With less than a week left to prepare, Pamela Berger is pleased with her progress.

“I find the whole packing progress somewhat daunting, but it’s under control,” said Berger as she left her Great Neck home Wednesday, headed for a much-needed break. “I have a schedule and I’m pretty much adhering to it.”

Berger, 62, and her husband, Berle, 67, will be among several hundred American Jews headed for a new life in Israel on Monday, with help from Nefesh B’Nefesh, the organization that encourages and facilitates North American aliyah with help from the Jewish Agency for Israel.

I’ll be aboard Monday’s flight and blogging throughout the week on the progress of the Bergers and several others as they settle into their homes, begin Hebrew classes, look for work and acclimate themselves to Israeli life.

The Bergers, who are semi-retired and plan to seek work in Israel, are quick to point out that they are not typical, ideologically driven olim. While the bulk of Nefesh b’Nefesh olim are Orthodox, they are Conservative, and while they appreciate the Jewish state’s history and culture – Pamela has become addicted to Israeli folk dance – they’re motivated primarily by desire to be near their daughter, Lauren, and her family, who made aliyah in 2000.

They also are hedging their bets, keeping their New York home as well as an apartment in Kfar Shmaryahu, about 10 minutes north of Tel Aviv, near Lauren’s family. Though they now have one-way plane tickets, they plan on sporadic return visits.

“My aim is to be back here in the summer,” says Pamela, an occupational therapist. “I love Long Island in the summer. We’ll see how that plays out. We may get totally entrenched in life [in Israel]. We have lots of friends and we are very involved with our children and grandchildren.”

Over the past nine years, they’ve averaged 2-3 annual Israel trips, most recently last Passover. When they reached the point professionally where they could afford to make the move, they decided to make a go of it.

“The timing was just right,” says Pamela as she drove to have lunch with some friendswho also have olim as relatives. She hopes to find work in her field to avoid losing her OT skills, while Berle will seek work as an optometrist. But Pamela questions whether there will be time for a career in the busy months of ulpan and other courses she and her husband plan to take.

With five days to go, she finds herself preoccupied with thoughts of language barriers with her in-laws, the need to find a car, and the cold tile floor in their basement apartment.

“I’m nervous about missing my friends and family and my lifestyle here,” says Pamela. “And breaching the cultural gap.”

Then come the reassuring thoughts. “We’ve already had a lot of experience with Israeli life, and we really think it’s fun.”