title: Aliyah

text: In Zionist discourse, the term "aliyah" (plural "aliyot") includes both voluntary immigration for ideological, emotional, or practical reasons and, on the other hand, mass flight of persecuted populations of Jews. The vast majority of Israeli Jews today trace their family's recent roots to outside the country. While many have actively chosen to settle in Israel rather than some other country, many had little or no choice about leaving their previous home countries. While Israel is commonly recognized as "a country of immigrants", it is also, in large measure, a country of refugees, including internal refugees. Israeli citizens who marry individuals of Palestinian heritage, born within the Israeli-occupied territories and carrying Palestinian IDs, must renounce Israeli residency themselves in order to live and travel together with their spouses.


title: Aliyah

text: According to the traditional Jewish ordering of books of the Tanakh (Old Testament), the last word of the last book in the original Hebrew (2 Chronicles 36:23) is "vya‘al", a jussive verb form derived from the same root as "aliyah", meaning "and let him go up" (to Jerusalem in Judah).


title: Aliyah

text: 2 Chronicles 36:23 (KJV) Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which "[is]" in Judah. Who "[is there]" among you of all his people? The LORD his God "[be]" with him, and let him go up.


title: Aliyah

text: Return to the land of Israel is a recurring theme in Jewish prayers recited every day, three times a day, and holiday services on Passover and Yom Kippur traditionally conclude with the words "Next year in Jerusalem". Because Jewish lineage can provide a right to Israeli citizenship, "aliyah" (returning to Israel) has both a secular and a religious significance.


title: Aliyah

text: For generations of religious Jews, "aliyah" was associated with the coming of the Jewish Messiah. Jews prayed for their Messiah to come, who was to redeem the land of Israel from gentile rule and return world Jewry to the land under a Halachic theocracy.


title: Aliyah

text: The Hebrew Bible relates that the patriarch Abraham came to the Land of Canaan with his family and followers in approximately 1800 BC. His grandson Jacob went down to Egypt with his family, and after several centuries there, the Israelites went back to Canaan under Moses and Joshua, entering it in about 1300 BC.


title: Aliyah

text: A few decades after the fall of the Kingdom of Judah and the Babylonian exile of the Jewish people, approximately 50,000 Jews returned to Zion following the Cyrus Declaration from 538 BC. The Jewish priestly scribe Ezra led the Jewish exiles living in Babylon to their home city of Jerusalem in 459 BC.


title: Aliyah

text: Jews returned to the Land of Israel throughout the Second Temple period. Herod the Great also encouraged aliyah and often gave key posts, such as the position of High Priest to returnees.


title: Aliyah

text: In late antiquity, the two hubs of rabbinic learning were Babylonia and the land of Israel. Throughout the Amoraic period, many Babylonian Jews immigrated to the land of Israel and left their mark on life there, as rabbis and leaders.


title: Aliyah

text: In the 10th century, leaders of the Karaite Jewish community, mostly living under Persian rule, urged their followers to settle in Eretz Yisrael. The Karaites established their own quarter in Jerusalem, on the western slope of the Kidron Valley. During this period, there is abundant evidence of pilgrimages to Jerusalem by Jews from various countries, mainly in the month of Tishrei, around the time of the Sukkot holiday.


title: Aliyah

text: The number of Jews migrating to the land of Israel rose significantly between the 13th and 19th centuries, mainly due to a general decline in the status of Jews across Europe and an increase in religious persecution. The expulsion of Jews from England (1290), France (1391), Austria (1421), and Spain (the Alhambra decree of 1492) were seen by many as a sign of approaching redemption and contributed greatly to the messianic spirit of the time.


title: Aliyah

text: Aliyah was also spurred during this period by the resurgence of messianic fervor among the Jews of France, Italy, the Germanic states, Poland, Russia, and North Africa. The belief in the imminent coming of the Jewish Messiah, the ingathering of the exiles and the re-establishment of the kingdom of Israel encouraged many who had few other options to make the perilous journey to the land of Israel.


title: Aliyah

text: Pre-Zionist resettlement in Palestine met with various degrees of success. For example, little is known of the fate of the 1210 "aliyah of the three hundred rabbis" and their descendants. It is thought that few survived the bloody upheavals caused by the Crusader invasion in 1229 and their subsequent expulsion by the Muslims in 1291. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 and the expulsion of Jews from Spain (1492) and Portugal (1498), many Jews made their way to the Holy Land. Some Ukrainian Jewish refugees fleeing the pogroms of the Khmelnytsky Uprising of the mid-17th century also settled in the Holy Land. Then the immigration in the 18th and early 19th centuries of thousands of followers of various Kabbalist and Hassidic rabbis, as well as the disciples of the Vilna Gaon and the disciples of the Chattam Sofer, added considerably to the Jewish populations in Jerusalem, Tiberias, Hebron, and Safed.


title: Aliyah

text: The messianic dreams of the Gaon of Vilna inspired one of the largest pre-Zionist waves of immigration to Eretz Yisrael. In 1808 hundreds of the Gaon's disciples, known as Perushim, settled in Tiberias and Safed, and later formed the core of the Old Yishuv in Jerusalem. This was part of a larger movement of thousands of Jews from countries as widely spaced as Persia and Morocco, Yemen and Russia, who moved to Israel beginning in the first decade of the nineteenth century—and in even larger numbers after the conquest of the region by Muhammad Ali of Egypt in 1832—all drawn by the expectation of the arrival of the Messiah in the Jewish year 5600, Christian year 1840, a movement documented in Arie Morgenstern's "Hastening Redemption".


title: Aliyah

text: There were also those who like the British mystic Laurence Oliphant tried to lease Northern Palestine to settle the Jews there (1879).


title: Aliyah

text: In Zionist history, the different waves of "aliyah", beginning with the arrival of the "Biluim" from Russia in 1882, are categorized by date and the country of origin of the immigrants.


title: Aliyah

text: The first modern period of immigration to receive a number in common speech was the Third Aliyah, which in the World War I period was referred to as the successor to the First and Second Aliyot from Babylonia in the Biblical period. Reference to earlier modern periods as the First and Second Aliyot appeared first in 1919 and took a while to catch on.


title: Aliyah

text: The pronounced persecution of Russian Jews between 1881 and 1910 led to a large wave of emigration. Since only a small portion of East European Jews had adopted Zionism by then, between 1881 and 1914 only 30–40,000 emigrants went to Ottoman Palestine, while over one and a half million Russian Jews and 300,000 from Austria-Hungary reached Northern America.


title: Aliyah

text: Between 1882 and 1903, approximately 35,000 Jews immigrated to the Ottoman Palestine, joining the pre-existing Jewish population which in 1880 numbered 20,000-25,000. The Jews immigrating arrived in groups that had been assembled, or recruited. Most of these groups had been arranged in the areas of Romania and Russia in the 1880s. The migration of Jews from Russia correlates with the end of the Russian pogroms, with about 3 percent of Jews emigrating from Europe to Palestine. The groups who arrived in Palestine around this time were called "Hibbat Tsiyon", which is a Hebrew word meaning "fondness for Zion." They were also called "Hovevei Tsiyon" or "enthusiasts for Zion" by the members of the groups themselves. While these groups expressed interest and "fondness" for Palestine, they were not strong enough in number to encompass an entire mass movement as would appear later on in other waves of migration. The majority, belonging to the Hovevei Zion and Bilu movements, came from the Russian Empire with a smaller number arriving from Yemen. Many established agricultural communities. Among the towns that these individuals established are Petah Tikva (already in 1878), Rishon LeZion, Rosh Pinna, and Zikhron Ya'akov. In 1882 the Yemenite Jews settled in the Arab village of Silwan located south-east of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. Kurdish Jews settled in Jerusalem starting around 1895.


title: Aliyah

text: Between 1904 and 1914, 35–40,000 Jews immigrated to Ottoman Palestine. The vast majority came from the Russian Empire, in particular from the Pale of Settlement in Eastern Europe. Jews from other countries in Eastern Europe such as Romania and Bulgaria also joined. Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe was largely due to pogroms and outbreaks of anti-Semitism there. However, Mountain Jews from the Caucasus and Jews from other countries including Yemen, Iran, and Argentina also arrived at this time. The Eastern European Jewish immigrants of this period, greatly influenced by socialist ideals, established the first kibbutz, Degania Alef, in 1909 and formed self-defense organizations, such as Hashomer, to counter increasing Arab hostility and to help Jews to protect their communities from Arab marauders. Ahuzat Bayit, a new suburb of Jaffa established in 1909, eventually grew to become the city of Tel Aviv. During this period, some of the underpinnings of an independent nation-state arose: Hebrew, the ancient national language, was revived as a spoken language; newspapers and literature written in Hebrew were published; political parties and workers organizations were established. The First World War effectively ended the period of the Second Aliyah.


title: Aliyah

text: It is estimated that over half of those who arrived during this period ended up leaving; Ben Gurion stated that nine out of ten left.


title: Aliyah

text: Between 1919 and 1923, 40,000 Jews, mainly from Eastern Europe arrived in the wake of World War I. The British occupation of Palestine and the establishment of the British Mandate created the conditions for the implementation of the promises contained in the Balfour Declaration. Many of the Jewish immigrants were ideologically driven pioneers, known as "halutzim", trained in agriculture and capable of establishing self-sustaining economies. In spite of immigration quotas established by the British administration, the Jewish population reached 90,000 by the end of this period. The Jezreel Valley and the Hefer Plain marshes were drained and converted to agricultural use. Additional national institutions arose such as the Histadrut (General Labor Federation); an elected assembly; national council; and the Haganah, the forerunner of the Israel Defense Forces.


title: Aliyah

text: Between 1924 and 1929, 82,000 Jews arrived, many as a result of increasing anti-Semitism in Poland and throughout Europe. The vast majority of Jewish immigrants arrived from Europe mostly from Poland, the Soviet Union, Romania, and Lithuania, but about 12% came from Asia, mostly Yemen and Iraq. The immigration quotas of the United States kept Jews out. This group contained many middle-class families that moved to the growing towns, establishing small businesses, and light industry. Of these approximately 23,000 left the country.


title: Aliyah

text: Between 1929 and 1939, with the rise of Nazism in Germany, a new wave of 250,000 immigrants arrived; the majority of these, 174,000, arrived between 1933 and 1936, after which increasing restrictions on immigration by the British made immigration clandestine and illegal, called "Aliyah Bet". The Fifth Aliyah was again driven almost entirely from Europe, mostly from Central Europe (particularly from Poland, Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia), but also from Greece. Some Jewish immigrants also came from other countries such as Turkey, Iran, and Yemen. The Fifth Aliyah contained large numbers of professionals, doctors, lawyers, and professors, from Germany. Refugee architects and musicians introduced the Bauhaus style (the White City of Tel Aviv has the highest concentration of International Style architecture in the world with a strong element of Bauhaus) and founded the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra. With the completion of the port at Haifa and its oil refineries, significant industry was added to the predominantly agricultural economy. The Jewish population reached 450,000 by 1940.


title: Aliyah

text: At the same time, tensions between Arabs and Jews grew during this period, leading to a series of Arab riots against the Jews in 1929 that left many dead and resulted in the depopulation of the Jewish community in Hebron. This was followed by more violence during the "Great Uprising" of 1936–1939. In response to the ever-increasing tension between the Arabic and Jewish communities married with the various commitments the British faced at the dawn of World War II, the British issued the White Paper of 1939, which severely restricted Jewish immigration to 75,000 people for five years. This served to create a "relatively" peaceful eight years in Palestine while the Holocaust unfolded in Europe.


title: Aliyah

text: Shortly after their rise to power, the Nazis negotiated the Ha'avara or "Transfer" Agreement with the Jewish Agency under which 50,000 German Jews and $100 million worth of their assets would be moved to Palestine.


title: Aliyah

text: The British government limited Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine with quotas, and following the rise of Nazism to power in Germany, illegal immigration to Mandatory Palestine commenced. The illegal immigration was known as "Aliyah Bet" ("secondary immigration"), or "Ha'apalah", and was organized by the Mossad Le'aliyah Bet, as well as by the Irgun. Immigration was done mainly by sea, and to a lesser extent overland through Iraq and Syria. During World War II and the years that followed until independence, "Aliyah Bet" became the main form of Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine.


title: Aliyah

text: Following the war, Berihah ("escape"), an organization of former partisans and ghetto fighters was primarily responsible for smuggling Jews from Eastern Europe through Poland. In 1946 Poland was the only Eastern Bloc country to allow free Jewish aliyah to Mandate Palestine without visas or exit permits. By contrast, Stalin forcibly brought Soviet Jews back to USSR, as agreed by the Allies during the Yalta Conference. The refugees were sent to the Italian ports from which they traveled to Mandatory Palestine. More than 4,500 survivors left the French port of Sète aboard "President Warfield" (renamed "Exodus"). The British turned them back to France from Haifa, and forced them ashore in Hamburg. Despite British efforts to curb the illegal immigration, during the 14 years of its operation, 110,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine. In 1945 reports of the Holocaust with its 6 million Jewish killed, caused many Jews in Palestine to turn openly against the British Mandate, and illegal immigration escalated rapidly as many Holocaust survivors joined the aliyah.


title: Aliyah

text: After Aliyah Bet, the process of numbering or naming individual aliyot ceased, but immigration did not. A major wave of Jewish immigration, mainly from post-Holocaust Europe and the Arab and Muslim world took place from 1948 to 1951. In three and a half years, the Jewish population of Israel, which was 650,000 at the state's founding, was more than doubled by an influx of about 688,000 immigrants. In 1949, the largest-ever number of Jewish immigrants in a single year - 249,954 - arrived in Israel. This period of immigration is often termed "kibbutz galuyot" (literally, ingathering of exiles), due to the large number of Jewish diaspora communities that made aliyah. However, "kibbutz galuyot" can also refer to aliyah in general.


title: Aliyah

text: At the beginning of the immigration wave, most of the immigrants to reach Israel were Holocaust survivors from Europe, including many from displaced persons camps in Germany, Austria, and Italy, and from British detention camps on Cyprus. Large sections of shattered Jewish communities throughout Europe, such as those from Poland and Romania also immigrated to Israel, with some communities, such as those from Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, being almost entirely transferred. At the same time, the number of Jewish immigrants from Arab countries greatly increased. Special operations were undertaken to evacuate Jewish communities perceived to be in serious danger to Israel, such as Operation Magic Carpet, which evacuated almost the entire Jewish population of Yemen, and Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, which airlifted most of the Jews of Iraq to Israel. Egyptian Jews were smuggled to Israel in Operation Goshen. Nearly the entire Jewish population of Libya left for Israel around this time, and clandestine aliyah from Syria took place, as the Syrian government prohibited Jewish emigration, in a process that was to last decades. Israel also saw significant immigration of Jews from non-Arab Muslim countries such as Iran, Turkey, and Afghanistan in this period.


title: Aliyah

text: This resulted in a period of austerity. To ensure that Israel, which at that time had a small economy and scant foreign currency reserves, could provide for the immigrants, a strict regime of rationing was put in place. Measures were enacted to ensure that all Israeli citizens had access to adequate food, housing, and clothing. Austerity was very restrictive until 1953; the previous year, Israel had signed a reparations agreement with West Germany, in which the West German government would pay Israel as compensation for the Holocaust, due to Israel's taking in a large number of Holocaust survivors. The resulting influx of foreign capital boosted the Israeli economy and allowed for the relaxing of most restrictions. The remaining austerity measures were gradually phased out throughout the following years.


title: Aliyah

text: When new immigrants arrived in Israel, they were sprayed with DDT, underwent a medical examination, were inoculated against diseases, and were given food. The earliest immigrants received desirable homes in established urban areas, but most of the immigrants were then sent to transit camps, known initially as immigrant camps, and later as "Ma'abarot". Many were also initially housed in reception centers in military barracks. By the end of 1950, some 93,000 immigrants were housed in 62 transit camps. The Israeli government's goal was to get the immigrants out of refugee housing and into society as speedily as possible. Immigrants who left the camps received a ration card, an identity card, a mattress, a pair of blankets, and $21 to $36 in cash. They settled either in established cities and towns, or in kibbutzim and moshavim. Many others stayed in the "Ma'abarot" as they were gradually turned into permanent cities and towns, which became known as development towns, or were absorbed as neighborhoods of the towns they were attached to, and the tin dwellings were replaced with permanent housing.


title: Aliyah

text: In the early 1950s, the immigration wave subsided, and emigration increased; ultimately, some 10% of the immigrants would leave Israel for other countries in the following years. In 1953, immigration to Israel averaged 1,200 a month, while emigration averaged 700 a month. The end of the period of mass immigration gave Israel a critical opportunity to more rapidly absorb the immigrants still living in transit camps. The Israeli government built 260 new settlements and 78,000 housing units to accommodate the immigrants, and by the mid-1950s, almost all were in permanent housing. The last "ma'abarot" closed in 1963.


title: Aliyah

text: In the mid-1950s, a smaller wave of immigration began from North African countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Egypt, many of which were in the midst of nationalist struggles. Between 1952 and 1964, some 240,000 North African Jews came to Israel. During this period, smaller but significant numbers arrived from other places such as Europe, Iran, India, and Latin America. In particular, a small immigration wave from then communist Poland, known as the "Gomulka Aliyah", took place during this period. From 1956 to 1960, Poland permitted free Jewish emigration, and some 50,000 Polish Jews immigrated to Israel.


title: Aliyah

text: Since the founding of the State of Israel, the Jewish Agency for Israel was mandated as the organization responsible for aliyah in the diaspora.


title: Aliyah

text: From 1948 until the early 1970s, around 900,000 Jews from Arab lands left, fled, or were expelled from various Arab nations. In the course of Operation Magic Carpet (1949–1950), nearly the entire community of Yemenite Jews (about 49,000) immigrated to Israel. Its other name, Operation On Wings of Eagles (Hebrew: כנפי נשרים, Kanfei Nesharim), was inspired by


title: Aliyah

text: Following the establishment of Israel, about one-third of Iranian Jews, most of them poor, immigrated to Israel, and immigration from Iran continued throughout the following decades. An estimated 70,000 Iranian Jews immigrated to Israel between 1948 and 1978. Following the Islamic Revolution in 1979, most of the Iranian Jewish community left, with some 20,000 Iranian Jews immigrating to Israel. Many Iranian Jews also settled in the United States (especially in New York City and Los Angeles).


title: Aliyah

text: The first major wave of aliyah from Ethiopia took place in the mid-1970s. The massive airlift known as Operation Moses began to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel on November 18, 1984, and ended on January 5, 1985. During those six weeks, some 6,500–8,000 Ethiopian Jews were flown from Sudan to Israel. An estimated 2,000–4,000 Jews died en route to Sudan or in Sudanese refugee camps. In 1991 Operation Solomon was launched to bring the Beta Israel Jews of Ethiopia. In one day, May 24, 34 aircraft landed at Addis Ababa and brought 14,325 Jews from Ethiopia to Israel. Since that time, Ethiopian Jews have continued to immigrate to Israel bringing the number of Ethiopian-Israelis today to over 100,000.


title: Aliyah

text: A mass emigration was politically undesirable for the Soviet regime. The only acceptable ground was family reunification, and a formal petition ("вызов", "vyzov") from a relative from abroad was required for the processing to begin. Often, the result was a formal refusal. The risks to apply for an exit visa compounded because the entire family had to quit their jobs, which in turn would make them vulnerable to charges of social parasitism, a criminal offense. Because of these hardships, Israel set up the group Lishkat Hakesher in the early 1950s to maintain contact and promote aliyah with Jews behind the Iron Curtain.


title: Aliyah

text: From Israel's establishment in 1948 to the Six-Day War in 1967, Soviet aliyah remained minimal. Those who made aliyah during this period were mainly elderly people granted clearance to leave for family reunification purposes. Only about 22,000 Soviet Jews managed to reach Israel. In the wake of the Six-Day War, the USSR broke off the diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. An Anti-Zionist propaganda campaign in the state-controlled mass media and the rise of Zionology were accompanied by harsher discrimination of the Soviet Jews. By the end of the 1960s, Jewish cultural and religious life in the Soviet Union had become practically impossible, and the majority of Soviet Jews were assimilated and non-religious, but this new wave of state-sponsored anti-Semitism on one hand, and the sense of pride for victorious Jewish nation over Soviet-armed Arab armies on the other, stirred up Zionist feelings.


title: Aliyah

text: After the Dymshits-Kuznetsov hijacking affair and the crackdown that followed, strong international condemnations caused the Soviet authorities to increase the emigration quota. In the years 1960–1970, the USSR let only 4,000 people leave; in the following decade, the number rose to 250,000. The exodus of Soviet Jews began in 1968.


title: Aliyah

text: Between 1968 and 1973, almost all Soviet Jews allowed to leave settled in Israel, and only a small minority moved to other Western countries. However, in the following years, the number of those moving to other Western nations increased. Soviet Jews granted permission to leave were taken by train to Austria to be processed and then flown to Israel. There, the ones who chose not to go to Israel, called "dropouts", exchanged their immigrant invitations to Israel for refugee status in a Western country, especially the United States. Eventually, most Soviet Jews granted permission to leave became dropouts. Overall, between 1970 and 1988, some 291,000 Soviet Jews were granted exit visas, of whom 165,000 moved to Israel and 126,000 moved to the United States. In 1989 a record 71,000 Soviet Jews were granted exodus from the USSR, of whom only 12,117 immigrated to Israel.


title: Aliyah

text: In 1989 the United States changed its immigration policy of unconditionally granting Soviet Jews refugee status. That same year, Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev ended restrictions on Jewish immigration, and the Soviet Union itself collapsed in 1991. Since then, about a million people from the former Soviet Union immigrated to Israel, including approximately 240,000 who were not Jewish according to rabbinical law, but were eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return.


title: Aliyah

text: The number of immigrants counted as halachically non-Jewish from the former USSR has been constantly rising ever since 1989. For example, in 1990 around 96% of the immigrants were halachically Jewish and only 4% were non-Jewish family members. However, in 2000, the proportion was: Jews (includes children from non-Jewish father and Jewish mother) - 47%, Non-Jewish spouses of Jews - 14%, children from Jewish father and non-Jewish mother - 17%, Non-Jewish spouses of children from Jewish father and non-Jewish mother - 6%, non-Jews with a Jewish grandparent - 14% & Non-Jewish spouses of non-Jews with a Jewish grandparent - 2%.


title: Aliyah

text: Following the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian Jews making aliyah from the Ukraine reached 142% higher during the first four months of 2014 compared to the previous year. In 2014, aliyah from the former Soviet Union went up 50% from the previous year with some 11,430 people or approximately 43% of all Jewish immigrants arrived from the former Soviet Union, propelled from the increase from Ukraine with some 5,840 new immigrants have come from Ukraine over the course of the year.


title: Aliyah

text: The wave of aliyah from Russia since 2014 has been called "Putin's aliyah", "Putin's exodus", and "cheese aliyah" (foreign cheese was one of the first products to disappear from Russian shops because of anti-sanctions imposed by the Russian government). The number of repatriants in this wave is comparable with that coming from the USSR between 1970 and 1988.


title: Aliyah

text: Following 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Israel announced "Immigrants Come Home" operation. As of June 2022, more than 25,000 people arrived in Israel from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Moldova.


title: Aliyah

text: In the 1999–2002 Argentine political and economic crisis that caused a run on the banks, wiped out billions of dollars in deposits and decimated Argentina's middle class, most of the country's estimated 200,000 Jews were directly affected. Some 4,400 chose to start over and move to Israel, where they saw opportunity.


title: Aliyah

text: More than 10,000 Argentine Jews immigrated to Israel since 2000, joining the thousands of previous Argentine immigrants already there. The crisis in Argentina also affected its neighbour country Uruguay, from which about half of its 40,000-strong Jewish community left, mainly to Israel, in the same period. During 2002 and 2003 the Jewish Agency for Israel launched an intensive public campaign to promote aliyah from the region, and offered additional economic aid for immigrants from Argentina. Although the economy of Argentina improved, and some who had immigrated to Israel from Argentina moved back following South American country's economic growth from 2003 onwards, Argentine Jews continue to immigrate to Israel, albeit in smaller numbers than before. The Argentine community in Israel is about 50,000-70,000 people, the largest Latin American group in the country.


title: Aliyah

text: There has also been immigration from other Latin American countries that have experienced crises, though they have come in smaller numbers and are not eligible for the same economic benefits as immigrants to Israel from Argentina.


title: Aliyah

text: In Venezuela, growing antisemitism in the country, including antisemitic violence, caused an increasing number of Jews to move to Israel during the 2000s. For the first time in Venezuelan history, Jews began leaving for Israel in the hundreds. By November 2010, more than half of Venezuela's 20,000-strong Jewish community had left the country.


title: Aliyah

text: From 2000 to 2009, more than 13,000 French Jews immigrated to Israel, largely as a result of growing anti-semitism in the country. A peak was reached in 2005, with 2,951 immigrants. However, between 20 and 30% eventually returned to France. After the election of Nicolas Sarkozy, French aliyah dropped due to the Jewish community's comfort with him. In 2010 only 1,286 French Jews made aliyah.


title: Aliyah

text: In 2012, some 200,000 French citizens lived in Israel. During the same year, following the election of François Hollande and the Jewish school shooting in Toulouse, as well as ongoing acts of anti-semitism and the European economic crisis, an increasing number of French Jews began buying property in Israel. In August 2012, it was reported that anti-semitic attacks had risen by 40% in the five months following the Toulouse shooting, and that many French Jews were seriously considering immigrating to Israel. In 2013, 3,120 French Jews immigrated to Israel, marking a 63% increase over the previous year. In the first two months of 2014, French Jewish aliyah increased precipitously by 312% with 854 French Jews making aliyah over the first two months. Immigration from France throughout 2014 has been attributed to several factors, of which includes increasing antisemitism, in which many Jews have been harassed and attacked by a fusillade of local thugs and gangs, a stagnant European economy and concomitant high youth unemployment rates.


title: Aliyah

text: During the first few months of 2014, The Jewish Agency of Israel has continued to encourage an increase of French aliyah through aliyah fairs, Hebrew-language courses, sessions which help potential immigrants to find jobs in Israel, and immigrant absorption in Israel. A May 2014 survey revealed that 74 percent of French Jews consider leaving France for Israel where of the 74 percent, 29.9 percent cited anti-Semitism. Another 24.4 cited their desire to “preserve their Judaism,” while 12.4 percent said they were attracted by other countries. “Economic considerations” was cited by 7.5 percent of the respondents. By June 2014, it was estimated by the end of 2014 a full 1 percent of the French Jewish community will have made aliyah to Israel, the largest in a single year. Many Jewish leaders stated the emigration is being driven by a combination of factors, including the cultural gravitation towards Israel and France's economic woes, especially for the younger generation drawn by the possibility of other socioeconomic opportunities in the more vibrant Israeli economy. During the Hebrew year 5774 (September 2013 - September 2014) for the first time ever, more Jews made aliyah from France than any other country, with approximately 6,000 French Jews making aliyah, mainly fleeing rampant antisemitism, pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist violence and economic malaise with France becoming the top sending country for aliyah as of late September 2014.


title: Aliyah

text: In January 2015, events such as the Charlie Hebdo shooting and Porte de Vincennes hostage crisis created a shock wave of fear across the French Jewish community. As a result of these events, the Jewish Agency planned an aliyah plan for 120,000 French Jews who wish to make aliyah. In addition, with Europe's stagnant economy as of early 2015, many affluent French Jewish skilled professionals, businesspeople and investors have sought Israel as a start-up haven for international investments, as well as job and new business opportunities. In addition, Dov Maimon, a French Jewish émigré who studies migration as a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, expects as many as 250,000 French Jews to make aliyah by 2030.


title: Aliyah

text: Hours after an attack and an ISIS flag was raised on a gas factory near Lyon where the severed head of a local businessman was pinned to the gates on June 26, 2015, Immigration and Absorption Minister Ze’ev Elkin strongly urged the French Jewish community to move to Israel and made it a national priority for Israel to welcome the French Jewish community with open arms. Immigration from France is on the rise: in the first half of 2015, approximately 5,100 French Jews made aliyah to Israel marking 25% more than in the same period during the previous year when about 7,000 made aliyah during all of 2014, indicating that about 10,000 should be expected for the full year of 2015.


title: Aliyah

text: Following the November 2015 Paris attacks committed by suspected ISIS affiliates in retaliation for Opération Chammal, one source reported that 80 percent of French Jews were considering making aliyah. According to the Jewish Agency, nearly 6500 French Jews had made aliyah between January and November 2015.


title: Aliyah

text: More than 200,000 North American immigrants live in Israel. There has been a steady flow of immigration from North America since Israel's inception in 1948.


title: Aliyah

text: Several thousand American Jews moved to Mandate Palestine before the State of Israel was established. From Israel's establishment in 1948 to the Six-Day War in 1967, aliyah from the United States and Canada was minimal. In 1959, a former President of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel estimated that out of the 35,000 American and Canadian Jews who had made aliyah, only 6,000 remained.


title: Aliyah

text: Following the Six-Day War in 1967, and the subsequent euphoria among world Jewry, significant numbers arrived in the late 1960s and 1970s, whereas it had been a mere trickle before. Between 1967 and 1973, 60,000 North American Jews immigrated to Israel. However, many of them later returned to their original countries. An estimated 58% of American Jews who immigrated to Israel between 1961 and 1972 ended up returning to the United States.


title: Aliyah

text: Like Western European immigrants, North Americans tend to immigrate to Israel more for religious, ideological, and political purposes, and not financial or security ones. Many immigrants began arriving in Israel after the First and Second Intifada, with a total of 3,052 arriving in 2005 — the highest number since 1983.


title: Aliyah

text: Nefesh B'Nefesh, founded in 2002 by Rabbi Yehoshua Fass and Tony Gelbart, works to encourage aliyah from North America and the UK by providing financial assistance, employment services and streamlined governmental procedures. Nefesh B’Nefesh works in cooperation with the Jewish Agency and the Israeli Government in increasing the numbers of North American and British immigrants.


title: Aliyah

text: Following the financial crisis of 2007–2008, American Jewish immigration to Israel rose. This wave of immigration was triggered by Israel's lower unemployment rate, combined with financial incentives offered to new Jewish immigrants. In 2009, aliyah was at its highest in 36 years, with 3,324 North American Jews making aliyah.


title: Aliyah

text: Since the mid-1990s, there has been a steady stream of South African Jews, American Jews, and French Jews who have either made aliyah, or purchased property in Israel for potential future immigration. Over 2,000 French Jews moved to Israel each year between 2000 and 2004 due to anti-Semitism in France. The Bnei Menashe Jews from India, whose recent discovery and recognition by mainstream Judaism as descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes is subject to some controversy, slowly started their aliyah in the early 1990s and continue arriving in slow numbers. Organizations such as Nefesh B'Nefesh and Shavei Israel help with aliyah by supporting financial aid and guidance on a variety of topics such as finding work, learning Hebrew, and assimilation into Israeli culture.


title: Aliyah

text: In early 2007 "Haaretz" reported that aliyah for the year of 2006 was down approximately 9% from 2005, "the lowest number of immigrants recorded since 1988". The number of new immigrants in 2007 was 18,127, the lowest since 1988. Only 36% of these new immigrants came from the former Soviet Union (close to 90% in the 1990s) while the number of immigrants from countries like France and the United States is stable. Some 15,452 immigrants arrived in Israel in 2008 and 16,465 in 2009. On October 20, 2009, the first group of Kaifeng Jews arrived in Israel, in an aliyah operation coordinated by Shavei Israel. "Shalom Life" reported that over 19,000 new immigrants arrived in Israel in 2010, an increase of 16 percent over 2009.


title: Aliyah

text: In 2013, the office of the Prime Minister of Israel announced that some people born out of wedlock, "wishing to immigrate to Israel could be subjected to DNA testing" to prove their paternity is as they claim. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the genetic paternity testing idea is based on the recommendations of Nativ, an Israeli government organization that has helped Soviet and post-Soviet Jews with aliyah since the 1950s.


title: Aliyah

text: Yom HaAliyah (Aliyah Day) () is an Israeli national holiday celebrated annually according to the Jewish calendar on the tenth of the Hebrew month of Nisan to commemorate the Jewish people entering the Land of Israel as written in the Hebrew Bible, which happened on the tenth of the Hebrew month of Nisan (). The holiday was also established to acknowledge Aliyah, immigration to the Jewish state, as a core value of the State of Israel, and honor the ongoing contributions of Olim, Jewish immigrants, to Israeli society. Yom HaAliyah is also observed in Israeli schools on the seventh of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan.


title: Aliyah

text: The original day chosen for Yom HaAliyah, the tenth of Nisan, is laden with symbolism. Although a modern holiday created by the Knesset of Israel, the tenth of Nisan is a date of religious significance for the Jewish People as recounted in the Hebrew Bible and in traditional Jewish thought.


title: Aliyah

text: On the tenth of Nisan, according to the biblical narrative in the Book of Joshua, Joshua and the Israelites crossed the Jordan River at Gilgal into the Promised Land while carrying the Ark of the Covenant. It was thus the first documented "mass aliyah." On that day, God commanded the Israelites to commemorate and celebrate the occasion by erecting twelve stones with the text of the Torah engraved upon them. The stones represented the entirety of the Jewish nation's twelve tribes and their gratitude for God's gift of the Land of Israel () to them.


title: Aliyah

text: Yom HaAliyah, as a modern holiday celebration, began in 2009 as a grassroots community initiative and young Olim self-initiated movement in Tel Aviv, spearheaded by the TLV Internationals organization of the Am Yisrael Foundation. On June 21, 2016, the Twentieth Knesset voted in favor of codifying the grassroots initiative into law by officially adding Yom HaAliyah to the Israeli national calendar. The Yom HaAliyah bill was co-sponsored by Knesset members from different parties in a rare instance of cooperation across the political spectrum of the opposition and coalition.


title: Aliyah

text: The number of immigrants since 1882 by period, continent of birth, and country of birth is given in the table below. Continent of birth and country of birth data is almost always unavailable or nonexistent for before 1919.


title: Sovereign wealth fund

text: A sovereign wealth fund (SWF), sovereign investment fund, or social wealth fund is a state-owned investment fund that invests in real and financial assets such as stocks, bonds, real estate, precious metals, or in alternative investments such as private equity fund or hedge funds. Sovereign wealth funds invest globally. Most SWFs are funded by revenues from commodity exports or from foreign-exchange reserves held by the central bank.


title: Sovereign wealth fund

text: Some sovereign wealth funds may be held by a central bank, which accumulates the funds in the course of its management of a nation's banking system; this type of fund is usually of major economic and fiscal importance. Other sovereign wealth funds are simply the state savings that are invested by various entities for the purposes of investment return, and that may not have a significant role in fiscal management.


title: Sovereign wealth fund

text: The accumulated funds may have their origin in, or may represent, foreign currency deposits, gold, special drawing rights (SDRs) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) reserve positions held by central banks and monetary authorities, along with other national assets such as pension investments, oil funds, or other industrial and financial holdings. These are assets of the sovereign nations that are typically held in domestic and different reserve currencies (such as the dollar, euro, pound, and yen). Such investment management entities may be set up as official investment companies, state pension funds, or sovereign funds, among others.


title: Sovereign wealth fund

text: There have been attempts to distinguish funds held by sovereign entities from foreign-exchange reserves held by central banks. Sovereign wealth funds can be characterized as "maximizing long-term return", with foreign exchange reserves serving short-term "currency stabilization", and liquidity management. Many central banks in recent years possess reserves massively in excess of needs for liquidity or foreign exchange management. Moreover, it is widely believed most have diversified hugely into assets other than short-term, highly liquid monetary ones, though almost no data is publicly available to back up this assertion.


title: Sovereign wealth fund

text: The term "sovereign wealth fund" was first used in 2005 by Andrew Rozanov in an article entitled, "Who holds the wealth of nations?" in the "Central Banking Journal". The previous edition of the journal described the shift from traditional reserve management to sovereign wealth management; subsequently the term gained widespread use as the spending power of global officialdom has rocketed upward.


title: Sovereign wealth fund

text: Some of them have grabbed attention making bad investments in several Wall Street financial firms such as Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch. These firms needed a cash infusion due to losses resulting from mismanagement and the subprime mortgage crisis.


title: Sovereign wealth fund

text: SWFs invest in a variety of asset classes such as stocks, bonds, real estate, private equity and hedge funds. Many sovereign funds are directly investing in institutional real estate. According to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute's transaction database around US$9.26 billion in direct sovereign wealth fund transactions were recorded in institutional real estate for the last half of 2012. In the first half of 2014, global sovereign wealth fund direct deals amounted to $50.02 billion according to the SWFI.


title: Sovereign wealth fund

text: Sovereign wealth funds have existed for more than a century, but since 2000, the number of sovereign wealth funds has increased dramatically. The first SWFs were non-federal U.S. state funds established in the mid-19th century to fund specific public services. The U.S. state of Texas was thus the first to establish such a scheme, to fund public education. The Permanent School Fund (PSF) was created in 1854 to benefit primary and secondary schools, with the Permanent University Fund (PUF) following in 1876 to benefit universities. The PUF was endowed with public lands, the ownership of which the state retained by terms of the 1845 annexation treaty between the Republic of Texas and the United States. While the PSF was first funded by an appropriation from the state legislature, it also received public lands at the same time that the PUF was created. The first SWF established for a sovereign state is the Kuwait Investment Authority, a commodity SWF created in 1953 from oil revenues before Kuwait gained independence from the United Kingdom. According to many estimates, Kuwait's fund is now worth approximately US$600 billion.


title: Sovereign wealth fund

text: Another early registered SWFs is the Revenue Equalization Reserve Fund of Kiribati. Created in 1956, when the British administration of the Gilbert Islands in Micronesia put a levy on the export of phosphates used in fertilizer, the fund has since then grown to $520 million.


title: Sovereign wealth fund

text: SWFs are typically created when governments have budgetary surpluses and have little or no international debt. It is not always possible or desirable to hold this excess liquidity as money or to channel it into immediate consumption. This is especially the case when a nation depends on raw material exports like oil, copper or diamonds. In such countries, the main reason for creating a SWF is because of the properties of resource revenue: high volatility of resource prices, unpredictability of extraction, and exhaustibility of resources.


title: Sovereign wealth fund

text: There are two types of funds: saving funds and stabilization funds. Stabilization SWFs are created to reduce the volatility of government revenues, to counter the boom-bust cycles' adverse effect on government spending and the national economy. Savings SWFs build up savings for future generations. One such fund is the Government Pension Fund of Norway. It is believed that SWFs in resource-rich countries can help avoid resource curse, but the literature on this question is controversial. Governments may be able to spend the money immediately, but risk causing the economy to overheat, e.g., in Hugo Chávez's Venezuela or Shah-era Iran. In such circumstances, saving the money to spend during a period of low inflation is often desirable.


title: Sovereign wealth fund

text: Other reasons for creating SWFs may be economic, or strategic, such as war chests for uncertain times. For example, the Kuwait Investment Authority during the Gulf War managed excess reserves above the level needed for currency reserves (although many central banks do that now). The Government of Singapore Investment Corporation and Temasek Holdings are partially the expression of a desire to bolster Singapore's standing as an international financial centre. The Korea Investment Corporation has since been similarly managed. Sovereign wealth funds invest in all types of companies and assets, including startups like Xiaomi and renewable energy companies like Bloom Energy.


title: Sovereign wealth fund

text: According to a 2014 study, SWFs are not created for reasons related to reserve accumulation and commodity-export specialization. Rather, the diffusion of SWF can best understood as a fad whereby certain governments consider it fashionable to create SWFs and are influenced by what their peers are doing.


title: Sovereign wealth fund

text: A number of transparency indices sprang up before the Santiago Principles, some more stringent than others. To address these concerns, some of the world's main SWFs came together in a summit in Santiago, Chile, on 2–3 September 2008. Under the leadership of the IMF, they formed a temporary International Working Group of Sovereign Wealth Funds. This working group then drafted the 24 Santiago Principles, to set out a common global set of international standards regarding transparency, independence, and accountability in the way that SWFs operate. These were published after being presented to the IMF International Monetary Financial Committee on 11 October 2008. They also considered a standing committee to represent them, and so a new organisation, the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds (IFSWF) was set up to maintain the new standards going forward and represent them in international policy debates.


title: Sovereign wealth fund

text: As of 2016, 30 funds have formally signed up to the Principles, representing collectively 80% of the assets managed by sovereign funds globally or US$5.5 trillion.


title: Sovereign wealth fund

text: Countries with SWFs funded by oil and gas exports, totaled $5.4 trillion as of 2020. Non-commodity SWFs are typically funded by transfer of assets from official foreign exchange reserves, and in some cases from Government budget surpluses and privatization revenues. Middle Eastern and Asian countries account for 77% of all SWFs.


title: German Navy

text: The German Navy (, ) is the navy of Germany and part of the unified "Bundeswehr" (Federal Defense), the German Armed Forces. The German Navy was originally known as the "Bundesmarine" (Federal Navy) from 1956 to 1995, when "Deutsche Marine" (German Navy) became the official name with respect to the 1990 incorporation of the East German "Volksmarine" (People's Navy). It is deeply integrated into the NATO alliance. Its primary mission is protection of Germany's territorial waters and maritime infrastructure as well as sea lines of communication. Apart from this, the German Navy participates in peacekeeping operations, and renders humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. It also participates in anti-piracy operations.


title: German Navy

text: The German Navy traces its roots back to the "Reichsflotte" (Imperial Fleet) of the revolutionary era of 1848–52. The "Reichsflotte" was the first German navy to sail under the black-red-gold flag. Founded on 14 June 1848 by the orders of the democratically elected Frankfurt Parliament, the "Reichsflotte"'s brief existence ended with the failure of the revolution and it was disbanded on 2 April 1852; thus, the modern day navy celebrates its birthday on 14 June.


title: German Navy

text: Between May 1945 and 1956, the German Mine Sweeping Administration and its successor organizations, made up of former members of Nazi Germany's "Kriegsmarine" (War Navy), became something of a transition stage for the navy, allowing the future "Marine" to draw on recently experienced personnel upon its formation. Also, from 1949 to 1952 the US Navy had maintained the Naval Historical Team in Bremerhaven. This group of former "Kriegsmarine" officers acting as historical and tactical consultants to the Americans, was significant in establishing a German element in the NATO senior naval staff. In 1956, with West Germany's accession to NATO, the "Bundesmarine" (Federal Navy), as the navy was known colloquially, was formally established. In the same year the East German "Volkspolizei See" (literally People's Police Sea) became the "Volksmarine" (People's Navy). During the Cold War all of the German Navy's combat vessels were assigned to NATO's Allied Forces Baltic Approaches's naval command NAVBALTAP.


title: German Navy

text: With the accession of East Germany to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990 the "Volksmarine" along with the whole National People's Army became part of the "Bundeswehr". Since 1995 the name "German Navy" is used in international context, while the official name since 1956 remains "Marine" without any additions. As of April 2020, the strength of the navy is 16,704 men and women.


title: German Navy

text: German warships permanently participate in all four NATO Maritime Groups. The German Navy is also engaged in operations against international terrorism such as Operation Enduring Freedom and NATO Operation Active Endeavour.


title: German Navy

text: Presently the largest operation the German Navy is participating in is UNIFIL off the coast of Lebanon. The German contribution to this operation is two frigates, four fast attack craft, and two auxiliary vessels. The naval component of UNIFIL has been under German command.


title: German Navy

text: The navy is operating a number of development and testing installations as part of an inter-service and international network. Among these is the Centre of Excellence for Operations in Confined and Shallow Waters (COE CSW), an affiliated centre of Allied Command Transformation. The COE CSW was established in April 2007 and officially accredited by NATO on 26 May 2009. It is co-located with the staff of the German Flotilla 1 in Kiel whose Commander is double-hatted as Director, COE CSW.


title: German Navy

text: In total, there are about 65 commissioned ships in the German Navy, including; 11 frigates, 5 corvettes, 2 minesweepers, 10 minehunters, 6 submarines, 11 replenishment ships and 20 miscellaneous auxiliary vessels. The displacement of the navy is 220,000 tonnes.


title: German Navy

text: In addition, the German Navy and the Royal Danish Navy are in cooperation in the "Ark Project". This agreement made the Ark Project responsible for the strategic sealift of German armed forces where the full-time charter of three roll-on-roll-off cargo and troop ships are ready for deployments. In addition, these ships are also kept available for the use of the other European NATO countries. The three vessels have a combined displacement of 60,000 tonnes.


title: German Navy

text: Including these ships, the total ships' displacement available to the "Deutsche Marine" is 280,000 tonnes.


title: German Navy

text: Procurement of Joint Support Ships (either two JSS800 for an amphibious group of 800 soldiers, or three smaller JSS400), was planned during the 1995–2010 period but the programme appears now to have been abandoned, not having been mentioned in two recent defence reviews. The larger ships would have been tasked for strategic troop transport and amphibious operations, and were to displace 27,000 to 30,000 tons for 800 soldiers.


title: German Navy

text: The naval air arm of the German Navy is called the "Marinefliegerkommando". The "Marinefliegerkommando" operates 56 aircraft, in May 2021 it was announced that the German Navy intended to replace the P-3C aircraft with 5 Boeing P-8 Poseidon MPA aircraft through a FMS agreement from 2025 onwards.


title: German Navy

text: The German Navy is commanded by the Inspector of the Navy ("Inspekteur der Marine") supported by the Navy Command ("Marinekommando") in Rostock.


title: Ryan Sweeting

text: Sweeting was born in Nassau, Bahamas. He has been living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and registered as an American to the ATP.


title: Ryan Sweeting

text: In September 2013, Sweeting became engaged to actress Kaley Cuoco after three months of dating. They married on December 31, 2013, in Santa Susana, California. Cuoco announced in September 2015 that she was filing for divorce. The divorce was finalized in May 2016.


title: Ryan Sweeting

text: Sweeting represented The Bahamas in his junior years. He attended Guizar Tennis Academy and was coached by renowned Mexican tennis coach, Nicolas Guizar. In 2005, he won the US Open Boys' Singles title, beating Jérémy Chardy in the final.


title: Ryan Sweeting

text: As a junior, Sweeting compiled a singles win–loss record of 94–51 (89–46 in doubles), reaching as high as no. 2 in the junior world rankings in September 2005.


title: Ryan Sweeting

text: In 2006, he attended the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where he played for the Florida Gators men's tennis team in NCAA competition. He made his professional US Open debut in 2006, where he defeated Argentine Guillermo Coria in the first round (Coria retired while down 3–2) before losing to Belgian Olivier Rochus in five sets. Sweeting served as a practice partner for the U.S. Davis Cup team in the 2006 World Group semifinal against Russia in Moscow.


title: Ryan Sweeting

text: Sweeting turned professional in 2007. Sweeting captured four ProCircuit doubles titles in 2007. He won the Rimouski Challenger in Canada in November 2008 for his first ProCircuit singles title. He finished 2008 ranked no. 216 in the ATP world rankings.


title: Ryan Sweeting

text: Sweeting captured the Dallas Challenger singles title in February 2009, without dropping a set. In April, at the US Men's Clay Court Championships in Houston, Texas, Sweeting and doubles partner Jesse Levine lost to Americans Bob and Mike Bryan, ranked no. 1 in the world, in the doubles final.


title: Ryan Sweeting

text: At the US Men's Clay Court Championships in Houston, Sweeting won his only ATP World Tour singles title by beating Kei Nishikori of Japan in the final in straight sets.


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: Step by Step is an American television sitcom that aired for seven seasons. It ran on ABC as part of its TGIF Friday night lineup from September 20, 1991, to August 15, 1997, then moved to CBS, where it aired from September 19, 1997, to June 26, 1998. Patrick Duffy and Suzanne Somers star as single parents Frank and Carol, respectively; each with three children, who wed and form a blended family.


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: Frank Lambert, a divorced contractor, has three children: John Thomas (J.T.), Alicia (Al), and Brendan. Carol Foster, a widowed salon owner, also has three children: Dana, Karen, and Mark. Both families live in Port Washington, Wisconsin.


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: Frank and Carol marry while vacationing in Jamaica after a whirlwind courtship and Frank plans an identical vacation to "accidentally" run into Carol. They planned to keep their marriage a secret, but Frank accidentally reveals to J.T. that they are married during a barbecue he and Carol hold to introduce all the children, leaving them surprised and angry at first.


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: Each episode depicts typical situations for a new blended family. Family members' differences cause arguments and resentments, but over time they grow to tolerate and become loyal to one another.


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: The series was created and executive produced by William Bickley and Michael Warren, and developed and executive produced by Thomas L. Miller and Robert L. Boyett. It was produced by Bickley-Warren Productions, Miller-Boyett Productions and Lorimar Television (the latter doing so from 1991 to 1993, when Warner Bros. Television assumed production responsibilities for it and Lorimar's other television series after shared corporate parent Time Warner consolidated the two production companies). The casting of Patrick Duffy fulfilled a contractual obligation that Lorimar made to give him a new show after his previous series, "Dallas" (which was also produced by Lorimar), had ended its run. It was created off of the idea of combining two of the most popular television stars from the 1970s known for their good looks (Duffy and Somers) to star as parents to attract adult viewers, with current teen celebrities (Staci Keanan from "My Two Dads" and "Going Places", Brandon Call from "Baywatch" and Sasha Mitchell from "Dallas") to star as their children to attract children and teen viewers.


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: Staci Keanan and Christopher Castile had previously appeared on the Miller-Boyett-produced ABC sitcom "Going Places", which debuted the season prior to "Step By Step", playing characters with no familial relation (Keanan – who played Lindsay Bowen, the teenage neighbor of the show's adult characters – as a series regular, Castile as a recurring character). Keanan was the first of the two "Going Places" stars to be cast on "Step By Step" in the spring of 1991. Castile, who had played gawky child Sam Roberts on "Going Places", brought the same character traits to the Mark Foster role, which was speculated to be Miller-Boyett's continued attempt to give the "Family Matters" character Steve Urkel a white counterpart. In a similar instance of hiring actors over from their other TV series, the producers also cast Josh Byrne as Brendan Lambert on "Step By Step", after he had just finished a supporting role as Patrick Kozak on Miller-Boyett's single-season CBS sitcom "The Family Man".


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: When the series was casting its characters, child actor Jarrett Lennon originally landed the role of Mark Foster. Lennon had been chosen by the producers after guest starring in the last original episode of the Miller-Boyett series "The Hogan Family", which was produced in late 1990. After shooting the original (unaired) pilot for "Step By Step", Lennon was dismissed from the role of Mark, and the producers later replaced him with Castile (who had blonde hair like on-screen mother Somers, as opposed to Lennon having brown hair). Most of Lennon's pilot scenes were reshot with Castile, but during the first season, footage of Lennon remained in the show's opening title sequence. Lennon only appeared in wide shots with the Lambert/Foster family or, in the case of Suzanne Somers' credit scene, fleetingly appearing at the bottom of camera view as the kids huddled around Somers. All traces of Lennon were edited out by the second season. In 1996, these two actors had the tables turned on each other; Castile served as the original voice of Eugene Horowitz on the Nickelodeon animated series "Hey Arnold!", but after a few episodes was replaced, coincidentally, by Lennon, who voiced Eugene for the remainder of the show's first season.


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: "Going Places" creators Robert Griffard and Howard Adler would end up employed with "Step By Step" as co-executive producers and members of its writing staff until the show's fifth season; Adler and Griffard later wrote an additional episode of the show as freelancers in the seventh season. Patrick Duffy directed several episodes, starting with the second season. The house shown in establishing shots for scenes set at the Lambert-Foster home is located at 2011 Fletcher Avenue in South Pasadena, California, although the series was actually filmed at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California.


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: ABC chose to delay the series' sixth season to the 1996–97 mid-season (premiering in March 1997), in order to make room on that season's fall schedule for freshman sitcoms "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" and "Clueless", which joined established series "Family Matters" and "Boy Meets World" on the TGIF lineup; the network canceled it after six seasons in May 1997, due to declining ratings. CBS concurrently reached a deal with Miller-Boyett Productions to acquire the rights to it and "Family Matters" from ABC, as that network attempted to build its own Friday night lineup of family-friendly situation comedies for the fall of 1997, called the "CBS Block Party". The series' ratings, which had been declining for several seasons, continued to erode, and the show ended its run in June 1998. It ended without an official series finale, although the last episode centered on Frank and Carol considering selling the house. According to Staci Keanan and Christine Lakin, the series was supposed to end with Dana and Rich's wedding at the house, and elaborate preparations were underway for it prior to the series' abrupt end.


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: The series' theme song "Second Time Around" was written and composed by Jesse Frederick and Bennett Salvay (both wrote the themes for other sitcoms produced by Miller-Boyett Productions such as "Full House", "Perfect Strangers", and "Family Matters"), and was performed by Frederick and Teresa James. The full 1 minute, 50 second version of it was only used during the first season. It was routinely edited over the following three seasons to allow additional time for scenes: the fourth verse was removed and the chorus was truncated in the second season edit, the kid chorus accompanying Jesse Frederick during the chorus' lyrics was removed in the version used during the third season, and the edit heard during most of the fourth season and the entire fifth season (which lasted for only 65 seconds) eliminated the electric guitar/drum/symphonic instrumental at the beginning.


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: The theme song and title sequence were dropped entirely for the sixth season, relegating the credits for the show's main cast and principal producers to appearing over each episode's cold open (which was preceded for the final two seasons by an abbreviated opening bumper featuring the family applauding as Lily blows out the candles on her birthday cake). The theme song was brought back for the seventh season, upon the show's move from ABC to CBS, although it was edited down to include only the chorus and the closing instrumental flourish (restoring the original longer symphonic instrumental heard in the original long version, and the edits used for the second and third seasons).


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: The amusement park seen in the opening credits is depicted as being located along the shores of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin (no amusement park like this actually exists in Port Washington). The one used is actually Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California, located miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. The body of water depicted in the opening and closing credit sequences (the latter being seen on in season one) located next to the roller coaster – which is digitally inserted into that particular excerpt – is placed over what in actuality is the parking lot of Six Flags Magic Mountain.


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: In September 1995, Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution began distributing the series for broadcast in off-network syndication.


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: ABC Family was the first to acquire cable television rights to the series, and it became one of the cable channel's longest-running off-network syndicated programs in its history. Reruns began airing on there in 2001 (on what was then known as Fox Family), airing in various timeslots during its run ranging from late afternoon to the morning hours. On March 26, 2010, ABC Family's contract expired after less than nine years.


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: The series returned to U.S. syndication on October 7, 2013, when the Hub Network began airing reruns; the network dropped it on October 12, 2014, after the network became Discovery Family.


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: In Australia, "Step by Step" aired on the Seven Network from 1991 to 1995 and on the Nine Network from 1996 to 2000. In 2011, "Step by Step" was acquired by 7TWO. In 2015, 111 Greats started airing the whole series.


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: In the UK, Seasons 1 and 2 of "Step by Step" aired sporadically on ITV weekday mornings at 10 throughout parts of the spring and summer in 1994 and 1995.


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: On September 29, 2017, Hulu acquired the streaming rights to "Step by Step" along with fellow Warner Bros. TV properties "Family Matters", "Full House", "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper" and "Perfect Strangers", in addition to fellow ABC programs "Boy Meets World", "Dinosaurs" and "Home Improvement".


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: On October 1, 2021, "Step by Step" began streaming on HBO Max after its streaming rights expired from Hulu.


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: Warner Home Video released a six-episode "Television Favorites" collection on DVD on June 27, 2006. Warner Archive Collection has released the entire series on DVD in Region 1. These are Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) releases, available from Warner's online store and Amazon.com.


title: Step by Step (TV series)

text: Reviewing the pilot episode, Jean Rosenbluth of "Variety" wrote that, despite being an unoriginal clone of "The Brady Bunch", it is a "modestly amusing, occasionally heartwarming show".


title: Henna

text: Henna is a dye prepared from the plant "Lawsonia inermis", also known as the henna tree, the mignonette tree, and the Egyptian privet, the sole species of the genus "Lawsonia".


title: Henna

text: "Henna" can also refer to the temporary body art resulting from the staining of the skin from the dyes. After henna stains reach their peak color, they hold for a few days, then gradually wear off by way of exfoliation, typically within one to three weeks.


title: Henna

text: Henna has been used since antiquity in ancient Egypt and Indian subcontinent to dye skin, hair and fingernails, as well as fabrics including silk, wool, and leather. Historically, henna was used in West Asia including the Arabian Peninsula and in Carthage, other parts of North Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Indian subcontinent.


title: Henna

text: The name "henna" is used in other skin and hair dyes, such as "black henna" and "neutral henna", neither of which is derived from the henna plant.


title: Henna

text: The English name "henna" comes from the Arabic (ALA-LC: "ḥinnāʾ"; pronounced ), ultimately borrowed from Middle Persian "handūdan."


title: Henna

text: Whole, unbroken henna leaves will not stain the skin. Henna will not stain skin until the lawsone molecules are made available (released) from the henna leaves. However, dried henna leaves will stain the skin if they are mashed into a paste. The lawsone will gradually migrate from the henna paste into the outer layer of the skin and bind to the proteins in it, creating a stain.


title: Henna

text: Since it is difficult to form intricate patterns from coarsely crushed leaves, henna is commonly traded as a powder made by drying, milling and sifting the leaves. The dry powder is mixed with one of a number of liquids, including water, lemon juice, strong tea, and other ingredients, depending on the tradition. Many artists use sugar or molasses in the paste to improve consistency to keep it stuck to the skin better. The henna mix must rest between one and 48 hours before use in order to release the lawsone from the leaf matter. The timing depends on the crop of henna being used. Essential oils with high levels of monoterpene alcohols, such as tea tree, cajuput, or lavender, will improve skin stain characteristics. Other essential oils, such as eucalyptus and clove, are also useful but are too irritating and should not be used on the skin.


title: Henna

text: The paste can be applied with many traditional and innovative tools, starting with a basic stick or twig. In Morocco, a syringe is common. A plastic cone similar to those used to pipe icing onto cakes is used in the Indian culture. In the Western world, a cone is common, as is a Jacquard bottle, which is otherwise used to paint silk fabric. A light stain may be achieved within minutes, but the longer the paste is left on the skin, the darker and longer lasting the stain will be, so it needs to be left on as long as possible. To prevent it from drying or falling off the skin, the paste is often sealed down by dabbing a sugar/lemon mix over the dried paste or adding some form of sugar to the paste. After some time the dry paste is simply brushed or scraped away. The paste should be kept on the skin for a minimum of four to six hours. but longer times and even wearing the paste overnight is a common practice. Removal should not be done with water, as water interferes with the oxidation process of stain development. Cooking oil may be used to loosen dry paste.


title: Henna

text: Henna stains are orange when the paste is first removed, but darken over the following three days to a deep reddish brown due to oxidation. Soles and palms have the thickest layer of skin and so take up the most lawsone, and take it to the greatest depth, so that hands and feet will have the darkest and most long-lasting stains. Some also believe that steaming or warming the henna pattern will darken the stain, either during the time the paste is still on the skin, or after the paste has been removed. It is debatable whether this adds to the color of the end result as well. After the stain reaches its peak color, it holds for a few days, then gradually wears off by way of exfoliation, typically within one to three weeks.


title: Henna

text: Natural henna pastes containing only henna powder, a liquid (water, lemon juice, etc.) and an essential oil (lavender, cajuput, tea tree etc.) are not "shelf stable," meaning they expire quickly, and cannot be left out on a shelf for over one week without losing their ability to stain the skin.


title: Henna

text: The leaf of the henna plant contains a finite amount of lawsone molecule. As a result, once the powder has been mixed into a paste, this leaching of dye molecule into the mixture will only occur for an average of two to six days. If a paste will not be used within the first few days after mixing, it can be frozen for up to four months to halt the dye release, for thawing and use at a later time. Commercially packaged pastes that remain able to stain the skin longer than seven days without refrigeration or freezing contain other chemicals besides henna that may be dangerous to the skin. After the initial seven-day release of lawsone dye, the henna leaf is spent, therefore any dye created by these commercial cones on the skin after this time period is actually the result of other compounds in the product. These chemicals are often undisclosed on packaging, and have a wide range of colors including what appears to be a natural looking color stain produced by dyes such as sodium picramate. These products often do not contain any henna. There are many adulterated henna pastes such as these, and others, for sale today that are erroneously marketed as "natural", "pure", or "organic", all containing potentially dangerous undisclosed additives. The length of time a pre-manufactured paste takes to arrive in the hands of consumers is typically longer than the seven-day dye release window of henna, therefore one can reasonably expect that any pre-made mass-produced cone that is not shipped frozen is a potentially harmful adulterated chemical variety. ·


title: Henna

text: Henna only stains the skin one color, a variation of reddish brown, at full maturity three days after application.


title: Henna

text: Powdered fresh henna, unlike pre-mixed paste, can be easily shipped all over the world and stored for many years in a well-sealed package.


title: Henna

text: In Ancient Egypt, Ahmose-Henuttamehu (17th Dynasty, 1574 BCE) was probably a daughter of Seqenenre Tao and Ahmose Inhapy. Smith reports that the mummy of Henuttamehu's own hair had been dyed a bright red at the sides, probably with henna.


title: Henna

text: In Europe, henna was popular among women connected to the aesthetic movement and the Pre-Raphaelite artists of England in the 1800s. Dante Gabriel Rossetti's wife and muse, Elizabeth Siddal, had naturally bright red hair. Contrary to the cultural tradition in Britain that considered red hair unattractive, the Pre-Raphaelites fetishized red hair. Siddal was portrayed by Rossetti in many paintings that emphasized her flowing red hair. The other Pre-Raphaelites, including Evelyn De Morgan and Frederick Sandys, academic classicists such as Frederic Leighton, and French painters such as Gaston Bussière and the Impressionists, further popularized the association of henna-dyed hair and young bohemian women.


title: Henna

text: Opera singer Adelina Patti is sometimes credited with popularizing the use of henna in Europe in the late nineteenth century. Parisian courtesan Cora Pearl was often referred to as La Lune Rousse (the red-haired moon) for dying her hair red. In her memoirs, she relates an incident when she dyed her pet dog's fur to match her own hair. By the 1950s, Lucille Ball popularized "henna rinse" as her character, Lucy Ricardo, called it on the television show "I Love Lucy". It gained popularity among young people in the 1960s through growing interest in Eastern cultures.


title: Henna

text: Muslim men may use henna as a dye for hair and most particularly their beards. This is considered "sunnah", a commendable tradition of the Prophet Muhammad. Furthermore, a "hadith" (narration of the Prophet) holds that he encouraged Muslim women to dye their nails with henna to demonstrate femininity and distinguish their hands from those of men. Thus, some Muslim women in the Middle East apply henna to their finger and toenails as well as their hands.


title: Henna

text: Commercially packaged henna, intended for use as a cosmetic hair dye, is available in many countries and is now popular in India, as well as the Middle East, Europe, Australia, Canada, and the United States. The color that results from dyeing with henna depends on the original color of the hair, as well as the quality of the henna, and can range from orange to auburn to burgundy. Henna can be mixed with other natural hair dyes, including "Cassia obovata" for lighter shades of red or even blond and indigo to achieve brown and black shades. Some products sold as "henna" include these other natural dyes. Others may include metal salts that can interact with other chemical treatments, or oils and waxes that may inhibit the dye, or dyes which may be allergens.


title: Henna

text: Apart from its use as a hair dye, henna has recently been used as a temporal substitute to eyebrow pencil or even as eyebrow embroidery.


title: Henna

text: The different words for henna in ancient languages imply that it had more than one point of discovery and origin, as well as different pathways of daily and ceremonial use.


title: Henna

text: It is important to note that the modern term "Henna tattoo" is a marketing term only. Henna does not tattoo the skin and is not considered tattooing.


title: Henna

text: Henna has been used to adorn young women's bodies as part of social and holiday celebrations since the late Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean. The earliest text mentioning henna in the context of marriage and fertility celebrations comes from the Ugaritic legend of Baal and Anath, which has references to women marking themselves with henna in preparation to meet their husbands, and Anath adorning herself with henna to celebrate a victory over the enemies of Baal.


title: Henna

text: Wall paintings excavated at Akrotiri (dating prior to the eruption of Thera in 1680 BCE) show women with markings consistent with henna on their nails, palms and soles, in a tableau consistent with the henna bridal description from Ugarit. Many statuettes of young women dating between 1500 and 500 BCE along the Mediterranean coastline have raised hands with markings consistent with henna. This early connection between young, fertile women and henna seems to be the origin of the Night of the Henna, which is now celebrated in all the middle east.


title: Henna

text: The Night of the Henna was celebrated by most groups in the areas where henna grew naturally: Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and Zoroastrians, among others, all celebrated marriages and weddings by adorning the bride, and often the groom, with henna.


title: Henna

text: Across the henna-growing region, Purim, Eid, Diwali, Karva Chauth, Passover, Nowruz, Mawlid, and most saints' days were celebrated with some henna. Favorite horses, donkeys, and salukis had their hooves, paws, and tails hennaed. Battle victories, births, circumcision, birthdays, Zār, as well as weddings, usually included some henna as part of the celebration. Bridal henna nights remain an important custom in many of these areas, particularly among traditional families.


title: Henna

text: Henna was regarded as having Barakah ("blessings"), and was applied for luck as well as joy and beauty. Brides typically had the most henna, and the most complex patterns, to support their greatest joy and wishes for luck. Some bridal traditions were very complex, such as those in Yemen, where the Jewish bridal henna process took four or five days to complete, with multiple applications and resist work.


title: Henna

text: The fashion of "Bridal Mehndi" in North Indian, Bangladesh, Northern Libya and in Pakistan is currently growing in complexity and elaboration, with new innovations in glitter, gilding, and fine-line work. Recent technological innovations in grinding, sifting, temperature control, and packaging henna, as well as government encouragement for henna cultivation, have improved dye content and artistic potential for henna.


title: Henna

text: Though traditional henna artists were from the Nai caste in India, and barbering castes in other countries (lower social classes), talented contemporary henna artists can command high fees for their work. Women in countries where women are discouraged from working outside the home can find socially acceptable, lucrative work doing henna. Morocco, Mauritania, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, India and many other countries have thriving women's henna businesses. These businesses are often open all night for Eid, Diwali and Karva Chauth. Many women may work together during a large wedding, wherein hundreds of guests have henna applied to their body parts. This particular event at a marriage is known as the Mehndi Celebration or Mehndi Night, and is mainly held for the bride and groom.


title: Henna

text: In Algeria, brides receive gifts of jewelry and have henna painted on their hands prior to their weddings.


title: Henna

text: In Afghanistan, henna is also known as "kheena". Afghan tradition holds that henna brings good luck and happiness. It is used by both men and women on many occasions such as wedding nights, Nawroz, Eidul fitr, Eidul Adha, Shabe-e Barat, and circumcision celebrations.


title: Henna

text: In Bangladesh, women use mehndi on hands on occasions like weddings and engagements as well as during Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha and other events. In wedding ceremonies, the Mehndi ceremony has traditionally been separated into two events; one organized by the bride's family, and one by the groom's family. These two events are solely dedicated for adorning the bride and groom in Mehndi and is known as a 'Mehndi Shondha' meaning the "Evening of Mehndi".


title: Henna

text: Some brides tend to go for Alta. Sometimes Hindu women also apply Mehendi instead (or along with) Alta on their feet during the Bodhu Boron ceremony.


title: Henna

text: In an attempt to ritually clean a bride before her wedding day, Bulgarian Romani decorate the bride with a blot of henna. This blot symbolizes the drop of blood on the couples' sheets after consummating the marriage and breaking the female's hymen. The tradition also holds that the longer the henna lasts, the longer the husband will love his new bride.


title: Henna

text: In Egypt, the bride gathers with her friends the night before her wedding day to celebrate the henna night.


title: Henna

text: In India, Hindu women have motifs and tattoos on hands and feet on occasions like weddings and engagements. In Kerala, women and girls, especially brides, have their hands decorated with Mailanchi. In North Indian wedding ceremonies, there is one evening solely dedicated for adorning the bride and groom in Mehndi, also known as 'Mehndi ki raat.


title: Henna

text: In Iran, the most common use of henna is among the long wedding rituals practiced in Iran. The henna ritual, which is called ḥanā-bandān, is held for both the bride and the bridegroom during the wedding week The ceremony is held prior to the wedding and is a traditional farewell ritual for newlyweds before they officially start their life together in a new house. The ceremonies take place in the presence of family members, friends, relatives, neighbors, and guests.


title: Henna

text: In Iran, Māzār () is indicating a job title for a person whose work is associated with the milling or grinding henna leaves and sell it in a powder form. This type of business is an old job still alive in some parts of Iran, especially in the world recognized archeologically ancient "Yazd" province. The most famous one is a family owned business by "Mazar Atabaki" families resided in the land hundreds of years ago. Māzāri () is a place for milling henna mixed with other herbs.


title: Henna

text: In historical Palestine, now in Israel and territories of the Palestinian National Authority, some Middle Eastern and North African Jewish communities and families, also Druze, Christian and Muslim ones, host henna parties the night or week before a wedding, according to familial customs. The use of henna in this region can be traced as far back to the Song of Songs in which the author wrote, "My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of Engedi." Sephardic Jews and Mizrahi Jews such as Moroccan Jews and Yemenite Jews. who have immigrated to Israel continue their familial customs,


title: Henna

text: In Malaysia, henna () is used to adorn the bride and groom's hands before the wedding at a "berinai" ceremony.


title: Henna

text: In Morocco, henna is applied symbolically when individuals go through life cycle events. Moroccans refer to the paste as henna and the designs as naqsh, which means painting or inscription. In Morocco, there are two types of henna artists: non-specialists, who traditionally partake in wedding rituals, and specialists, who partake in tourism and decorative henna. Nqaasha, the low-end Henna specialists, are known for attracting tourists, which they refer to as gazelles or international tourists, in artisan slang.


title: Henna

text: For Moroccans, a wedding festival can last up to 5 days, with 2 days involving henna art. One of these days is referred to as azmomeg (meaning unknown), and is the Thursday before the wedding where guests are invited to apply henna to the bride. The other henna ceremony occurs after the wedding ceremony, called the Day of Henna. On this day, typically an older woman applies henna to the bride after she dips in the mikveh to ward off evil spirits who may be jealous of the newlyweds. The groom is also painted with henna after the wedding. During the groom's henna painting, he commonly wears black clothing, this tradition emerged from the Pact of Umar as the Jews were not permitted to dress similar to colorful Muslim dress in Morocco.


title: Henna

text: In Pakistan, henna is often used in weddings, Eid ul fitr, Eidul Adha, milad and other events. The henna ceremony is known as the Rasm-e-Heena, which is often one of the most important pre-wedding ceremonies celebrated by both the bride and groom's families. The night of mehndi, as the gathering at which the application of the henna is performed, usually falls on the second day of the festivities and one day before the wedding itself. The process commonly involves only the bride and groom but also can include close friends or other family members. The hands of the wedding couple are elegantly painted on this night to act as a sign of their union.


title: Henna

text: In Somalia, henna has been used for centuries, it is cultivated from the leaves of the Ellan tree, which grows wild in the mountainous regions of Somalia. It is used for practical purposes such as dying hair and also more extravagantly by coloring the fingers and toes of married women and creating intricate designs. It is also applied to the hands and feet of young Somali women in preparation for their weddings and all the islamic celebrations. Sometimes also done by young school girls for several occasions


title: Henna

text: Henna was cultivated in the Nasrid kingdom of Granada and applied to the face and hair by both sexes.


title: Henna

text: After the Castilian conquest of Granada (1492), it was forbidden for Moriscos as it was a sign distinguishing them from Old Christians.


title: Henna

text: In Sudan, Henna dyes are regarded with a special sanctity in Sudan and for that reason they are always present during happy occasions: weddings and children circumcisions, in particular.


title: Henna

text: Henna has been part of Sudan's social and cultural heritage ever since the days of Sudan's ancient civilizations where both would-be couples get their hands and feet pigmented with this natural dye.


title: Henna

text: In Tunisia, The traditional wedding process begins 8 days before the wedding ceremony when a basket is delivered to the bride, which contains henna. The mother of the groom supervises the process in order to ensure all is being done correctly. Today, the groom accompanies the bride in the ritual at the henna party, but the majority of henna painting is done on the bride's body.


title: Henna

text: During the Victorian era, Turkey was a major exporter of henna for use in dying hair. Henna parties were commonly practiced in Turkey similarly to Arab countries.


title: Henna

text: For Yemenite Jews, most of them living in Israel, the purpose of a henna party is to ward off evil from the couple before their wedding. In some areas, the party has evolved from tradition to an opportunity for the family to show off their wealth in the dressing of the bride. For other communities, it is practiced as a ritual that has been passed on for generations. The dressing of the bride is typically done by a post-menopausal woman in the bride's family. Often, the dresser of the bride sings to the bride as she is dressed in exquisite designs. These songs discuss marriage, what married life is like, and address the feelings a bride may have before her wedding. The costumes worn by Yemenite brides to their henna parties is considered some of the most exquisite attire in the Yemenite community. These outfits include robes, headwear, and often several pounds of silver jewelry. This jewelry often holds fresh green herbs to ward off the Jinn in keeping with the ritual element of the party.


title: Henna

text: The zavfa is the procession of the bride from her mother's house to the Henna Party. During the zavfa, the guests of the party sing traditional songs to the bride and bang on tin plates and drums to ward off evil. Today, it is common for the groom to join in on this aspect of the ritual, although traditionally it was only for the bride. During the party, guests eat, sing, and dance. Initially, the singing and dancing was to ward off the Jinn with loud noises, but today these elements are associated with the mitzvah of entertaining the bride and groom on their wedding day.


title: Henna

text: In the middle of the party, the bride returns to her home to be painted in henna mixed by her mother. The mixture consists of rose water, eggs, cognac, salt, and shadab, believed to be a magical herb that repels evil. The bride changes into a less elaborate outfit and incense is burned while she is painted with henna. Then, another zavfa (procession) occurs as the bride returns to her party.


title: Henna

text: Back at the henna party, the bride sits on stage while family members and friends come up to her to have their palms marked with blots of henna. These marks represent the long-lasting marriage as henna remains for many days. It also represents the blood from breaking the hymen upon consummating the marriage on the wedding night. Others add that the red stain on the hands of the guests is to mislead the evil spirits of the Jinn who are looking for the bride. After the painting, the party ends after lasting about 4 or 5 hours.


title: Henna

text: Henna is known to be dangerous to people with glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency (G6PD deficiency), which is more common in males than females. Infants and children of particular ethnic groups, mainly from the Middle East and North Africa, are especially vulnerable.


title: Henna

text: Though user accounts cite few other negative effects of natural henna paste, save for occasional mild allergic reactions (often associated with lemon juice or essential oils in a paste and not the henna itself), pre-mixed commercial henna body art pastes may have undisclosed ingredients added to darken stain, or to alter stain color. The health risks involved in pre-mixed paste can be significant. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does consider these risks to be adulterants and therefore illegal for use on skin. Some commercial pastes have been noted to include: p-Phenylenediamine, sodium picramate, amaranth (dye) (red dye #2 banned in the US in 1976), silver nitrate, carmine, pyrogallol, disperse orange dye, and chromium. These have been found to cause allergic reactions, chronic inflammatory reactions, or late-onset allergic reactions to hairdressing products and textile dyes.


title: Henna

text: The U.S. FDA has not approved henna for direct application to the skin. It is, however, grandfathered in as a hair dye and can only be imported for that purpose. Henna imported into the U.S. that appears to be for use as body art is subject to seizure, but prosecution is rare. Commercial henna products that are adulterated often claim to be 100% natural on product packaging in order to pass import regulations in other countries.


title: Henna

text: "Natural henna" produces a rich red-brown stain which can darken in the days after it is first applied and last for several weeks. It is sometimes referred to as "red henna" to differentiate it from products sold as "black henna" or "neutral henna," which may not actually contain henna, but are instead made from other plants or dyes.


title: Henna

text: "Neutral henna" does not change the color of hair. This is not henna powder; it is usually the powder of the plant "Senna italica" (often referred to by the synonym "Cassia obovata") or closely related "Cassia" and "Senna" species.


title: Henna

text: "Black henna" powder may be derived from indigo (from the plant "Indigofera tinctoria"). It may also contain unlisted dyes and chemicals such as "para"-phenylenediamine (PPD), which can stain skin black quickly, but can cause severe allergic reactions and permanent scarring if left on for more than 2–3 days. The FDA specifically forbids PPD to be used for this purpose, and may prosecute those who produce black henna. Artists who injure clients with black henna in the U.S. may be sued for damages.


title: Henna

text: The name arose from imports of plant-based hair dyes into the West in the late 19th century. Partly fermented, dried indigo was called black henna because it could be used in combination with henna to dye hair black. This gave rise to the belief that there was such a thing as black henna which could dye skin black. Indigo will not dye skin black. Pictures of indigenous people with black body art (either alkalized henna or from some other source) also fed the belief that there was such a thing as black henna.


title: Henna

text: In the 1990s, henna artists in Africa, India, Bali, the Arabian Peninsula and the West began to experiment with PPD-based black hair dye, applying it as a thick paste as they would apply henna, in an effort to find something that would quickly make jet-black temporary body art. PPD can cause severe allergic reactions, with blistering, intense itching, permanent scarring, and permanent chemical sensitivities. Estimates of allergic reactions range between 3% and 15%. Henna does not cause these injuries. Black henna made with PPD can cause lifelong sensitization to coal tar derivatives while black henna made with gasoline, kerosene, lighter fluid, paint thinner, and benzene has been linked to adult acute leukemia.


title: Henna

text: The most frequent serious health consequence of having a black henna temporary tattoo is sensitization to hair dye and related chemicals. If a person has had a black henna tattoo and later dyes their hair with chemical hair dye, the allergic reaction may be life-threatening and require hospitalization. Because of the epidemic of PPD allergic reactions, chemical hair dye products now post warnings on the labels: "Temporary black henna tattoos may increase your risk of allergy. Do not colour your hair if: ... – you have experienced a reaction to a temporary black henna tattoo in the past."


title: Henna

text: PPD is illegal for use on skin in western countries, though enforcement is difficult. Physicians have urged governments to legislate against black henna because of the frequency and severity of injuries, especially to children. To assist the prosecution of vendors, government agencies encourage citizens to report injuries and illegal use of PPD black henna. When used in hair dye, the PPD amount must be below 6%, and application instructions warn that the dye must not touch the scalp and must be quickly rinsed away. Black henna pastes have PPD percentages from 10% to 80%, and are left on the skin for half an hour.


title: Henna

text: PPD black henna use is widespread, particularly in tourist areas. Because the blistering reaction appears 3 to 12 days after the application, most tourists have left and do not return to show how much damage the artist has done. This permits the artists to continue injuring others, unaware they are causing severe injuries. The high-profit margins of black henna and the demand for body art that emulates "tribal tattoos" further encourage artists to deny the dangers.


title: Henna

text: Anyone who has an itching and blistering reaction to a black body stain should go to a doctor, and report that they have had an application of PPD to their skin.


title: Henna

text: PPD sensitivity is lifelong. A person who has become sensitized through black henna tattoos may have future allergic reactions to perfumes, printer ink, chemical hair dyes, textile dye, photographic developer, sunscreen and some medications. A person who has had a black henna tattoo should consult their physician about the health consequences of PPD sensitization.


title: Chevrolet El Camino

text: The Chevrolet El Camino is a coupé utility vehicle that was produced by Chevrolet between 1959–60 and 1964–1987. Unlike a standard pickup truck, the El Camino was adapted from the standard two-door Chevrolet station wagon platform and integrated the cab and cargo bed into the body.


title: Chevrolet El Camino

text: Introduced in the 1959 model year in response to the success of the Ford Ranchero coupé utility, its first run, based on the Biscayne's B-body, lasted only two years. Production resumed for the 1964–1977 model years based on the Chevelle platform, and continued for the 1978–1987 model years based on the GM G-body platform.