A Dutch Christian group last week helped rededicate a $560,000 synagogue and community center at an immigrant absorption facility near the northern Gaza Strip, partly in anticipation of mass Jewish immigration driven by rising antisemitism in Western countries.
Christians for Israel, based in Nijkerk, the Netherlands, financed the renovation at the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Ibim complex. The project serves the existing residents, largely Ethiopian Israelis, while preparing for an anticipated influx of newcomers, Roger van Oordt, a former leader of the Christian group, told JNS.
“It is going to explode,” van Oordt said of aliyah, citing hostility toward Jews in the Netherlands and elsewhere.
The investment addresses both immediate needs and preparations for future immigration, he said.
“It is both. It is for the people who already live there, who have already made aliyah. They also need a house of prayer, a place to gather.”
The top floor houses a synagogue, while the ground floor serves as a bomb shelter containing an events hall, recreational rooms and an educational space, Danielle Mor, the agency’s vice president for philanthropy in Israel and worldwide, told JNS. “I may be unusual for Christians to fund the re-dedication of a synagogue, but Christians for Israel are longtime partners, especially in projects in the Gaza Envelope area,” she said.
Timo Niemeijer, a Dutch businessman who donates to Christians for Israel and belongs to its Business Club philanthropists circle, funded the building’s inauguration as a way of “bringing light to the region,” he told JNS.
The restoration forms part of a broader effort to renew Ibim as a place where new immigrants, or olim, can live while preparing to settle elsewhere in Israel, including in communities near Gaza, van Oordt said. New apartments are under construction, and some immigrant families from countries beyond Ethiopia have already arrived, he added.
The existing synagogue needed renovation, and the building offered limited space for events. Its lower floor lacked the reinforcement that now allows people to gather in a protected space during rocket attacks.
The building’s physical condition required attention, while the aftermath of Oct. 7, 2023, added a desire for renewal, Mor said.
At the re-dedication ceremony, participants returned the congregation’s Torah scrolls to the renovated synagogue. Van Oordt described an emotional celebration, with Ethiopian Israeli children singing “Hallelujah” and "Hatikvah," Israel’s national anthem.
“There was so much joy,” he said. “People were moved to tears.”
The ceremony featured a performance by Ibim’s Lev Ofir Choir, which is named for the late Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council head Ofir Libstein. Hamas terrorists killed him in Kibbutz Kfar Aza on Oct. 7, 2023, as he fought to defend the community.
Van Oordt’s prediction of aliyah follows increases in immigration from several Western countries. In the first 11 months of 2025, aliyah from France rose 45% to 3,030 people compared with the corresponding period in 2024, according to the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration. Immigration from the United Kingdom increased 16% to 760, while arrivals from Germany rose 19% to 204.
Aliyah from the United States and Canada increased more modestly, by 4% and 5%, to 3,257 and 388, respectively. Overall immigration nevertheless fell 34% to about 20,000 during that period, largely because arrivals from Russia dropped 56%, from 18,313 to 7,993. The Jewish Agency and Christians for Israel work together in Ukraine, helping to bring olim from there, Mor noted.
The Ibim center serves young immigrants, participants in pre-military preparatory programs, volunteers, communities taking root in Ibim and the remaining Ethiopian immigrants living there, Mor said. Hundreds of people are present daily in the wider complex, which also includes offices and facilities associated with the regional council.
Residents have barely 10 seconds to reach shelter when a rocket alert sounds. Although apartments and offices have protected rooms, those spaces accommodate limited numbers of people. The renovated lower floor provides a larger protected gathering place, and people using the synagogue upstairs can descend to it during an alert.
The Jewish Agency evacuated approximately 600 people from Ibim on Oct. 8, 2023, Mor said. It subsequently became the first community in the Sha’ar Hanegev region to return after the evacuation, she added.
The Torah scrolls returned at the ceremony had served the congregation before the attacks and remained in safekeeping during construction.
Van Oordt said that the project was part of his organization’s commitment to helping Israelis in what he described as one of Israel’s most difficult places to live.
The center will also host part of the regional celebration of Sigd, the Ethiopian Jewish holiday, planned for November, Mor said.