CPCL #11 • Shabbat Parshat Tzav-Para
contact: aloh-naaleh@aaci.org.il This “from time to time” feature is geared towards encouraging Aliya... AND encouraging veteran & new Olim to become more involved in encouraging and easing the Aliya of others. The Pilot Trip to Israel - Aliya Now by Ilene Bloch-Levy • (Reprinted with permission of the author and the WZO Hagshama Dept. web site at www.wzo.org.il) The author recently accompanied a group of North Americans on a Tehilla pilot trip. She explores the reasons why, in spite of the situation, they continue to come. Sixteen adults, three kids and one baby were all grinning and anxiously awaiting me, their facilitator, to share the hidden secrets and pearls of wisdom of a successful aliya. After all, having been here for 17 years, I must have some clues for how to make it work. They had traveled from Vancouver and
Seattle, Toronto and Cleveland, Boston and New York. What really brought
them here, I wondered. Unemployment topping 10%. A vicious war in its third
year. And, another war soon to erupt in our region. Gas masks. Shelters.
Tanks exploding. Young, handsome boys being buried. Boys, with families,
like theirs. Visiting communities from as far south as Beersheva and as far north as Carmiel we met Americans, Canadians, South Africans, British, and Swedes who were living fulfilling lives in an ancient land that is refreshingly new. Everywhere, we were eagerly welcomed into homes and served refreshments. Our local hosts would often hop on our bus and try to persuade the group to move to their community. We learned of possibilities for employment, schools, shopping, religious life, shiurim and extracurricular activities for kids. The days were filled with conversation on a wide range of subjects and replete with questions - about the logistics of settling in Israel. They were told the brutal truth. The dearth in job possibilities seemed to rise as quickly as the Kineret. Life was more difficult here. Salaries were incomparable with what they were earning overseas, but living costs were comparable. Overdraft would become the norm. They may never really learn the language, but they had to try. They learned that these risks were indeed real, not chimerical. Some participants received firm job offers; others still had more follow-up work to do. Some had already fallen in love with one community over another, and others wanted to discuss it with their spouses. And, I was still not certain, why they were here. "From the very first time I met my husband 20 years ago," recalled Pamela from Cleveland, "I would listen to him lament that he did not want to live in exile. I bought the whole story. If we don't move now then we won't be able to go at all. The kids will be just too old." Refoel told us of his life within the Torah community of Denver. When his beloved Rabbi moved back east, he, his wife and children found themselves casting about for something more meaningful. Israel seemed to hold that for them. "The clock's ticking, the baby is growing," remarked the young parents of the baby from Boston. Our New Jersey chemist agreed "we also want our baby to grow up in Israel," but he added, "my wife and I also want to grow up in Israel." "What are we waiting for, my wife said to me on a trip to Israel," Marc shared with us. With the oldest of five kids on the threshold of adolescence, Marc had decided that now he had to set Israel as the home base and not California, for his kids' sake. Our Toronto couple already had all their grandchildren living here, so it only made sense for them to move now. "It's taken me all this time to convince Harvey to move here," Miriam piped up. So the common thread seemed to be the children, I thought. But, our single physician, from Vancouver and on her sixth trip to Israel, most succinctly summed it up, "this is just an amazing miracle and I want to be here." I can touch the miracle every day, I thought. Touch it, live it and feel it. It infuses me with a wholeness that cannot be experienced anywhere else. It infuses my children with a vibrancy and spiritual richness that cannot be felt in Denver or Cleveland, Boston or Vancouver, Toronto or Passaic. So, to my new-found friends from this Pilot Trip to Israel — I say "Bruchim Haba’im". Welcome to the lifeline of the Jewish nation living in Israel. Welcome to this miracle of Jewish rejuvenation and existence. Welcome to your children and grandchildren. It was not I with the pearls of wisdom
for aliya, but they. They were here to remind me of how grateful I am to
live in this Land under G-d's loving and gracious wings. Contact information for those in Israel
up to 10 years on oleh status is: Ruthi Brenner of Rechavia, Jerusalem taught her children at a young age the importance of aliya. Coming on aliya alone in 1991 with two sons, aged 13 and 11, wasn't easy. Nothing worthwhile is. It had been my dream to raise them in our Jewish Land from the time they were born. Instead of wallpaper, the rooms at home were covered with Eretz Yisrael posters. I raised them with the Israeli flag everywhere, imbuing them with what I firmly believe, that Eretz Yisrael is the only place for Jews, and that we would live there one day. I brought them here as much as possible and taught them Hebrew. Familiarity with various places here and knowing since very young ages that we were coming home did assist them, Baruch HaShem, in their excellent klita. I bought one-way tickets, determined to succeed with all the challenges. During our initial year here, still without a job, I recall envying my boys' settled routine. But I never regretted coming and not a day goes by without my thanking HaShem for helping me make the move. My sons served in IDF combat units. When my first son was about to join the Paratroopers, and I couldn't find other mothers who could share with me what to expect, I formed the organization, Mothers of Sons Serving in IDF Combat Units, which reassured and supported Israeli and olim mothers alike. Even during the blackest period, when my son, stationed in Lebanon, was being relentlessly bombarded by the Hisbollah (and lost 4 close friends), I never for an instant regretted being here: I felt proud of my offspring defending Eretz Yisrael. In our decade-plus here, I have grown -
religiously and spiritually - only because of where we are. Both my sons are
married, living in Yesha and doing what I truly wish I had been able to do
at their age. The third generation is now helping to populate our precious
Land. HaShem has made my dream a reality: continuing our generations in the
Promised Land. Where else can we, in a short time, reach
historical, Biblical sites, in Hevron, the Shomron, the Galilee? Where else
does the calendar revolve around Shabbat with the names of our weekdays?
Only here can I write checks with the Hebrew date; only here do I welcome
the rain as a blessing. Life is too short to live where we don't belong. And
here, as Jews we truly all belong. Rechavia was built by G'dud haAvoda members, a commune set up in1920 to build up the land. The workers lived in tents on the land that is now the Jewish Agency building and Yeshurun Synagogue. The Gymnasium haIvrit, the city's first high school, moved into its building in Rechavia in 1927. The gymnasium was a symbol of, and perhaps also a training ground for, the "new Yishuv", the secular Zionists. For the past forty years, the gymnasium has been a public high school. Rechavia is home to the "national institutions" (JNF, Jewish Agency, Keren haYesod), built between '28-'36. This complex headquartered the Va'ad Leumi ("National Committee"), the pre-independence government of Israel headed by Ben Gurion. In 1934, Rabbi Kook participated in the ceremony laying the cornerstone for Yeshurun synagogue, which for many years, was Jerusalem's central synagogue. Rechavia was home to the first "White House" in Jerusalem. Chaim Weizmann, Israel's first president was in poor health and chose not to move to Jerusalem. His successor, Yitzhak Ben Zvi had lived in a simple wooden hut in Rechavia for more than a quarter century. Since Ben Zvi had no interest in luxuries, the State had to convince him to move into a formal residence. The State bought the house next to Ben Zvi's hut, which served as the official residence of the president until Beit HaNassi was built in 1971. [The Parshat
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