What should you bring on aliyah? What should you leave behind?

Should you bring Ziploc baggies?  What about furniture and appliances?  One question every single oleh is going to have to face before moving to Israel is – what should I bring with me?

So I thought I’d turn to the real experts – olim who are already here. I asked the following question on two major aliyah groups on Facebook:

What ONE item did you (or should you) have brought with you when you made aliyah? Bonus: what ONE item did you bring that turned out to be utterly useless? (ours was snowsuits!!!)

I’ve divided up the responses into categories to make it easier for you to read. But essentially, there's no one answer that works for everybody. Some people bring several lifts' worth of items, others come with just a backpack.

The advice here is also sometimes contradictory. I’ve met people who say, “Don’t bother bringing anything major, you can get everything here.” And then there are others who tell you to bring everything you possibly can. It really depends on who you are and regardless of what other people’s experiences have been, what you choose to bring is up to you.

That said, hopefully we can all learn something from what people chose to bring (or what they regret bringing...).  Spoiler alert – not one person mentioned ziploc baggies.  Or toilet paper, tuna, chocolate chips, or any one of a huge range of items that they would have been begging for 10, 20, or 30 years ago.  You can get zipper bags of various kinds (though they’re still not very good, in my opinion!), the tuna is excellent, and they even have Godiva chocolate for sale here now.

(Mmm… I saw these in a store the exact DAY my husband surprised me by showing up with one as a Rosh Hashanah present!)

Here are the major categories of people’s MUST-BRING items as well as their aliyah REGRETS.

The very biggest regret, hands-down, is a category

When NOT to come on your Israel pilot trip…

I never thought I’d be saying this.  Keep in mind:  I’m not saying don’t come at all!  A pilot trip is one of the best investments you can make in your own aliyah!  Please come visit before you move here. 

But what I’m saying is… think before you plan.  Be nice to those of us hosting and welcoming you to our communities.  Pretty please?

Why mention this now?

We’re in the middle of the last week of school, and also, I suppose, the start of the aliyah season, because we have several pilot-trip families converging on KShmu over the next couple of weeks.  Which is terrific – I’m always so, so,  happy to show off our community if I can.

Don't forget! Nine things to remember before you fly

Even with the best-laid plans, there are some important things that can fall through the cracks.  Here are 9 of the most important reminders – things you’ll want to take care of before you pull on that spiffy new Nefesh b’Nefesh ballcap and hop on the plane to Israel:

 

1.  Medical Check-In

 

Sure, health care in Israel is free.  But you’ll be sitting in front of a doctor who doesn’t know you, doesn’t have your records, and perhaps doesn’t speak English.  (Medical clinic receptionists will insist that “all the doctors speak English,” which means they know the names of medical conditions, but many still can’t carry on a conversation.) 

 

There’s also a different cultural approach and you may not have the confidence as a dripping-wet oleh to be pushy enough with Israeli doctors to make your concerns known.

 

If you have any medical worries, even little niggling things that you’re concerned might get bigger before your Hebrew gets better, get them taken care of ahead of time.

 

2.  Prescriptions

 

This could have been part of #1, except it’s so important I’m giving it its own bullet point.  Get a copy of all prescriptions, and a six-month supply of any medications you take on a regular basis. 

 

Keep these prescriptions in your carry-on baggage along with a few days’ supply, at least.  Checked baggage does get lost, and stuff gets lost inside checked baggage (especially if you’re bringing a dozen or more huge suitcases!). 

 

You don’t want to deal with a medical crisis immediately on landing.

3.  Dentist

Read everything I just said about doctors and multiply it by ten.  Then take out the part about it being free – you will have to pay for dental care in Israel, after you’ve figured out how to find it and how much it’ll be. 

 

How to choose YOUR OWN best destination in Israel

How up are you on your Israeli geography?

One of the things I found most maddening before we moved to Israel was place names.  Beyond Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa, I had barely heard of other places here.  Maybe Beersheva, because it’s in the Torah.  Some places were in the news (Chevron), so they were somewhere in my consciousness.  Others, not so much.

That quickly became a problem when we started planning to move here.

Maybe this is something you’ve experienced? 

Anyone who has been anywhere in Israel, even if they’ve never lived there, has anywhere between three and a dozen places to recommend.  They’ll come up to you anywhere, anytime, and spout this list like it’s gospel (or, you know, the Jewish equivalent).

Telling Kiryat Arba from Kiryat Shmona

These places are not all cities.  Some are cities, some are neighbourhoods within cities, some are kibbutzim or moshavim, some are, I don’t know, hilltops somewhere with a few idealists in trailers parked on top.

This… is how you should welcome olim

How will you be greeted when you finally arrive here in Israel?  Or, if you’re already here, how were you greeted?

Was it a depressing, bewildering, lonely aliyah story (I’ve heard my share of those) or an upbeat, thrilled, amazing aliyah story?

I really hope your story is as beautiful as that of friends of ours from Toronto (let’s call them Chana and Shlomo), who just arrived last week.   What made the difference for them? 

When you read her email, I think you’ll figure it out right away.

Happy Aliyah to me

Happy birthday to me .

Happy Aliyah on my birthday !

.........Happy Aliyah to me ‎!!!..........

Ready to work: finding your first job in Israel.

What’s stopping you from making aliyah?

Maybe it’s the thought of having to find a job here in Israel.  If so, I don’t blame you.  It’s very, very scary having to start over again in another country.

Close your eyes and think about work.  What do you picture yourself doing?  Maybe it’s more of the same – exactly what you’re doing now – or maybe it’s something completely different.

I haven’t written much about looking for work here so far.  Why?  I’ll be honest:  I feel unqualified.  Maybe because I don’t have a job myself, but also because so much depends on what kind of work you do.  (If you’re a writer, specializing in articles and blog posts in English, or in children’s books, then let’s talk.)

Your experience will depend on whether you’re a doctor, English teacher, hairdresser, yoga teacher, graphic artist, or… well, you get the picture.

But I’ve certainly talked to enough olim and potential olim to have a sense of what things are like.  So I’ve put together five questions you can ask yourself that will definitely make finding a job easier once you’ve landed in Israel.

What about finding a job first?

This has got to be the biggest question for many olim – their dream of hitting the ground running. 

How can you have a job lined up the minute you arrive? 

And the winner is…

Some of you may have noticed that we’re back from Israel, just in time for Purim and Naomi Rivka’s birthday… and a whole bunch of snow that I was really, REALLY hoping would be finished by now.

And the question hanging in the air everywhere we go is – “nu???”  (at least, that was the implication from about a dozen people at kiddush yesterday)

The goal of our pilot trip was to whittle down a long list of prospective home towns into at least a somewhat shorter list.

What we learned on this trip:

• Despite the title of this post, there ARE no losers.
• Everywhere is amazing.
• There are no bad cities, only choices that would be harder or easier for us, given our own limitations.
• Every city we visited had some huge advantages and some huge downsides.
• Just about everybody we met loved the city where they lived and couldn’t imagine living elsewhere.
• Just about everybody we met was amazing and giving and open and welcoming.  We expected this, to some extent, but still – it blew me away.
• But, therefore… it came to feel (for me, at least) a bit personal.  Like if we choose City B, then we are going to offend Shmuli from City A and Rivka from City C… and so on.
• But we cannot please Shmuli and Rivka, nor should we really try…

But we also learned that we cannot live everywhere, let alone on the fence.  We need to start making actual plans, so instead of coming home with a short list, we jumped ahead and picked our landing spot:  Karmiel. 

Here’s a virtual tour of Karmiel that is actually pretty cool!

You can also read the Nefesh b’Nefesh page about it.  They always start on a high note.  Then, there’s the wikipedia page, which usually includes the more controversial details sometimes left out of the NbN pages.  Or there’s the English version of the “official” Karmiel website, on which you can read a quote from the mayor, who says, “The age of on-line information invites the surfers to expected and unexpected” – the rest of the quote, scintillating though it may be, has been lost, perhaps in translation.

Here are some of the criteria that make me hopeful that Karmiel will work for us – keeping in mind that this is a VERY complicated equation:

• Merkaz klitah for a short stay on arrival
• Ulpan in town, along with other government offices
• Good buses in town and to other cities – it’s possible, though difficult, to go carless
• Urban feel with many walkable areas
• The city feels clean and green – clean is probably year-round, though green, we understand, will probably fade with the heat.
• The climate is cooler and drier than many other areas
• More diverse, religiously, than some other areas – I’m aware that this could be (or become) a minus, but at least, coming from chutz la’aretz it will feel familiar.
• Cost of renting is lower than in the central parts of Israel
• Direct buses from Jerusalem – with train service planned within the next ___ (however-many) years
• A “Young Israel” type shul that is mainly Anglo and at least claims to serve a diverse crowd
• And finally… the annual Nefesh b’Nefesh Go North picnic is held right in Karmiel!  So no matter how clueless and lost we are by the time it rolls around, we ought to have no problem getting there.  :-)

That’s long enough for now.  I thought about putting together a list of why we’d rejected the many other possibilities, but decided that wouldn’t be fair.  Ultimately, we liked everywhere we saw, for different reasons.  I tried hard to keep an open mind and visualize myself living in each and every place we visited, and they were all a good fit in one way or another, so the choice was ultimately kind of painful.

Also, if I’m listing reasons for “rejection,” I could honestly write you a list of minuses of Karmiel as long as my arm, or longer… and yet that seems to be where we’re going.  Go figure.

When we left for Israel, I kept saying, “I’ll know it when I see it.”  I kind of thought that was a figure of speech – but in the end, that’s pretty much what it’s come down to.  We saw it, we knew, and I think we’re both pretty pleased with the decision.

Now, if we thought choosing a hometown was hard… the next step is – gulp – actually getting there.

Meet our Pilot: the Long List

Here’s where we’re going! 

At the risk of waaaay over-generalizing, I have forced myself to include only 2 or 3 descriptive words under each column.

Remember, this chart is as much for my own reference and Ted’s as it is for yours. 

Okay, maybe more so.

Also, our time is VERY limited and our needs are pretty specific.  If we have omitted your favourite town, please don’t take it personally – though please feel free to suggest it anyway!

***  Clarification:  I have never been to ANY of these places.  “Good” and “bad” are distilled from others’ comments.  Please don’t assume that ch”v these are my views.  I have no views yet; hence, the pilot trip!

City	Population	Anglo	Good	Bad
Ramat Beit Shemesh	4300, but 70,000 in Beit Shemesh	40%	easy, lots of services	boring, inauthentic
Maaleh Adumim	40,000	7%	beautiful, close to Jerusalem	expensive, political
Raanana	80,000	20%	beautiful, merkaz klitah	expensive, “snooty”
Rechovot	120,000	10%	friendly people, affordable?	climate
Nahariya	52,000	5%	beautiful, north, train	Lebanon, boring
Maalot	21,000	5%	beautiful, north, climate	Lebanon, remote

The last two are part of a Go North group pilot trip run by Nefesh b’Nefesh.  I am grateful, because it’s exhausting enough organizing four destinations, let alone six.  And even though we are viewing more southern destinations as well, I haven’t ruled out north… it’s still definitely in the running.

Addendum:  Places I’d love to go see, but we’re not – mostly because we’re all out of time…:

• Zichron Yaakov
• Pardes Chana
• Yavne’el

Addendum:  Places we’re going to see, but probably not going to live:

• Yerushalayim
• Beit Shemesh
• Har Nof
• Tzfat
• Karmiel

I’d love feedback on any or all of these spots… !

Pilot trip – suggestions???

You’re not supposed to post your travel plans online lest people see what they are and break into your home and steal your precious abandoned children… oh, wait – we’re leaving the children with my mother and sisters, I think.  I hope.  Anyway, it’s coming.  I’ll give you a hint:  the month rhymes with “fed blueberry,” if you place the accent on the middle syllable.  Fed-BLUE-berry.

So between now and Fed-blueberry, we need to pick six places to visit over a 10-day period (not including Shabbos).  I am thinking three in the south (by which I mean “central”) the first week, then three in the north the second week.  There is a Go North group pilot trip the second week which will let us explore Nahariya, Karmiel and I think one other community up there.

In the south, my top picks are Ramat Beit Shemesh (RBS) A as it’s known, and Maaleh Adumim.  But I’d like to include a third just for completeness.

In the north, we may have to visit Tzfat, though I’d rather not – only because I don’t think we’re going to end up living there, NOT because I don’t think it’s lovely!  Somebody suggested it to Ted and so he’s gotten it onto his list of Possible Places.  Oh – I just checked.  The group pilot includes Ma’alot, Karmiel, Nahariya and Tzfat, so I guess that’s all there is to say about that.

We may or may not have flexibility to visit one other place in the north above and beyond the pilot trip, though it’ll have to be easily accessible from our base near Nahariya.

So – what do you think?  Anyone have any must-visit communities, north or south, that we simply MUST consider before we head home???

Our Aliyah Essay

Done!!!  After several months of fits and starts, we’re (meaning I’m) finished filling out the online NbN / Sochnut application form – at last!  Paying the $100 application fee felt like the “putting money where mouth is” milestone, but the biggest hurdle tonight was this 4000-character essay outlining why we want to make aliyah, and our detailed “post-aliyah plan.”

Oh, another milestone of this application form:  they asked for given names as they appear on all our Canadian legal documentation… but they also asked what name we prefer to use.  I filled in Hebrew names – Ted’s current name and my yet-to-be-revealed “aliyah” name.

Here’s our best attempt – written by me in close consultation with Ted.  Really, truly… I promise, he was sitting behind me and we were talking about it while I typed:

INTRODUCTION

We may not be a typical “aliyah family,” but in middle age, we are creative, adaptable and flexible – and also, perhaps more than younger couples, better-equipped to deal with unusual situations and take them in stride. This year, we’re moving into a new stage in our lives with the graduation of our older children, and we’re ready to explore new worlds and push the envelope far beyond our day-to-day lives here in Canada.

REASONS FOR ALIYAH

My husband says, “when I was in Israel, I felt it was like a haven for the kind of life that I was trying to achieve.” Having just come out of the holiday of Rosh Hashanah, I [Jennifer] couldn’t help but notice how many times the machzor refers to “Israel” and “Zion” – not theoretical or metaphorical references, but concrete: it’s referring to an actual place, a place where we can live as Jews today fairly easily.

When I became religious years ago after growing up with a largely “spectator” type of religious approach, I wanted to make my Judaism real in every way possible. Aliyah was part of that plan, but more than 20 years later, I’m not there yet. God willing, this will be the year we make it happen.

DETAILED POST-ALIYAH PLAN

At this early stage, to be honest, I have no idea where we’ll be staying immediately on arrival in Israel – hopefully somewhere in the North, according to our current plan. We are currently discussing our options, but it’s likely that one of us will go ahead or stay behind with the two younger children while the other takes care of technicalities of the move (packing, cleaning up the house here, etc).

This period, one of physical transition, will probably take the most creativity on both our parts, along with a willingness to be “up in the air” for a while as we settle details of housing, utilities, medical care, appliances, lift, paperwork, Internet/phone, bank accounts, etc.. This is probably when we’ll need the most support on the ground as well, and advice is always appreciated.

After our physical needs are taken care of (housing and food), our priority will be finding Ulpan / Hebrew opportunities for every family member. I believe the younger children (they will be 8 and 5) are too young for official Children’s Ulpan, but ideally there will be some type of Hebrew program immediately. If not, we will likely find a summer camp for them and hope they’ll pick up lots of Hebrew in a fun, social setting. We’ll also need to use our time during the summer to finalize arrangements for school and research possible chugim [activities] available nearby.

Ideally, we will be “settled” in our community, wherever we find ourselves, in time for the Tishrei chagim [fall holidays]. It would be fantastic to have friends or at least close acquaintances within the community and a synagogue where we are excited to be spending the chagim [holidays] themselves.

We are planning to have our older daughter (not making aliyah) in Israel for the year attending a seminary program, so God willing, she will be able to be at home with us for the chagim. I would like to make this transition as smooth as possible for her. That’s true for our other children, of course, but I believe younger children are probably more flexible, so I plan to work overtime to make sure the older kids feel loved and welcome in our new home.

We know we’re in for a tough couple of years, but easing the transition for all our children is and will remain our top priority – letting them know we are both having an adventure and fulfilling a dream – not just OUR dream, but God’s dream for the Jewish people.

CONCLUSION

It will be difficult to leave beloved family members behind in Canada. It will be difficult to navigate the many hurdles ahead, barriers of language and distance and money and culture, but we’re confident that we are ready to take on this amazing adventure and emerge as better, more fulfilled Jews and as a stronger, happier family.

Smart marketing!

Back in – oh, I don’t know… 2011?  2010?  Long ago, when we were embarrassed to not even be able to put up our hands when they were polling audience members about which year they were going (“2011?  2012?”), we went to a Nefesh b’Nefesh “aliyah mega-event.”

It was a great event, with speakers on various topics as well as tables of information about everything from lifts to mortgages to healthcare.  Not much good swag, basically just a couple of NbN pens… and then I spotted these awesome flashing keychains.  I mean, you couldn’t miss them because they were flashing, so without even looking at what table it was or what brochures they were offering, I snagged one.

It’s a pretty cool thing; no visible batteries, just a printed message covered up by what I figure is an ultra-low-powered LCD screen. Whenever it’s placed under light, it begins “flashing”, covering up and revealing the message within. 

The plastic bit that attached the little metal ring to my keychain wore out within the first year, so the keychain was retired to the front of the car, where it has sat, flashing at us, every time we drive anywhere – and even, presumably, when we’re not looking.

Here it is, with the message visible:

 

Like I said, I was oblivious when I picked this thing up; I had no idea what this company was or what it did or anything.  But now… a couple of years later, whenever I search the NbN communities database and glance at the listings for which healthcare providers are available in each community, it jumps out at me every time.  They’re in Ma’alot, as well as Nahariya and Zichron Yaakov; they’re not in Ramat Yishai.

I have no idea what this means for us and our future in healthcare, but I have been reading a lot about how bribes influence medical professionals – even a small gift creates a relationship of indebtedness, in addition to possibly making your company’s name memorable.

So if this is the company we ultimately go with, they will be thrilled to know that their 25-cent investment has paid off big-time.

The funny thing about medical professionals, by the way, that you might think disclosing gifts and corporate ties would make them more honest… but in fact, it makes them more blatant about their favouritism of the sponsoring drug company.  It’s like with full disclosure, all bets are off.  But then, my current reading obsessions are for my main blog and I won’t bore you with them here.  Pop over there to say hi!

And… a place to call home???

Just a name, mentioned by a friend who has mentioned several places, so I didn’t really listen at first.  Okay, the first THREE times she mentioned it, I didn’t listen.  But then I did, and it sounded actually kind of interesting.

(when people find out what a geography dummy I am, people throw all KINDS of place names at me, and I have no idea what kind of places they think would suit us or where they are relative to various borders and “shtuchim”/שטחים – places where the news refers to ordinary folks as “settlers” rather than just Israelis)

Here is the name – keeping in mind that it is by no means THE name, just one place I am maybe considering:

Mitzpeh Netofa

OR

Mitzpeh Netufah

OR

מִצְפֵּה נְטוֹפָה‎‎

Of course, the Nefesh b’Nefesh info page gives it four dollar-signs in terms of cost of living.  Drat!  Tehilla, a site for religious aliyah, seems to not exist anymore, so I can’t use their VERY handy community-information site (you can click it, but you won’t get anywhere… blah).

Here’s a little more personal side from a very out-of-date site.

Wikipedia doesn’t say much except that there are 200 families.  But maybe more if we go there, and a couple of our friends from Toronto!

This is MORE information than you ever needed to know, in the form of a Word document, which is somewhat outdated but still offers valuable insights into the town’s history, philosophy, resources etc.

And my favourite, a YouTube video!

Thinking, thinking… I really can’t concentrate on this right now, but it’s kind of nice, the feeling of narrowing things down a little – though in this case, perhaps TOO much.

Oooh, here’s another (if somewhat twangy) view.  My Canadian eyes are loving all this greenery, but I’m sure that, as in the rest of the country, the green is pretty seasonal.

Smart Questions… NO answers?

A short, but probably growing, list of smart questions people ask us, as prospective olim, for which we have ZERO answers at the present time.  Starting with the most common question, the one everybody asks:

1. Where will you live?  Somewhere cool.  Is there such a thing?  My project for this summer is tracking average temperatures in various parts of Israel.  Cool and not humid.
2. What about your mother?  I think of this as the Kohen’s Mother Dilemma, and addressed this, a bit, at my other blog.  (accidentally typed “my mother blog” – ha ha ha)  Aliyah will definitely cut not one but many umbilici.  And I’m surprised Windows Live Writer didn’t tag that word as a typo…
3. Are you bringing a lift?  Actually, I have an answer:  yes.  I want my stuff.  Well, not ALL my stuff.  Some of my stuff.  More than we can bring in suitcases and boxes, I think.  A lift is expensive, new stuff is expensive.  See what I mean about not having any answers?  A friend mentioned half a  lift the other day.  So maybe this question DOES have an answer.

And then there’s one question I thought I had the answer to, but it turns out maybe I don’t:

4. Will you continue to homeschool?  I thought my answer was simple:  NO.  For two reasons, socialization and language, I thought it would be better to put the kids in Israeli schools almost immediately.  In fact, THREE reasons:  us parents are going to need jobs and/or full-time ulpan almost immediately.  There is a fourth reason (are you surprised?):  my promise to Naomi, almost from the beginning, that she would be able to go to school when we made aliyah.  So why fight it?  Why not give up homeschooling?  One BIG reason:  it’s really good for my kids.  In the back of my mind, I have the idea that the kids can go to school and then, due to Israel’s notoriously short school days, I can homeschool them in their spare hours.  But I don’t know if it’s really possible, and quite honestly, that makes me very sad…

So lay off

From Rabbi Phil Chernofsky, director of the OU Israel Centre, who has a parsha radio show I have listened to off and on for over 10 years:

What is the sin of the spies?

3300+ years later, people are still saying the same thing in our own time!

When somebody says in public that he is of the opinion that it’s easier to raise a child to be a good Orthodox Jew in New York than it is in Israel, this is the sin of the spies – alive and well in our time.

When someone says “it’s a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there” – THAT is cheit hameraglim, the sin of the spies.

When people say to the person who does make aliyah, “What, are you out of your mind?” – this is a perpetuation of the sin of the spies.

Listen online or download the full parsha audio as an MP3 here.

It constantly amazes me that people feel they have to POINT THINGS OUT about moving to Israel, as if we haven’t thought of them:

“What will your mother do without you?”

“What about the situation over there?”

“That’s very far away.”

“Won’t you miss your family?”

My mother is 65 years old – not exactly elderly.  I hope she can come and visit.  Maybe she can come and live.  And the SITUATION is no worse and probably much better than at most other times in the history of that little patch of land.  Yes, it is very far away.  Yes, we are moderately comfortable here.  Yes, this will be very hard.

At shul a couple of weeks ago, a woman came over who was in Ted’s Conversational Hebrew class over the winter (as usual, the ladies all loved him!).  She’s an older woman I’ve seen there but never spoken with. 

She told me she’s going in August and don’t let anything anybody says discourage us, because it’s the right thing to do.  Two sentences, maybe a bit more… but it was the very, VERY most helpful thing anybody has ever said since this plan was hatched.

If you think of something bad about moving to Israel, well, we’ve thought of it, thousands of Jews who plan to live their entire Jewish lives here in Toronto have thought of it… the meraglim have thought of it.  Those thoughts are old news.

Try thinking something new and wonderful, and then tell me all about it.