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| North America: 1-866-4-ALIYAH • United Kingdom: 0800-075-7200 • Israel: 02-659-5800 |
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Remembering first days in new home: Israel
By MARCY OSTER
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A new family of olim from the United States moved to our community a couple weeks ago.
They came directly to Karnei Shomron to live near their brother and sister-in-law, a way to ease the transition during those first confusing months of living in a new country.
This is what my husband and I did nine years ago this week when we packed up our life together, took our then-three children and left for Israel, relying on the time and patience of my three sisters-in-law and their families.
This summer’s new arrivals brought all of the memories flooding back to me. And when I saw a flatbed truck topped by a huge shipping container with the word ZIM emblazoned across it turn the corner into our neighborhood, my heart skipped a beat.
I watched the movers hoist boxes, appliances and furniture on their broad shoulders and walk up the stairs to our new neighbors’ apartment.
I remembered this day in our lives so clearly – wondering how everything we brought with us would fit into the apartment we rented by e-mail, wondering how we would ever get it all straightened out, wondering what the heck we were doing here!
Now I cannot imagine not being here. Every time I go back to Cleveland, some well-meaning friend asks me when we are going to finish up in Israel and “come home.”
I usually just smile and move on to the next topic. It is hard to put into words that as much as I love Cleveland and feel great affinity for all things Cleveland, we have come home. Not only in the sense of returning to the Jewish homeland; this is where we have moved our lives – our jobs, our children’s educations, our leisure time. And though we miss our family and friends back in Cleveland, we have made good and lifelong friends here – people who think like us and people who live like us.
When we made aliyah at the start of the second intifada, when Jewish life in Cleveland was already incredibly comfortable and full, and Nefesh B’ Nefesh did not yet exist, we were concerned that we could be among the last Clevelanders to move to Israel. But every year, more and more Clevelanders join us here in Israel: young families, business executives, college students and retirees.
I hope they are as happy here as we are.
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