The Humbling Side of Aliyah
The Humbling Side of Aliyah
I went to three different Mega Events in NYC before I finally decided to make the move. The last one, the one I attended after being approved for Aliyah by the Jewish Agency made the event so much more real.
Unlike other years, I really appreciated the specific programming for young professionals. I remember Melissa Lousky Bienenfeld speaking about how she’d been at Ulpan Etzion and her journey since then. She told me it was “a cross between sleep-away camp and a youth hostel” and after going there myself, in retrospect, I didn’t actually find that it reminded me of either. But it was nice to have guidance, it was also nice to talk to other Olim and potential olim. Rifka’s budgeting class and the career classes were incredibly helpful and I was able to put that information to use right after making Aliyah.
I honestly had wanted to make Aliyah for a decade, and just came to the point that I didn’t want to live with the regret if I didn’t do it. I had heard wonderful things about Ulpan Etzion so I lived there for the first 5 months. It was a great program including room and board and on-campus Hebrew classes for young professionals. There were people from 26 different countries, and I was in Daled, the highest Ulpan level. In my class were people from the UK, the US, Chile, Germany, Brazil and France. My roommate was a sweet girl from Turkey, and while I was deciding which shampoo worked best with Israel’s hard water, she was worrying about a coup taking over her country. The entire experience was truly humbling.
I think the most interesting experience happened the first day of Ulpan in the laundry room. I met a soon to be friend from Kiev. He asked me my name and where I was from, and I said I was coming from New York CIty. “I’m from Kiev,” he said. “I know why I’m here. Why are you here?”
I’ve heard that a lot since. Why, why, why did I give up my apartment 20 minutes away from Times Square, in the shopping mecca of the world, with a Starbucks and cheap manicure places on each block? Where Jewish life flourishes and its OK to wear a Kippah everywhere?
Similarly, on my last day of Ulpan, we had to bring in something special to ourselves and speak about it. A fun-loving classmate from Uruguay, always ready with a joke, took off his Kippah and told us that in Uruguay, he couldn’t always wear it. He always had to think, where am I going, and what can I wear on my head instead?
I did not come from a place where one can’t wear a Kippah. I came from a city that had the Celebrate Israel Parade every June. where hundreds of kids and adults waved flags and sang ‘Am Yisrael Chai’ down the streets of Fifth Avenue.
Meeting these Ulpan contemporaries from places in which Jewish life was not just taken for granted made me constantly think and reassess. Why am I here?
I am here because Shabbat is Shabbat for those in Meah Shearim and Tel Avivians on the beach. Because being a Jew is not just confined to Shul or school, but its a lifestyle that encompasses real life. The national calendar here is my calendar.
At the same time, its not easy. There are hard days where I realize that speaking to my nephews over FaceTime is definitely not the same as hugging them or playing with them in downtown Brooklyn. Days where I doubt myself and my decision, where I see 87 year old women sitting in the sunshine and I miss my grandmother so much it hurts. Days where every interview I go on is a fluke and I wonder, when, when, when will I, an accomplished working professional of 13 years, get a full time job, or better yet, a more structured day.
But I think of the people I made Aliyah with, of the friends that I’ve met since I’ve arrived. They’ve often taken on the role of parenting, whether it be telling me how about their own experiences with government offices, or which store in the Shuk sells the freshest fruit. It is so comforting to know that you are following in the footsteps of others before you.
If you’re thinking of making Aliyah, it will be the most humbling experience of your life. You will adjust to a new reality. You will have amazing days and you will have hard days, and you will have days that shake your very foundation. And every emotion is OK.
But you will also realize how much you’ve gained in the process. You will become stronger, you will realize that you can’t sweat the little things. That life is too short to regret, and that there is a world here at your fingertips, waiting for you.
