Immigrating to Israel during war 'closes a circle,' Iranian-American Jew says

Sami Rahamim, whose parents left Shiraz in 1949, is one of 30 new citizens arriving Wednesday, despite travel restrictions

By Zev Stub

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25 March 2026, 1:15 pm

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Zev Stub is the Times of Israel's Diaspora Affairs correspondent.

For Iranian-American Sami Rahamim, immigrating to Israel on Wednesday represents the closing of a circle that spans several generations.

“I’m the third generation in a row in my family to choose to become an immigrant,” Rahamim, 31, said ahead of his flight with 30 new immigrants that landed at Ben Gurion Airport Wednesday morning.

“I see myself as a continuation of the biblical story in which the Persian king Cyrus told the Jews to come back to Israel 2,500 years ago, especially at this moment when the State of Israel is fighting to liberate the people of Iran from their conquerors.”

A year after Israel’s founding in 1948, Rahamim’s grandparents Ezra and Sara left their relatively comfortable lives in Shiraz, Iran. At that time, Iran had friendly relations with Israel, but his grandparents wanted to rebuild their life in the Jewish state, Sami said.

But after the Yom Kippur war in 1973, Sami’s father, Reuven, moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and opened a successful business, making signs for the interior spaces of buildings. He became an influential figure within the city’s Jewish community, and was well-loved until gunmen broke into the business, Accent Signage Systems, and killed him and five others in 2012.

“He lived the American dream, but he died in an American nightmare of gun violence,” Sami said.

It was about that time that Sami became interested in Israel, he recalled, an interest that grew after Hamas launched its war against Israel on October 7, 2023. It was on one of his four visits to Israel after the attack that he received “a flash of lightning that it was my time to come home and to complete the circle,” he said.

Sami Rahamim visiting Israel as a baby, flanked by his grandparents and his father, Reuven (left) (Courtesy)

Upon his arrival in Israel on Wednesday, Rahamim will live in the northern village of Klil with his dog, Bamba, and study to be a tour guide at the University of Haifa, he said.

More than 50 new immigrants from North America became Israeli citizens Wednesday — the 30 new arrivals and 20 people in Israel who finalized their citizenship the same day, according to the Nefesh B’Nefesh immigration advocacy nonprofit.

Immigration from abroad was made possible despite significant restrictions on air travel during wartime.

New immigrants arrive at Ben Gurion airport, March 25, 2026. They are welcomed by Immigration and Absorption Minister Ofir Sofer, Nefesh B’Nefesh Co-Founder and Executive Director Rabbi Yehoshua Fass, and Chairman of the World Zionist Organization Yaakov Hagoel (Nefesh B’Nefesh)

Since the beginning of the war with Iran, more than 130 new immigrants have arrived from North America, and about 500 North Americans have immigrated since the beginning of 2026, NBN said.

About 110 new immigrants are expected to arrive during April, and more than 830 immigration files have been opened by Jewish North Americans since the war started, the immigration organization said.

Some 4,100 North Americans immigrated to Israel in 2025, an increase of 12% from the previous year, NBN has said.