Life in Ra'anana

For the last month, I have been living at the Mercaz Klita (Absorption Center) in Ra'anana, studying Hebrew with the Garin Tzabar Ulpan. Ra'anana itself is quiet, for the most part, but has been a welcome home to us, with many friendly (often South African or American) people.

Countless times during a walk on the street or a trip to the store, I have become the recipient of all sorts of meal invitations and words of advice. While we were always told that it is the Israeli way to be so hospitable, it is really something different to experience it. Families we have never known or met have been more than willing, even insistent, that we call their homes our own.

We have developed a routine, here, too, and our lives have slowly started to become more and more "officially" Israeli. The steps have been marked with small symbols, like bank and health insurance cards, and other little things like the familiarity the local restaurant owners greet us with. We really do walk into one of our favorites and ask for "the usual," even though they start preparing it before we can ask, as soon as they see us arrive.

The bus system is an art that needs mastering, so it is as natural now as it could possibly be after a month, but we know how to get where we need to go. We should be familiar with the whole city by now, having walked its length many times on Shabbat with everything closed.

There's our gym, which has some hilarious characters and typically plays the most ridiculous music. For all of the "Zohan" fans out there, the first time we walked in to sign-up, they had an Israeli techno song on whose lyrics were literally, "Disco! Disco! Disco!" And if you ever have the opportunity to take a spin class in Israel, I give my wholehearted recommendation. Imagine a pregnant Israeli woman with a headset microphone screaming and shouting instructions in Hebrew, in-between singing along to both the lyrics and instruments of Middle Eastern electronic songs and remixes. Certainly something not to miss!

It has all become familiar. When our weekends finish and we return back to the good old Mercaz Klita from Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, or wherever else we've ventured, it does feel a bit like home!

Although we pack our bags in a few weeks and head north to our Kibbutz, Ra'anana has been a great first city for us.
  

          -    Darren

The First Month

My first month as an Israeli has been one of the more fascinating, memorable months of my life.

The best word to describe trying to settle down in the first week is probably confusion. The typical Israeli “bureaucracy” was expected and certainly not surprising, but trying to navigate it has been difficult. Even the simple tasks like opening a bank account or signing up for a phone plan are not so simple in Israel, so it's certainly been an adventure getting it all figured out.

Because all of that may sound a bit vague, I'll give a small example of how a seemingly easy task on the checklist can turn into a multi-day mission: When we landed in Israel on June 19^th, I was given my Teudat Oleh (new immigrant ID). That small booklet contains my Israeli ID number, indicating that I am indeed an Israeli citizen. My first attempt at opening a bank account was unsuccessful on the grounds that I hadn't yet received my Teudat Zehut (Israeli ID card), even though the Teudat Oleh contains the same information.

That led me to the Teudat Zehut distribution ceremony for new immigrants two days later where a bank had set up shop to help all the new Israelis set up accounts! Eagerly, I sat down in front of the bank official with my new ID card in hand, anticipating an easy meeting and an accessible bank account within the hour! But that would be too easy...

While the official informed me that she had opened a bank account for me, she also gave me instructions to report to the branch in Ra'anana, where we would be living the following week, and sign “just a few papers” to access the account. After moving into the absorption center and settling down a few days later, we headed off to the bank, took our numbers and waited. We waited some more...

Eventually, my name was called and I sat down with the bank official, showed her the slip with my account number, and proceeded to do piles of paperwork for the next hour. Finally, the account was opened and I waited a few more days before a representative from the Ministry of Absorption came to collect our account numbers in order to distribute our benefits. Naturally, I wasn't given the form at the airport for the bank to sign that I was supposed to be given, but after some persuasion, the representative agreed to take the papers I had and make it work. All in a week's work!

Frustration certainly hasn't been the dominant feeling so far since I've been here. After moving into the absorption center where I'll stay for the rest of of my summer Ulpan, I've met some incredible friends from different groups within Garin Tzabar. They come from all over the U.S. as well as England, France, Brazil, Russia, Hungary, and South Africa. I've worked hard in my classes: five hours a day, five days a week, running for a total duration of about six weeks. After the first month, my Hebrew has improved drastically, and I'm eager to keep learning.

I've explored the country and met a Garin from last year on their beautiful Kibbutz close to where mine will be. I've spent weekends out in various parts of Israel with some of my closest friends from my Garin and the Ulpan. I've managed to sign up for a phone plan and learned to successfully navigate the bus system, even at strange hours of the night. As I finish off the last two and a half weeks of Ulpan, I'll prepare for the opening of the Garin Tzabar program and the move onto the Kibbutz. Within the next month, I will have taken my first tests with the army (which I'll explain more in depth later.) It's all happening.

The confusion of the first week has turned into satisfaction, joy, a sense of adventure as well as accomplishment, and excitement for what the future holds.

Signing off for my first time as an Israeli!

-Brett

Israeli Taxi Journal Part 1: The Raving Cabbie

One of the most fascinating experiences in Israel is getting into a taxi. In my very short time living here, I have learned more about this country getting to and from places by cab than any other way. There is so much that is completely unpredictable about the whole thing! You never know how much you are going to pay or if the driver is going to yell at you or be your best friend. You don't know if he really listens to where you want to go, but certainly that if he goes to the wrong place that it is your fault, even though you've warned him and clarified the address multiple times. They have screaming conversations with one another over their radios, drive like maniacs, and are -all- characters.

Tonight, we went to celebrate the birthdays of a few family friends at an Indian restaurant in Tel Aviv. Our taxi ride home provides the best example yet of how unbelievable these encounters can be. It started with a normal conversation about where we were headed. Like most of our conversations, it began in Hebrew and slowly, but surely, turned to English. Then came the music.

Brett and I watched this middle-aged, graying curly-haired man with glasses on his nose crank the volume on some obscure European techno. As he passed other taxi drivers he would honk his car horn repeatedly and speak into his radio. Needless to say, he was on the receiving end of a variety of amusing looks. Speeding through the night on the highway, he raved and danced his way through track after track. The only recognizable song was the finale, and apparently his favorite, the Black Eyed Peas remix of "Time of My Life," which had him moving his whole body and waving his hands in the air in-between playing "air drums."  In fact, he completely missed our destination because, as he happily explained, he was "lost in the music" and had to turn around.

Only as he dropped us off did he continue to speak with us. For whatever reason, he thought that we would find his imitation of British people amusing and proceeded to perform for us. It really was entertaining, despite the fact that it was in no way recognizable as a British accent! He kept saying, "Oh reaaalllly!? This is just looooovely!" in a higher-pitched voice and laughing to himself afterward, repeating, "That's what the British would say!" We laughed, too!

                  -  Darren

Welcome Home

After many years of waiting and preparing, we are finally Israeli citizens. We arrived at Ben Gurion International in Tel Aviv on Tuesday morning aboard a surprisingly smooth group flight of new "olim" (immigrants) organized by Nefesh b'Nefesh. 

Although I was passed out for much of the first half of the flight (I slept through dinner, but, judging by the breakfast, this may have been for the best), the remainder was long in anticipation. It was extremely interesting to be part of a group of people making this step together, though, and looking around, it all became real very quickly.  It began to sink in that we were finally doing what we set out to. Also on the flight were two or three groups of Taglit Birthright participants, which added a unique dimension. At one point, I struck up a conversation with a few girls on the program and found it difficult to express answers to some of their questions which would in any other context have been so easy to articulate. In this situation, though, here they were on their way to a first experience with an incredible place that I, myself, was on my way to making home. I couldn't really find the words, even, to say why I was doing it - I just felt excited for them, like they were about to have an experience that I knew about and they didn't, and that they couldn't possibly know how life-changing it would be. Better yet was that I wasn't alone in how I felt - a Garin Tzabarnik from the Southwest Garin, and a new friend who will be participating in the same ulpan as us, related to how weird it was to have the two groups combined. It really made it that much more meaningful.

Upon landing, we were given flags, hats, stickers, and who knows what else before being taken to process the rest of our absorption paperwork. We were received by a spokesperson of the Ministry of Absorption, given much-needed refreshments, and were then called in individually into an office to sign documents and receive our "absorption baskets." These packages include items that help to make our initial transition to Israeli life a bit easier. Off we went back to the main arrival terminal where we were greeted by people holding signs and singing "Avinu Shalom Aleichem" before we all boarded taxis to our destinations in our new home. 

            - Darren 

The Night Before

I've been anticipating this very post for months now, constantly thinking about what I would include to sum up everything about living in America and my feelings on the immediately impending emigration to Israel. Now, only hours away from boarding the flight to my new home, the night is finally here. It's my last night living in the United States.

Throughout the duration of this blog, we've discussed a lot about the processes involved in emigrating. The best place for me to begin this post would be explaining exactly why I got involved in the process and why I'm choosing to leave my life in America behind to go serve in an overseas army.

I've been exposed to Zionism for a good portion of my life. I've grown up with an ardently Zionistic brother and I've been educated about the State of Israel and what exactly it means to us as Jewish people. Through visits to and learning about the tiny country in the Middle East that an entire religion calls home, I've come to appreciate it as both the foundation of our history and the safe haven for our people.

While I always held this deep appreciation and admiration for Israel close to my heart, it wasn't until a trip to Poland that I made up my mind about my future and what I needed to do to help insure Israel's: become a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces. The sites of the horrors and tragedies the Holocaust created serve as a chilling reminder that evil exists in the world. Unfortunately the Jewish people have faced those evils on more than one occasion throughout history. Now that we have a homeland to call our own, it's imperative that we protect it and defend the Jewish people against any who seek to harm us. It's this very notion that's fueled my desire to pursue this goal and make Aliyah.

It's never easy to leave the comforts of home that have become all too familiar. The routines I've become accustomed to, the college life, for example, will now be replaced with new routines, the army life. The packing is always tedious, the goodbyes always difficult. I'm under no false illusions, a great challenge awaits. I go into it with passion in my heart and a firm belief in a cause. I'm ready to take the challenge.

I've been blessed with a beautiful home, a loving family, an incredible girl, a few best friends as well as many close ones, and the best upbringing I could have ever asked for. I'm turning the pages, closing out an unbelievable chapter in my life. Tomorrow, I'll board an airplane to open the the next one. Tomorrow, I will be realizing my dream.

I'd like to conclude by mentioning how astounding the support pouring in from home and abroad has been. I appreciate it more than I'll ever know how to say!

-Brett

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I fly to Israel. I become a citizen. I follow my dreams. 

I will never forget sitting in my great-grandfather's living room in Johannesburg, South Africa, days before emigrating to America at the age of nine. I remember him grasping a miniature set of the five books of Moses, with his eyes fixed upon me, weeping. Over the course of the next emotional hour or so, he detailed the story of his exodus from Lithuania. Discovering my ancestors, his immediate family, massacred in their own home in a violent pogrom, he decided to find a life for himself somewhere a bit safer for a Jew, he explained. Clutching the texts in his fist, he begged me never to forget who I was and where I came from.

Stories like those of my family members are common in every Jewish household and come from a time before the Jewish state and its army existed. Every society in history lost its tolerance of the Jewish people at some stage. Although extremes vary, my people have been exiled and slaughtered around the world for who they are and where they come from. After the most tragic example of this, the Holocaust, the Jewish state and its army were born to say, "No more!" Israel was and continues to be a statement to the world that the Jewish people will fight for self-determination. It is the declaration that we will not be forced to give up our customs, have our villages destroyed, our stores boycotted, our blood banned, or our bodies burned.  My decision to make aliyah and enlist in the Israeli Defense Forces is a contribution to the message that Jews can now have a say in their own history. 

On an ideological basis, I find it wrong that I would be able to rely on the safeguard of Israel's existence throughout my life without having given what every other citizen gives. While Israel will absorb any Jew into its borders as a citizen on the basis of the Law of Return, and will even rescue endangered Jews and bring them to safety (see: Operation Solomon/Ethiopia), I could never forgive myself for not doing my part for this privilege to be maintained. If one day, at 85 years-old,  I am no longer safe to live in America as a Jewish man, should I be content to fly to Israel, receive my benefits, become a citizen, and live out my years in safety, without having first done my part? I could never.  In my many conversations with friends and family, it has been pointed out to me that there are many things a Jew can do for his people. While I agree and would never discredit anybody or their own contributions, whatever they may be, nothing else I can do for Israel is mutually exclusive with my army service or my living in the land. This is something that I have always wanted for myself and see as my responsibility. I am taking this step to grow, to understand and appreciate the sacrifices we have made to get to where we are as a people, and to give of myself to our collective struggle. 

Tomorrow I fly to Israel. I become a citizen. I follow my dreams.  It has been an intense process to prepare for and the farewells have been getting increasingly more challenging. More than anything, I am excited to finally realize this ambition I have always had. The road ahead is filled with triumphs, failures. smiles, frowns, opportunities,  obstacles, and everything in-between, but I am expecting the time of my life. 

                   - Darren 

P.S. Thank you to everyone who has sent well wishes and kind messages, the support is overwhelming! I can't tell you how much it means. 

A Garin is Born

Garin Tzabar prides itself on its ability to bring together young adults who are compelled to make aliyah and serve in the Israeli Defense Forces. In order for the organization to achieve the goal of successfully providing a framework of success in Israel through a unique group environment, each Garin (usually representative of a specific region or state, like Florida or the Midwest) has to develop and grow as a close-knit “family.” The idea is that the people in your Garin become your brothers and sisters, those people who share your good times, and pull you through the hard. Now that we have completed our seminars (having attended the final one this weekend), it's all starting to come together!

It should first be said that the nature of the seminars allows for people to “come and go” along the way, meaning that someone who attended the first seminar may find that the program doesn't suit him/her or that someone may only discover the program after the process has already started, joining a little bit “late.” Although there has been a core around from the beginning, the Garin now has more than twenty members, with roughly half from the United States and half from Canada (the two sides only meeting this past week!) We are even rumored to be having a few European additions once we arrive in Israel.

Even with the diversity of backgrounds, our Garin has already started to show its potential for fulfilling the “family” environment it is supposed to.

Every family has its jokes. Ours has plenty. There is Frank (not his real name), the janitor of the hotel where we held our seminars, who became as much a part of the group as anyone else. There are the many interesting games that we came up with in our free time (in other words, when we had a minute to breathe), like playing Bocce Ball with glass bowls on a conference room table. There are the fake and outrageous combinations of injuries and ailments we invented for one of our Garinim when he met with an army representative, which have somehow stuck and found their way into every second conversation. We never miss an opportunity to advertise his many “allergies!”

Every family has its roles. Ours has plenty! In fact, individual “family members” often take up many roles. We have the loud and the quiet; the very outgoing and the reserved; the “ideas” people and the “plans” people...we have all types. Although just about everyone is still only finding his/her position in the dynamic group of ours', it's always possible to see who brings what to the table.

Every family has goals. Ours has one big one and many, many smaller ones. It's always fascinating to hear the conversations between different members of the Garin, sharing hopes, fears, and advice about the decisions they are making and this journey the group is embarking on. A family is there for this exact kind of support and encouragement.

Sitting in our circles and our group activities this weekend, or enjoying any of the above and more, it became apparent that this young family formed far from Israel will be the best foundation for our success and happiness there. It may, yet, grow or shrink a small amount, but our Garin, the family we are taking to Israel has been given the start its life and its identity.  

         - Darren