Josh and Naavah Gottesman of Bergenfield, New Jersey, had dreamed of moving to Israel for years, but were never ready to actually make the move. Israel’s war with Hamas, following the terror organization’s brutal attack on October 7, 2023, changed that.

“At some point after October 7, that pull we’d been feeling got much stronger,” Josh said. “We felt like, ‘How could we not be with our people?’ It pushed us to clarify our plans and make it a reality.”

The Gottesmans and their kids were among the 225 new immigrants who arrived in Israel on Wednesday with Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN), on the organization’s first group charter flight from North America since the war started over 22 months ago.

They are also part of a growing trend, with immigration numbers surging this summer despite the challenges of Israel’s ongoing wars and diplomatic struggles.

In fact, August is set to be NBN’s busiest month in its 23-year history, with more than 1,000 new immigrants expected to arrive.

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“In most countries, people leave during a war, but in Israel, people come to provide strength,” Immigration and Absorption Minister Ofir Sofer told The Times of Israel aboard the aliyah flight. “It says a lot about our solidarity and resilience that these families decided that now was the time to take this difficult decision to come to Israel.”

Nefesh B’Nefesh helps Jews from North America and the UK navigate the often challenging process of immigration to Israel, offering support with everything from paperwork and housing to employment and social integration.

The Gottesman and Pollak families, with matching T-shirts, on the Nefesh B’Nefesh charter flight for new immigrants, August 20, 2025 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)

Immigration is on the rise from the United States, France, Great Britain, Canada and other Western countries, Sofer said. While total immigration numbers dropped by 30% in 2024, according to Immigration and Absorption Ministry data, most of that decline was due to a drop in interest from Russia and Ukraine, where more than half of all new immigrants come from. Aliyah from those countries spiked shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, but has since dropped off.

Elsewhere in the world, Sofer argued, Jews are watching Israel’s successes and sacrifices on the battlefield and deciding that they can no longer sit passively on the sidelines. He added that, at least in the US, few were motivated to leave due to rising antisemitism, but rather were spurred on by a decision to support the Zionist dream.

NBN is expecting to bring about 4,000 immigrants, or olim, during the whole of 2025, which would make it one of its best years in recent history. Since the beginning of the year, the organization has so far brought over a total of 2,358 immigrants, compared to 1,950 in the same period in 2024 and 1,845 in the first eight months of 2023.

New immigrants arrive on a Nefesh B’Nefesh charter flight, August 20, 2025 (Yonit Schiller)

NBN saw an 80% spike in aliyah inquiries immediately following the October 7 attacks, Vice President of Communications Yael Katsman said. As the full process for families typically takes 18 months or longer, that uptick in interest is only this summer manifesting in new arrivals, she explained.

Wednesday’s flight, NBN’s 65th since it was founded, is the organization’s only group charter flight of 2025, with most people arriving individually. Some 90,000 immigrants have made aliyah with NBN in the past 23 years, the organization said.

The flight was organized in cooperation with the Immigration and Absorption Ministry, The Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, and Jewish National Fund-USA.

At a small celebration event at New York’s JFK Airport before the flight, Sofer and NBN founder and executive director Rabbi Yehoshua Fass reminded the crowd of the significance of what they were doing.

“It’s important to show that we have faith and optimism and a bright future,” Fass said. “It shows the enemies of Israel that they cannot keep us down, that we’re moving forward and that we’re building and investing and shining our light and our future on this country.”

The ceremony concluded with the crowd singing Israel’s national anthem, “Hatikvah,” before boarding the plane.

Excitement in the air

The atmosphere on the charter flight was celebratory, even as kids sprawled out everywhere: The 225 new arrivals included 45 families with 125 children. The youngest new immigrant was nine months old, and the oldest was 72 years old, NBN said.

Throughout the flight, passengers stood in the aisles swapping stories, advice and dreams with a casual disorder not usually seen on commercial flights. NBN staff walked around reconnecting with immigrants, some of whom they’d worked with for years since their initial inquiry. Many families wore matching T-shirts that they had created specifically for the flight.

Sarah Pollak, who was moving from Woodmere, New York, to Ramat Beit Shemesh, made blue shirts for her husband and four kids because she wanted “to do something cute and memorable as we bring our family home,” she said.

The Pollak family, with matching T-shirts, arrive in Israel following the Nefesh B’Nefesh charter flight for new immigrants, August 20, 2025 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)

Also filling the aisles were aliyah representatives who spent the flight going row by row, processing the paperwork for each new immigrant. For the first time, representatives from the Immigration and Absorption Ministry and the Population and Immigration Authority issued identity cards and immigration certificates mid-flight, a new process to cut the post-flight bureaucracy by several hours, Fass explained.

“There were a lot of unique challenges to this flight, in terms of those logistics, the number of people arriving, and the security challenges in both New York and Israel due to the war,” Fass said. “But this moment is the fulfillment of generations of yearning, dreaming, praying for this moment, so it’s hard not to feed off the energy of the olim.”

NBN co-founder and executive director Rabbi Yehoshua Fass on the Nefesh B’Nefesh charter flight, August 20, 2025 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)

The purpose of NBN, Fass said, is to act as a facilitator to help new immigrants successfully arrive and stay in Israel.

“We’re not going out and proselytizing for aliyah or trying to reach people who don’t want to come,” Fass said. “Before NBN arrived, Israel’s immigrant retention rate was abysmal, with 50% leaving within three years of their arrival. We have empirical data showing that more than 90% [of people who arrive with us] stay, so that’s a significant transformation in aliyah as a product.”

Attracting talent

As Israel works to pull in skilled immigrants who can contribute to the economy, NBN touted the wide array of fields that the new arrivals work in, including medicine, education, engineering, law, and finance. Aboard the flight were five physicians and 19 other medical professionals, it said.

Revital Gorodeski Baskin, an endocrinologist, and her husband Joseph Baskin, a psychiatrist, decided to move to the Israeli city of Zichron Yaakov after 21 years of marriage and raising four children in Cleveland, Ohio.

“We’ve been wanting to make aliyah forever, but we couldn’t until now, and this war actually really pushed us to make this move,” Revital said. “Making aliyah as a doctor is really complicated because you have to get your medical licenses recognized in Israel, but NBN’s MedEx program helped streamline the process for us. Now, we have our licenses, and we’ve interviewed at several hospitals around the country where we hope to contribute.”

Revital Gorodeski Baskin and her husband Joseph Baskin on the Nefesh B’Nefesh charter flight for new immigrants, August 20, 2025 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)

Another new immigrant, Rabbi Josh Broide, was moving to Modiin with his family after serving for 25 years as a rabbi at the Boca Raton Synagogue in South Florida. He’ll be traveling back to Boca Raton frequently to manage several programs he’s started for the Jewish community there.

“We lived in the nicest Jewish community anywhere in America, so to pick up and leave our synagogue and our friends wasn’t easy,” he said. “My parents always dreamed of living here, but their plans got diverted after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Now we are living their dream, and I hope that one day my mother and my in-laws will join us.”

Rabbi Josh Broide and his wife on the Nefesh B’Nefesh charter flight for new immigrants, August 20, 2025 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)

Shawn Fink and his wife Elizabeth Leeson immigrated to Carmei Gat from Cleveland with their 10-year-old son Eddie, whom they adopted from China in 2015.

“He’s about to become a citizen of his third country in 10 years,” Fink said. “But we were able to get his conversion done quickly, and he has a great sense of humor about it that helps him make friends wherever he goes. We were hoping to get to Israel in time for him to start the school year, and our final approvals came in just a few weeks ago.”

New immigrants Shawn Fink, his wife Elizabeth Leeson, and their son Eddie in the middle, on the Nefesh B’Nefesh charter flight for new immigrants, August 20, 2025 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)

Also on board, Eliezer, a young man who asked not to publish his last name, said he’d graduated from the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Nursing earlier this summer, and now plans to serve in the IDF as a lone soldier. He doesn’t have a draft date yet, but he has registered with Garin Tzabar, a program for immigrant soldiers, on a track designed to help him get started in his career.

“Nursing is a very new field in the IDF, but I spoke with the army’s head nurse, and it sounded very promising,” Eliezer said. “My parents are concerned about my ability to make a living, but they are supportive, and I hope that one day they’ll be able to join me here.”

At the arrival ceremony at Ben Gurion Airport early Wednesday morning, the new arrivals were greeted with music and celebration, and many shed tears of emotion as they began their new lives.

“I never thought we would get here, and it’s been an overwhelming process,” Atara Werterntheil said as she deboarded the plane with her husband and daughter. “But it feels right, and this is very special. We are very lucky.”

“We’re excited to be here to help build our land,” said David Tauber, who is moving with his family from Philadelphia to the Ramot neighborhood of Jerusalem. “I have so many emotions now. We’re living a dream.”