{"id":28426,"date":"2018-04-13T03:42:39","date_gmt":"2018-04-13T10:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=28426"},"modified":"2018-04-11T15:15:59","modified_gmt":"2018-04-11T22:15:59","slug":"what-is-it-to-become-israeli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2018\/04\/13\/what-is-it-to-become-israeli\/","title":{"rendered":"What is it to become Israeli?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Akiva Gersh teaching a group in Israel. Gersh is the editor of, and a contributing writer to, the book Becoming Israeli: The Hysterical, Inspiring and Challenging Sides of Making Aliyah<\/em>. (photo from Akiva Gersh)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

If you or someone you know is considering making aliyah, there is a book that offers a glimpse of the experience. Becoming Israeli: The Hysterical, Inspiring and Challenging Sides of Making Aliyah<\/em> (Rimonim Press) is a compilation of blogs and essays written by 40 olim<\/em> (immigrants), including the editor, Akiva Gersh.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe book speaks about the various sides of aliyah, from the hysterical, to the challenging, to the frustrating, to the emotional,\u201d Gersh told the Independent<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Gersh grew up in the New York area. He and his Philadelphia-born wife, Tamar, made aliyah about 13 years ago. As they were going through the process, Gersh wrote about it in a blog. When he realized others were doing the same thing, he was spurred to collect as much information as he could for publication in book form.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kept thinking, someone must have done this,\u201d said Gersh. \u201cPeople had written about their own aliyah experiences, but not a broad compilation of experiences … and that is what I wanted to do, what I wanted to share. I worked on it for about two years \u2013 finding the blogs, talking to the bloggers, telling them what I\u2019m doing, and getting permission to use their posts in the book. And, after about two years doing all this compiling and editing, the book was born.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Becoming Israeli<\/em>, said Gersh, there are the insights of (English-speaking) Jews who have made aliyah, as well as those who have been to Israel, but haven\u2019t yet made the move. \u201cIn the book,\u201d he said, \u201cyou can really sense the things they love about Israel. Above and beyond that, there is the general world \u2026 and much of that includes the Christian world who loves coming to Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"image<\/a>The feedback has been good, especially from olim who have read the book and can relate to their fellow travelers. \u201cThey went, \u2018Wow! Amazing!\u2019\u201d said Gersh. \u201cEvery page, they\u2019re like, \u2018This is my story!\u2019 They\u2019re laughing, they\u2019re crying.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve read the book multiple times and I still laugh at the jokes and cry at the same emotional places,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s a really powerful book and I\u2019ve had really positive feedback from olim who say \u2018thank you\u2019 and feel it is awesome … [and] exactly what they\u2019ve been going through and experiencing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gersh is a teacher by training and works in a private English-language school in Israel. He also connects with people using music, through a program he started in 2007 called The Holy Land Spirit.<\/p>\n

As a musician and teacher, Gersh offers groups \u2013 mainly Christians \u2013 who visit Israel an evening program of music, prayer and spirituality from a Jewish perspective. \u201cThey love it,\u201d he said. \u201cWe pray together, dance together, speak together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gersh teaches at Alexander Muss High School, a study-abroad institution near Tel Aviv. There, kids from 45 different countries come to learn for a few weeks or up to a few months at a time, about Jewish history and Israel. They spend half their time in the classroom and half their time traveling around the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, it\u2019s academic and hands on,\u201d said Gersh. \u201cIt\u2019s awesome. I\u2019ve been there about 10 years now. The language of instruction is English and, for those who want to improve their Hebrew, there are opportunities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have young Israelis who are fresh out of the army. And, for those who want the Hebrew experience, they can get it from them and also from being out and about in Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kids are inspired, enlightened, pumped up about Israel,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe\u2019re not a religious program. We\u2019re not a church denomination. We\u2019re pluralistic. We have Jews on staff, but we don\u2019t push Judaism. We just open up a space for kids to explore connections to Judaism.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Gersh, many of the students are experiencing certain aspects of Judaism for the first time. This is something especially meaningful for him, he said, noting, \u201cI had no connection to Israel growing up at all. I never thought about it, nor talked about it. It just wasn\u2019t a thing in my community. I heard about it a couple times in Hebrew school, but it wasn\u2019t on the radar at all. By the time I was done with high school, going into college, I was really done with anything Jewish…. In college, I began searching for something more cultural, meaningful, spiritual in my life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat journey, which was a three-year journey, took me to many different places, meeting different people, reading different books. At the end of the journey,\u201d he said, \u201cit brought me full circle to Judaism. But, I found a new side and a new expression of Judaism that I hadn\u2019t seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the places Gersh traveled after college was West Africa, where he spent two months learning more about the drumming he studied in school.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter traveling around there,\u201d he said, \u201cI went to Israel for the first time. I was about 22 years old at that point. I traveled around Israel for two months, backpacking and enjoying, taking a class here, a class there, doing a Shabbat and just really getting into it. After those two months, I realized I wanted to really explore my roots and see what Judaism was about. Still, at that point, I did not want to become religious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eventually, Gersh did become religious. He spent some time in a yeshivah, both in Israel and in the United States, before making aliyah with his wife in 2004.<\/p>\n

The foreword of Becoming Israeli<\/em> was written by Yossi Klein Halevi, an Israeli author Gersh looks up to as a Jew, as someone who made aliyah and as a writer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a book launch at the beginning of the summer and we had a panel of me and a bunch of other bloggers from the book, and he was one of the panelists,\u201d said Gersh. \u201cIt was amazing to have his voice and his perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Becoming Israeli<\/em> is available on Amazon, and Gersh also has a website, becomingisraeli.com.<\/p>\n

Rebeca Kuropatwa<\/strong> is a Winnipeg freelance writer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Akiva Gersh teaching a group in Israel. Gersh is the editor of, and a contributing writer to, the book Becoming Israeli: The Hysterical, Inspiring and Challenging Sides of Making Aliyah. (photo from Akiva Gersh) If you or someone you know is considering making aliyah, there is a book that offers a glimpse of the experience. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784,4329],"tags":[8046,724,1200,356,4330],"class_list":["post-28426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-israel","tag-akiva-gersh","tag-aliyah","tag-diaspora","tag-immigration","tag-israel"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}