After a two-month stay in the US, we’re heading back to Israel for our second year. I’m interrupting my two-week hiatus with a dispatch from Logan Airport, as we wait to board our flight to Tel Aviv.
Here’s what we know now that we didn’t know then.
Language. I arrived having completed one level of Hebrew Ulpan, plus one semester of college Hebrew in 1992 and 6 weeks in Israel in 1989. Plus Hebrew school. (Shoutout to : איפו העיפרון and שקט בוקשה)
By June we all expect to reach conversational fluency, which is fast for olim - it helps that it’s a third language for three of us. We treat language acquisition like a part-time job, which requires significant effort, but Hebrew is the key that unlocks the rest of our lives.
Outdoor space. We chose Tel Aviv as our landing spot, to ease our transition from NYC, live close to friends and family, and because we loved the city.
I still love TLV, but I also love space, quiet and being outside. And, my daughter had an hour-long commute to her school, which was the same as her commute in Brooklyn, but traveling around Israel is not as simple as traveling around New York City.
This year we’ve upgraded to a bigger but cheaper apartment closer to our daughter’s school, north of Tel Aviv. She can walk to her friends’ houses, and we can walk to the beach. We’re also looking forward to developing a new community in Herzliyah, where there’s a big international population.
Local Knowledge
When we arrived we didn’t know how to buy groceries. I spent two days looking for a non-memory foam pillow. I cried at the bank.
Today, we return knowing a whole lot more about Israeli systems. We know how to order food in a restaurant and whole grain bread with pecans at the bakery. We know how to make doctors’ appointments.
Most importantly, we understand how to make things happen in Israel. You have to know a guy. You have to appeal to someone’s sense of being all in it together. Saying, “what can you do?” or, “I’m new here and could use help,” goes a long way.
Most Israelis were new once too, if not themselves, then their parents, grand-parents or great-grandparents. They know it’s hard, and they want you to know you’re not alone.
Community. We arrived knowing five people, three of whom were my relatives. I also had a massive spreadsheet of people to look up, that I’d compiled in the US.
Some of these were for my work network, and some were possible friends. Israel being what it is, I now am collaborating on work projects, and have developed friendships, with people on both lists. We’re all connected on WhatsApp, obviously.
A year later, I can’t even count on two hands the number of people I’d call friends, from other Obama White House exiles to the guy I met in Ulpan who made the mistake of doing a presentation on plants in class, and ended up taking care of my plants over the summer. He even texted me proof-of-life pics.
I think it’s important to say that while I’m getting better at making friends, it’s never been my strong suit. I identified as a shy introvert most of my life, and still don’t like being too early to the party. Or even going to the party, really.
But I’ve never found it easier to make friends than I have in Israel. For starters, everyone I meet agrees Israel not only has a right to exist, but is perhaps the best place in the world to be. We also all agree that being Jewish is important, as is our people’s continued existence, and that we are doing the most important thing one can possibly do in life: securing the Jewish future by building our homeland.
And we’re off … kadima … onward!
[P.S. Slight problem - the flight attendant is under the mistaken impression I speak Hebrew because he keeps addressing me in Hebrew and I keep understanding pls send help I need to switch this conversation to English before I run out of verbs!! Yalla bye.]
- Hana
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