Diaspora Minister Nachman Shai’s claim that it is not his job to encourage aliya to Israel negates the very purpose of Zionism, as understood and emphasized by the leaders of the founding generation. First and foremost among those leaders was David Ben-Gurion, who saw the ingathering of the exiles as “the yearning, destiny, and mission of the State of Israel.”

During the aliya of Ezra and Nehemiah, in the early days of the Second Temple, most Jews chose to remain in the Babylonian exile. As the sages said, “Because of our sins we were exiled from our land and moved away from our land.” Jews pray three times a day: “May a great shofar sound our freedom and act as a miracle to gather our dispersed people.”

The writer A.B. Yehoshua has described the Jewish temptation toward exile as an ancient genetic defect. Zionism exists to correct this defect, and the determination to do so must be restated every day by every Jew.