Category: aliyah rites

  • Letting go.

    Into my seventh year of aliyah – living in Israel – I finally, finally, finally have been able to start what every oleh needs to do the second they get here. I’ve started letting go. Letting go of my pride. Letting go of my mistakes. Letting go of my fear. Maybe it’s my bilingual kid.…

  • If you miss what you’re leaf-ing behind…

    I discovered a place where you can stroll on Erev Thanksgiving and feel for a second like you’re home in North America: Gan HAPa’amon in Jerusalem. The leaves are colorful, noisy, and abundant. You can crunch them, kick them, and show your kid a lil taste of motherland in just a few steps. While learning…

  • This just made my aliyah.

    I swear to the power that makes this universe run, this telephone conversation just happened (in Hebrew). Note: This was the first time in nearly 7 years of aliyah that I have ever used the word מעולה on the phone to someone in a feedback survey of their customer service experience.  “Hi! I’m calling from…

  • What could have been.

    Being back ‘home’ is always a pleasure. After almost seven years, the bad has faded away, and the good nostalgia remains. The hometown is glorified, the old friends still taste fresh in a few quick bites. It allows the pangs for what could have been to creep to the top. What could have been if…

  • Lizrael Update: Insane mom you hate on flights edition.

    Bulletin:  I’m leaving tonight to New York, with both my kids, alone. That’s one adult to two kids. Or, one adult to an infant and a terrible two. So if you’re on my flight, sucks for you. Sucks worse for me. Like I told my mom, who I’m sure is containing all the giddy-with-pleasure as…

  • Today’s aliyah zen.

    Truest aliyah propaganda ever. From 1971, artist Robert Aroyo, published by Israel’s Ministry of Immigration and Absorption. We don’t promise you a rose garden

  • You don’t know who you are…

    Today is the day that kind of floats by every once in a while. Maybe once a year. I realize, out of nowhere, people from the past who I suddenly miss terribly. You don’t know who you are; and if you did, you’d be pretty surprised. A professor who I adored and looked up to……

  • Surviving Israeli mortgage hell: a checklist.

    Buying your first home in Israel? Welcome to Israeli mortgage hell! (As opposed to anywhere-else-mortgage hell). Here are some points about the process that might be helpful to you if you’re going through it now too. Note that we bought our apartment from our landlady, so there was no issue of real estate agency, moving…

  • Free to be… sixty three.

    Had a great day, especially since Park Begin wasn’t a disheveled, polluted mess by the time it ended! I love how a bunch of immigrant friends can get together, no local family aside, and have a great time of a national holiday. To the %#@! asshole who let his Doberman Pinscher run loose through groups…

  • What it’s like to get a mortgage in Israel.

    …or anything at all from an Israeli government branch, bank, organization, supermarket, public toilet… I could go on. Doesn’t it feel good to know that this level of bureaucracy exists all over the world, and not just here? I do plan to post advice and checklist for navigating the home-buying and mortgage-obtaining process here in Israeli banks and…

  • Kindergarten report.

    Kindergarten report.

    Ultimately, I blame myself for my nearly two-year-old turning more and more Israeli every day. Isn’t that what I always wanted, immigrant-self?

  • You know you’re a veteran when…

    You know you’ve been in Israel a while when you can remember when chumus prices ranged from 8-10 NIS for that giant kilo tub. Nowadays, you feel completely lost (and old) when you see it for 15 shekel at the cheap supermarket. When I was your age…