Yad L’Achim was established in 1950 to help new immigrants adjust to the newly born country and to help them find a suitable religious framework. It is a non-profit organization with no political affiliation.
Over
the years, its attention has turned to more complex problems, including
how to counter the missionary threat. Israel has attracted some 100
missionary congregations and cults because it offers a large
concentration of Jews, many of whom are prime targets due to their
economic distress and unawareness about Judaism. Fighting the
missionaries, who have millions of dollars a year at their disposal, has long been one of Yad L’Achim’s top priorities.
Another
focus of attention is assimilation and intermarriage. Though it was
once thought that this could not be a problem in a Jewish country, not
even for the secular, the tragic facts show an increasing number of
Jewish girls getting involved with foreign workers and, even more so,
with Arab men. Indeed, Yad L’Achim gets some1,000 calls a year reporting such cases.
Our
intermarriage department responds to all such calls. In some cases,
this means launching military-like rescues from hostile Arab villages
and setting the women up in “safe” houses around the country, where
they can build new lives for themselves.
Yad L’Achim has
other departments as well, including one devoted to the spiritual
absorption of immigrants from the CIS and one that helps register
children in Torah schools.