There’s something infinitely uplifting and reassuring in being one of a room full of Jews from across the globe.
By ANNA KRYCERThe writer (right) with her husband, Joe, and their family – (from left) daughter Elissa, son Josh, wife Elisheva and their four children – shortly before making aliya(photo credit: Courtesy)
This past year, a law was passed recognizing Aliya Day on 7 Heshvan (November 8 this year), coinciding with the reading of the Torah portion in which Abraham is told to leave his home to go to the Land of Israel. Here, we take a personal glimpse at one olah’s journey – a lawyer in Melbourne, Australia, who made aliya in June 2015 with her husband, Joe.“Welcome to the jungle!” Only we weren’t in the depths of Africa but in Jerusalem, and the speaking voice was not that of a gamekeeper, but our new bank manager calling it as she saw it.Her friendly smile though, a few days following our aliya, readied us to tackle any wild beast that would dare cross our path after we had traded in the great Aussie life for the Zionist dream.We hit the road running in 2015, admittedly in our chronologically gifted years, hubby and I, closer to third base than to second on the home run, and past the cares of professional advancement and raising a young family. We had done our homework and arrived to a renovated apartment ready and waiting, and into the welcoming arms of our children and grandchildren and a large extended family. But some things we did not prepare for, and some things you cannot prepare for; you just have to be in it and learn by living life.I knew what would be one of our first lessons in the Land of Israel, and so it was. When I was stressing on the day our shipping container was to have arrived in the morning at our Jerusalem apartment from Ashdod, and by 4 p.m. it had still not appeared, Yaacov, the superintendent at our building complex, stopped me as I paced nervously in the underground car park and said: “Patience, patience, go to the shuk and buy some patience!” Apparently good advice, as the container did eventually arrive and the three strong Russian olim who came with it worked tirelessly until 11 p.m. to unload it.That’s the thing about Israelis, they are quick to offer advice, whether you ask for it or not. For example, I was speaking on the phone with our home contents insurer (after finally finding someone who could do so in English) when I happened to cough a few times. In the middle of his insurance jargon the guy interrupted himself and said, “You should have some tea and honey! But don’t put the honey in the tea as that will remove all the minerals. Have the honey first, then drink the tea.”Or like when hubby and I went to a local cafe for lunch. We ordered two tuna salads at NIS 42 each.A few minutes later the waitress returned and said the salad is large and we should share one rather than take two. We did, and she was right! On one hand, offering gratuitous advice could be construed as meddling – Israelis poking their noses in other people’s business. But that’s not how I see it, and I even think I have an “Israeli soul,” ready to dive into impromptu and energetic repartees with strangers, and into heated full-body interjections and exchanges in quickly raised voices that just as quickly quiet down. I reckon that such behavior is a sign of caring; of recognizing that in our Israeli family there is no need for timidity, or for vacuous niceties that skirt around real feelings and stifle honest communication.There’s another thing about the Israeli character; Israelis just do it. This was driven home one day when we sat in our ulpan class and the noise from the major construction work right next door, where a tall commercial building is being erected, was more deafening and penetrating than usual, almost drowning out the teacher’s voice. But the Israeli attitude was strong and clear: yes, terrible, the teacher said, but what can you do, you have to carry on; you just do it.And you do. Whether it’s coping with some persistent inefficiencies in business and government, the hard and taxing slog of army training and service, the regular call-up to reserve duty in the middle of busy working and family lives, the need to stand strong and not be knocked down by people and countries who wish us ill, the hamsin heat in summer, the queues at the supermarket checkout, the heavy backpacks young primary school kids lug to school daily, etc. Israelis may shout and rant, but in the end they square their shoulders, step forward and together overcome.
This standing together was starkly evident during the waves of terrorist attacks in these first 12 months of our aliya. Fear was not the first reaction, but anger at the mindless senseless violent hate against Jews and Israel, followed by a sense of unity, of coming together and the need to do so in our homeland, to fight off and vanquish the perpetrators.In difficult times, routine daily activities may continue as normal – as they should – but the awareness of the shaky and precarious world we live in touches everywhere, as it did when I was contacting a tradesman after he failed to come when he said he would. I had been chasing the guy by phone and text for two weeks when my call to him was finally answered.“You have not come and I’ve been trying to reach you,” I started. The guy replied quietly: “I’m sorry, but there was a tragedy in our family, my brother was stabbed and killed in the Old City. I am slowly trying to get back to work...” I felt like sinking through the floor. Yikes. We all feel touched.However tough the going may be here, we absolutely would not want to be anywhere else. When Natalie from our ulpan class spoke about the difficult situation for Jews in her hometown of Paris, with security guards everywhere, I said there are security guards here too. Yes, she replied, but here they wear kippot and this is our own land! Acquiring our identity cards was not the only way we knew we were becoming Israeli. My husband said a sure sign for him was having a roll of toilet paper in the car instead of tissues, and “forgetting” to use the car indicator when making a turn (okay, we’re not adopting that one). For me, it was standing on the road minding a vacant parking spot until hubby could drive around from the other side of the street to claim it, and knowing just enough Hebrew to be able to yell at the taxi driver in the car next to us for his insane driving.When another chutzpadik driver tried to suddenly merge into our lane and we were about to let forth with a choice expletive, the driver eyed us directly, cupped the fingers on his left hand to his lips in a kissing gesture which he waved over to us, and cut across our bonnet to end up in front. The typically Israeli motioned kiss just took our anger with it.Hebrew school on Sundays when we were kids in Melbourne barely got us into “kita alef plus” at the government ulpan where we once again sat at school desks and waited for recess and the end of class. But hey, we felt young again as we grappled with conjugations and genders and struggled to string together simple sentences with our new buddies – Mordechai from Marseille, Aryeh from Ukraine, Chaim and Julia from Brazil, Kochava from Paris, Shifra from the States, and more from far and not so far. No need to be embarrassed, each of us was as good and as bad as the others and we had fun, too, thanks to our bubbly young teacher, Liron, who well earned the praises we heaped on her.Our ulpan class of 30 or so students gave us a privileged window into our fellow students’ personal journeys – their celebrations of weddings of children and births of grandchildren; their search for work and purchase of cars and apartments; their bouts with ill health and hardship; their learning and volunteering; and their worry about the security of Jews in our land and outside Israel.This incredible melting pot of olim is a real ingathering from exile, each person with a different story of aliya, all voicing gratitude, appreciation and deep happiness at calling Israel home, with the special gift of being in the golden city of Jerusalem. During one ulpan lesson when we were watching slides about the life of David Ben-Gurion, the screen showed the declaration of Israel’s independence. Many in the class clapped, and my husband saw tears in the eyes of the new olah sitting next to him.There’s something infinitely uplifting and reassuring in being one of a room full of Jews from across the globe; all of us having chosen to put down roots in Eretz Yisrael and all of us learning anew how to live our lives.And for my husband and me, there can be no better icing on the cake than our nine-year-old sabra granddaughter helping us with our ulpan homework as we help her with her English writing, while she exclaims simply, “We’re lucky to have each other!”