which has been one of the most powerful organizations in the Jewish world since it was founded in 1898 to certify kosher foods in the United States.
The OU opened its first office in Israel on Jerusalem’s Strauss Street in the late 1970s to serve primarily as a place where NCSY students and alumni could gather or meet with visiting rabbis, explained Rabbi Sam Shor, director of Torah initiatives for OU Israel. In 1999, as the center added Torah classes and became a hub for Jerusalem’s then-small English-speaking community, it moved to a more central location in the Rehavia neighborhood, where it remained for the next 25 years.
Meanwhile, OU’s footprint in the community expanded with the popularity of its Torah Tidbits publication. Distributed every week in synagogues around the country, the parsha, or weekly Torah portion, sheet (with weekly columns and listings of OU classes, along with copious advertisements) has become essential reading for religious English-speaking families, and is now read by more than three million people a year, according to the OU.
“Torah Tidbits is a staple read by people in virtually all synagogues and communities that have religious Anglos in Israel,” said Max Rabin, a programmer who attended an event on Sunday to mark the OU’s move to Har Hotzvim. “No matter how many copies they distribute, they always disappear by the end of Shabbat.”
OU’s success in Israel is also largely attributable to Rabbi Avi Berman, the powerhouse executive director it brought on in 2006 who is seen as the organization’s energizing force.
Meanwhile, a partnership with the Jerusalem municipality helps keep many of the OU’s programs going.
“One of the first things I did when I came into office at city council 11 years ago was to contact the OU, because I saw that they would be our best partners to help us not only bring immigrants to Jerusalem but to help keep them here,” said Jerusalem deputy mayor Arieh King. “Now, the city works closely with them to implement different social and cultural programs for the English-speaking population, and the municipality has a special budget set aside for OU projects. It’s a very fruitful partnership for both sides.”
Perhaps as a result of its municipality partnership, OU Israel has recently catapulted to greater public awareness. Thousands attended a massive public prayer service put on for Israel Independence Day in Jerusalem’s Liberty Bell Park last May, and High Holiday learning conferences in different cities attracted hundreds of participants in October, Shor said.
While other immigrants tend to merge more into broader society the longer they remain in the country, many English-speaking immigrants prefer to associate with their own kind long after they have made the move to Israel, Shor posited.
“When my wife and I moved to our neighborhood seven years ago, neighbors quickly started approaching me with rabbinical questions,” Shor recalled. “Why? The community had a rabbi of 38 years, but he didn’t speak a word of English, and 60% of the congregants were immigrants, so no one ever asked him a question. All of a sudden, within a few weeks of being there, I started getting dozens of questions.”
“That’s the reason we need to go out into the communities,” Shor said. “To cultivate a support network that empowers immigrants to thrive here in Israel.”
