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How to find newly released Israeli immigration records from 1919 onward
(JTA) — The genealogy website MyHeritage posted 1.7 million Israeli immigration records online this week, making accessible a trove of ship and plane passenger lists stored in bound tomes at the Israel State Archives.
The records cover arrivals to the country for about 60 years starting in 1919. They include details such as the name of immigrants, country of origin, birth year, date of arrival, destination city and the name of the vessel they arrived on.
MyHeritage is billing the records as the Israeli version of the Ellis Island database, and historians and genealogists have endorsed this view, calling the release a major moment for the field.
“The amount of information now available, and for free, is huge,” said Garri Regev, president of the Israel Genealogy Research Association.
The records are not just for experts; anyone interested in looking for details about the immigration of their relatives or others can use this dedicated website and search by names and other details.
Knowledge of Hebrew, the language of the original immigration lists, isn’t required. MyHeritage, headquartered in Or Yehuda, Israel, and Salt Lake City, Utah, ran every record through translation software, making them searchable in English and other languages. (Salt Lake City is a hub of genealogical research because it is home to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, known as the Mormon Church, which has a theological interest in ancestry.)
The Israeli data is comprehensive but not complete: Some immigration lists were missing from the archives, and some were in poor condition, affecting the quality of the scan. But genealogists encourage the public not to give up too quickly since names may have changed and spellings vary.
“You have to be creative when you search,” said Rose Feldman, who develops databases for the Israel Genealogy Research Association. “Sometimes it is by looking for the child accompanying the parents, sometimes by searching by the given name and year of birth or if you know the year of arrival. It is free, so it is just your time that is required.”
MyHeritage was an Israeli-owned company until it was acquired by Francisco Partners, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, for a reported $600 million in 2021.
Asked why the company went through the work of digitizing and indexing the files only to provide access to information for free, My Heritage’s director of public relations, Sarah Vanunu, said the company has released records for free in the past and that doing so is part of its public mission.
“We see it as part of our mission to connect people with their family history through important historical records and amazing collections, and a gift to the community,” Vanunu said.
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The post How to find newly released Israeli immigration records from 1919 onward appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel’s Netanyahu Hopes to ‘Taper’ Israel Off US Military Aid in Next Decade
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.
Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from Washington.
“I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told The Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero,” he said: “Yes.”
Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump during a recent visit that Israel “very deeply” appreciates “the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”
In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries.
In 2016, the US and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.
Israeli defense exports rose 13 percent last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defense technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defense systems.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Israel supporter and close ally of Trump, said on X that “we need not wait ten years” to begin scaling back military aid to Israel.
“The billions in taxpayer dollars that would be saved by expediting the termination of military aid to Israel will and should be plowed back into the US military,” Graham said. “I will be presenting a proposal to Israel and the Trump administration to dramatically expedite the timetable.”
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In Rare Messages from Iran, Protesters ask West for Help, Speak of ‘Very High’ Death Toll
Protests in Tehran. Photo: Iran Photo from social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law, via i24 News
i24 News – Speaking to Western media from beyond the nationwide internet blackout imposed by the Islamic regime, Iranian protesters said they needed support amid a brutal crackdown.
“We’re standing up for a revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been stationed behind the Tajrish Arg area [a neighborhood in Tehran],” said a protester in Tehran speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. He added that “We saw hundreds of bodies.”
Another activist in Tehran spoke of witnessing security forces firing live ammunition at protesters resulting in a “very high” number killed.
On Friday, TIME magazine cited a Tehran doctor speaking on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital recorded at least 217 killed protesters, “most by live ammunition.”
Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, Setare Ghorbani, a French-Iranian national living in the suburbs of Paris, said that she became ill from worry for her friends inside Iran. She read out one of her friends’ last messages before losing contact: “I saw two government agents and they grabbed people, they fought so much, and I don’t know if they died or not.”
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Report: US Increasingly Regards Iran Protests as Having Potential to Overthrow Regime
United States President Donald J Trump in White House in Washington, DC, USA, on Thursday, December 18, 2025. Photo: Aaron Schwartz via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – The assessment in Washington of the strength and scope of the Iran protests has shifted after Thursday’s turnout, with US officials now inclined to grant the possibility that this could be a game changer, Axios reported on Friday.
“The protests are serious, and we will continue to monitor them,” an unnamed senior US official was quoted as saying in the report.
Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday after the Islamic regime blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, as videos circulating on social media showed buildings ablaze in anti-government protests raging across the country.
US President Donald Trump warned the Ayatollahs of a strong response if security forces escalate violence against protesters.
“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump told reporters when asked about the unrest in Iran.
The latest reported death toll is at 51 protesters, including nine children.