aliyah

Israel’s new Ethiopian airlift

Candance Kwinter, far right, and other members of a foreign delegation to Ethiopia, take in a synagogue service in Gondar. (photo from Candace Kwinter)

The latest airlift from the Horn of Africa is underway – and a Vancouver community leader was on the plane from Addis Ababa recently with 179 Ethiopian Jews making aliyah.

Candace Kwinter flew to Ethiopia at the end of May, where she met up with three other Canadians, a group from North and South America and a team of Israelis. In addition to being chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, Kwinter is on the board of the Jewish Agency for Israel and sits on numerous JAFI committees.

Pnina Tamano-Shata, Israel’s minister of immigrant absorption, who was born in Ethiopia in 1981 and is the first Ethiopian-Israeli cabinet minister, was also on the trip. So was Micah Feldman, author of the book On Wings of Eagles: The Secret Operation of the Ethiopian Exodus, who was able to contextualize what first-timers were witnessing.

A trickle of Jewish refugees has traveled from eastern Africa to Israel (and pre-state Palestine) since the 1930s, at least. From the beginning of the Ethiopian civil war, in 1974, through the catastrophic famine on the Horn of Africa in the early 1980s, rescue missions ramped up. Operation Moses, in 1984/85, brought about 8,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel, primarily from refugee camps in Sudan. Operation Solomon, in 1991, brought more than 14,000 Ethiopians.

The current airlift, called Operation Tzur Israel (Rock of Israel), is expected to bring more than 2,000 olim over six months. The Ethiopian Airlines flight that Kwinter was on was the first of several. When this mission is complete, there will be an estimated 10,000 Jews left in Ethiopia.

The Jewish identity of the olim is, in some cases, contested. The Ethiopians have included Beta Israel, people who follow Jewish traditions that would be recognizable to most observant Jews worldwide. They also include Falash Mura, members of Beta Israel communities who, since the advent of Christian missionizing in the area, have been converted, sometimes forcibly.

photo - The first plane of Operation Tzur Israel to land in Israel was met with fanfare. It brought 179 Ethiopian Jews to their new home — The first plane of Operation Tzur Israel to land in Israel was met with fanfare. It brought 179 Ethiopian Jews to their new home. *(photo from Candace Kwinter)*

The current project is entirely based on family reunification. Kwinter noted that, since the airlifts began 40 years ago, Ethiopian Jews have migrated primarily from the more rural Gondar area to cities, mostly the capital Addis Ababa. This migration has several corollaries, said Kwinter. Unlike the first olim of decades ago, these new Israelis are familiar with electricity and plumbing, although they may not have access to them at home. They may also have intermarried. So, while siblings who have been separated for decades are reunited, in some cases the nieces and nephews (and the Ethiopian spouses) may not be halachically Jewish. In these cases, they will undergo conversions.

Kwinter and the other foreign representatives flew to Gondar to see how Jews had lived for centuries and where some still reside.

“We went to an ancient synagogue, then we went to an ancient Jewish cemetery,” she said. “It’s very primitive, it’s nothing like we can imagine. It’s like they’re still living the way people did three, four or five hundred years ago.”

The villages, which have typically 100 or 200 Jews, were always located on rivers or streams, Kwinter said, “because they still believed in the mikvah. Women had menstrual tents, like from ancient days. In their time, they had to be put in their tents and they needed the freshwater to provide for these old rituals.”

The synagogue services were, at once, unlike anything Kwinter had seen before and yet entirely familiar. The dirt-floor synagogue was filled with several hundred men and women, sitting separately, the women all in white shawls, men wearing tallit and many laying tefillin.

Kwinter was saying Kaddish for her mother, who passed away just weeks before the trip, and she had no problem following the service.

Next door, a 10-foot-by-10-foot tin shack made up the Talmud Torah, with an open fire pit that served hundreds of meals to children and pregnant women in the community.

Although the transition facing these migrants will certainly not be easy, the latest newcomers have it smoother than some of the earlier ones, who fled during times of war and famine, many losing family members and being terrorized by thugs while walking across mountains to Sudanese refugee camps.

The delegation also met with Israel’s ambassador to Ethiopia, Aleligne Admasu, who was born in Ethiopia and made aliyah in 1983.

The operation will cost about $10 million US and is funded by Jewish federations and JAFI. Once the olim arrive in Israel, they will receive the services offered to immigrants, including Hebrew-language ulpan. Unlike native-born Israelis, most of whom do their military service before university, Ethiopian-Israelis generally complete their schooling first to ensure language proficiency, Kwinter said.

There were 179 Ethiopians on Kwinter’s flight – one was held back after testing positive for COVID. Few Ethiopians have received the COVID vaccine and most of the olim will receive them on arrival, along with the sort of routine vaccines that Israelis and Canadians receive in childhood.

Time flew on the five-hour flight, Kwinter said.

“We had lots of things for the kids to do, like sticker books, candies and all that kind of thing,” she said. “We got to know them all, even though we didn’t speak the same language.”

Ethiopian-born Jewish Agency officials were on board to translate, if necessary, but it wasn’t necessary, Kwinter said.

“You didn’t need to translate,” she said. “The kids were crawling all over us. It was the best plane ride ever. For five hours, it felt like five minutes. I wouldn’t have wanted to be a flight attendant because I don’t know how they got up and down the aisles because it was chaotic. It wasn’t like a regular plane ride.”

When the plane landed, there was a major ceremony marking the beginning of the new operation, with plenty of media coverage. Then the Ethiopians were transported to another part of the airport, where their family members were waiting to be reunited, some of them having not seen one another in decades.

“The very elderly would kiss the ground,” said Kwinter. “Everybody got an Israeli flag, and there was lots of singing and dancing and music.… It was really quite remarkable.”

While the Ethiopians were on a life-altering journey, Kwinter’s travels were hectic in a different way. She was on a plane every day for seven days and, a couple of days after returning home, she tested positive for COVID, as did many of the Americans.

Reflecting on the experience, Kwinter is filled with gratitude.

“Thank God for Israel that we can do this,” she said. “Thank God for world Jewry. Thank God for federations that collect money, and we can save all these lives. I come from a family of survivors and my husband as well. If we didn’t have Israel, we wouldn’t be able to do this and we’d be living another Holocaust again, I believe, all over the world.”

A composer for the Queen

British-Israeli composer Loretta Kay Feld. (photo by Michal Sela)

Loretta Kay Feld was asked by someone close to Queen Elizabeth II to compose three tributes, which, said Kay Feld, “were gifted to Her Majesty to honour her 70 years on the throne, a life filled with grace, fortitude and dedication to her country.”

One work is a personal song, called “The Queen’s Soliloquy,” that premièred last February. The second is “A Symphonic Medley of Music for Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee,” which includes four instrumental segments – from “Soliloquy,” the pieces “We Never Felt So Glorious” and “The Lord Chamberlain’s Processional March and Song,” and the third tribute Kay Feld composed for the Queen, which premièred last month, called “70 Years a Queen.”

Kay Feld was born in London and trained in music composition and drama at the Royal College and Guildhall School of Music. She toured with plays and musicals in the West End of London and has published several books. She is a prolific, award-winning composer, lyricist and author, who now lives in Ra’anana, Israel. She made aliyah 11 years ago and is in her final year of a master’s at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.

“I wanted to come here [Israel] since I was a child in Hebrew school but life has a way of changing your plans,” she said. “I got married and lived in America. I gave concerts all over New York, from 1973 into the ’80s.”

Kay Feld wrote for a children’s television network and composed music in many genres. She has written about 900 songs and musical compositions. One of those is the song “Hymn for Israel.”

“I wrote it after the Yom Kippur War [in 1973] and I received letters from Moshe Dayan and Menachem Begin thanking me. The ‘Shabbat Song’ I wrote is also on YouTube and is sung in communities all over the world. ‘I’m Going to Keep America Singing,’” she said, “was performed at the inaugurations of presidents Obama and Biden, played by the Marine band.”

Making aliyah was one dream come true. Composing for the Queen was another.

When Kay Feld was 19, she performed for the royal family at the Variety Club for Great Britain at Victoria Palace and, after the show, was escorted to the box where the royals were seated. She remembers speaking with Princess Margaret and shaking hands with Queen Elizabeth II.

The opening lyrics of “The Queen’s Soliloquy” are: “You may ask me what I’m thinking on my Platinum Jubilee / And of all these celebrations, what they really mean to me / Well, my mind keeps drifting backwards, to a life yet unforeseen / Trembling at my coronation, unprepared to become a queen.”

“If we make it to threescore and 10,” said Kay Feld, “we’re considered by Judaism to be filled with wisdom, and the Queen is definitely filled with wisdom. They say the Queen learned five languages when she was young, and one of them was Hebrew.”

Kay Feld said she was offered a singer from the Royal National Opera House for “The Queen’s Soliloquy” but instead chose classical and contemporary singer Shlomit Leah Kovalski, who was born in Jerusalem to parents who made aliyah – her father from Montreal, her mother from New York.

Jamie Clarkston Collins and Eli Schurder of SoundSuiteStudio in Jerusalem do post-production of Kay Feld’s music and the videos are directed and edited by Jason Figgis.

Describing her creative process, Kay Feld said, “I compose when I’m out walking along the sea or in nature, and I think about what I’m composing and usually it just comes to me as if from the air. I write all the music in my head and the lyrics usually come at the same time and I go home and write out the manuscript.”

For her third royal tribute, “70 Years a Queen,” Kay Feld said, “I tried to write a song that I felt everybody throughout the world would be able to sing if they desired to. The melody is simple and the lyrics memorable with a tinge of humour.” Such lyrics as “… 70 years a queen / Four children in between / The Grandmama of future kings / Elizabeth, our Queen.”

The music is accompanied by the singing of renowned baritone Noah Brieger, who, Kay Feld said, “Has an outstanding voice with a great tone. He sang the lyrics with meaning and emotion.”

Brieger, like Kovalski, was born in Israel. He graduated from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and continued his training in the United States. An award-winning performer, he has sung in dozens of productions at the Israeli Opera, including lead roles in Don Pasquale (Donizetti), La Cenerentola (Rossini), La Bohème(Puccini), Romeo et Juliette (Gounod), Schitz (Rechter) and more. He also has performed in Germany, the United States, France, Italy and China.

Kay Feld is excited about a new project she has been working on for a number of years – 1897, The Musical. There are 27 original songs and the choreography is by her daughter, Dorothy Eisdorfer.

“The story is about the degrading things they did in Victorian times, but I want to tell the story with dignity,” said Kay Feld. “It expresses the desires of two women, one in the lower and one in the higher class.”

Her plan is to hire an all Israeli cast and crew, “to showcase all the wonderful talent we have here in Israel,” she said. “I’d like to find enough funding so I can pay all the performers fairly.”

She wants to film the musical and livestream it globally “for all the world to see. It will be a most splendid performance.”

For someone whose music has been performed for presidents and queens, Kay Feld remains humble. “I just believe everyone has a gift,” she said. “And if one can use the gift to make the world a better place, that’s what matters.”

Toby Klein Greenwald is an award-winning journalist, educational theatre director, teacher and the editor-in-chief of wholefamily.com. Anyone interested in supporting 1897, The Musical can write to Loretta Kay Feld at [email protected].

Immigration challenges

Adi Barokas and her husband Barak during their time in Vancouver. (photo from Adi Barokas)

I read a review in an Israeli newspaper of Adi Barokas’ Hebrew-language graphic novel, the title of which translates as The Journey to the Best Place on Earth (and Back). I also read a scathing review of that review on the JI website, written by Roni Rachmani, an Israeli who lives in Vancouver. Disturbed by several aspects of the criticism, I decided to look into the book – and its author and illustrator – myself.

When I made aliyah from Canada in 1975, I had many difficulties acclimatizing to Israel. In reading Adi’s book, it was as though she had written the book I’d always wanted to write about Israel. Her experiences in Canada, which took place three decades after mine in Israel, were decidedly similar.

Aliyah is often thought of as a lofty, spiritual ascent, but, in a practical sense, it is effectively like immigrating to any other country. In the euphoria and joy of making the huge leap, this can be overlooked.

Decades before the internet, cellphones, Skype and WhatsApp, I left my home and family, strongly motivated by Zionist ideals, conveyed to me by my parents’ Israel experience of the 1950s. I longed to live a fuller Jewish life and take part in the developing history of Am Yisrael. Wrapped in a fuzzy cloak of enthusiasm, naïve and wholly unfamiliar with Israeli society, things turned out to be very different than the utopian image I’d envisioned. However, nearly half a century later, I am still grateful to be here.

Adi and her husband Barak met in the mid-2000s. Shortly after they married, Barak was called up to serve in the Second Lebanon War. They wanted to live in a quiet, peaceful society where they could just pursue their lives and careers, so they headed to Vancouver, which is often billed as one of the best places in the world to live. Unfortunately, they met with many unexpected challenges, mostly related to cultural differences. They tried to feel like they belonged, but never overcame feeling like foreigners.

For me, the in-your-face abrasiveness for which Israelis are known was an enormous shock to my more reserved, polite system. In Vancouver, Adi found those Canadian-associated traits off-putting and two-faced.

Adi and Barak were seeking a breather, serenity and space from the intense pace of life in densely populated Israel. With excessively high expectations that everything would be just so, they came to Vancouver. But for them, too, the culture shock was huge. They were not accustomed to so many rigid rules and regulations.

Adi had never lived in such a diverse society and was excited to interact with people of many ethnicities from around the world. It took a long time to catch on to the nuances, the nonverbal cues, of how people in Vancouver socialize – what topics are off limits, for example. Coming from Israel, a very liberal place, where most people freely express their unsolicited opinions, this was challenging.

Adi and Barak found it odd that everything was so quiet and calm in Vancouver. They were used to a lively, noisy society where people mix in close proximity. In Vancouver, everywhere they went, voices were barely audible and, so, they gradually adjusted and lowered their own tone of voice, and limited their conversations to certain topics.

The couple were eager to socialize, especially with their fellow foreign colleagues, with whom they felt more affinity than with Canadians. They initiated get-togethers, extended invitations, but they found everything so formal and stilted and rarely reciprocated. The only safe subjects of conversation were about hockey or the weather, nothing the couple felt was deep or of substance. This hampered their forming close friendships. Their sense of strangeness, that they would never fit in, grew.

On the flipside, schooled in the notion of appropriate table talk in Canada, I would often feel embarrassed at subjects discussed so frankly in Israel. It felt like an infringement on private matters, mostly with regards to money and personal relationships.

In Israel, people stand far less on ceremony, tell others to drop by any time, and mean it. But, to me, these invitations seemed an empty manner of speech. In Hebrew, the word for “to drop by” (tikfetzi) and a less polite version of “buzz off” (tikfetzi li) are the same!

I was baffled when people would ask why I’d come to Israel. It’s obvious to anyone imbued with Zionist and Jewish values that aliyah is a natural step, that Israel is the place to build a future. But, instead of words of praise or encouragement, Israeli peers, if they showed any interest at all, found it amusing that anyone would leave what they assumed was the easy life, to come to what was a troubled society. There was certainly no welcome wagon, no grace period to acclimatize. There were few invitations for holidays or Shabbat. The workplace, where I was often the only non-Israeli, was an even rougher scene – I wasn’t aware of how critical having connections really is, of how offices and organizations operated.

image - The Journey to the Best Place on Earth (and Back) book cover — The Journey to the Best Place on Earth (and Back) was written and illustrated by Adi Barokas.

Across the ocean, Adi and Barak arrived with several science degrees under their belts, and had to swim the stormy seas of academic life in a B.C. university. There was some discrepancy between how they saw themselves – as conveying constructive criticism – and what some of their colleagues and acquaintances shared with them. This created awkward misunderstandings, a lack of candid communication and obstacles to their ability to settle in.

The couple had to wade through seemingly endless red tape through bureaucracy channels. They found it infuriating to jump hoops with indifferent, intransigent civil servants, who never saw them as individuals.

I can completely relate, as I have had to navigate mountains of paperwork, all in Hebrew, which, when I first arrived, was at an afternoon Hebrew school level. English was not widely spoken, and clerks lacked any service orientation – there was scarcely any eye contact. I miss even a perfunctory exchange of pleasantries, which, in Israel, is considered a waste of words. But Israel has come a long way and there is a marked improvement; as well, much can be done online. That’s not to say everyone is pleasant, but at least civil.

Barak and Adi became increasingly frustrated in Vancouver and it began to affect their mental and physical health. They became discouraged, falling into despondency, and their lives were out of their control. Under steadily increased pressure, their goals seemed to be slipping from their grasp, yet they were obligated to stick it out. They would have loved to have returned to Israel much sooner, but honoured their academic commitments, which were critical to enabling Barak to advance in his career in cancer research. Competition is fierce in academia but, eventually, Barak was offered a position at Ben-Gurion University, for which they are grateful.

Adi asked me why I stay in Israel. The answer is that, despite not knowing the ropes initially, having had to master Hebrew and the Middle Eastern mentality, the reasons for coming remain steadfast: unwavering belief in Zionist ideology and the privilege of fulfilling the mitzvah of settling in Eretz Yisrael. Still reserved and well-mannered at my core, I can and will tell someone off in Hebrew if they cut in front of me in line. And driving has forced me to become assertive.

Life in Israel has made me resilient, not automatically accepting of everything that’s dished out, and no longer complacent. My children and grandchildren have none of my social concerns and are rarely bothered by the things that irk me. They do recognize and understand that it hasn’t been a walk in the park for me. They greatly benefit from knowing English, which I spoke at home to my kids and which I also speak with my grandchildren.

Distance has impacted relationships with my relatives, who are all in Canada, and I miss them. But, in Canada, families commonly live far apart and visit only a few times a year. That’s just the norm and how I grew up, too. In Israel, we belong to a close-knit clan, with whom we celebrate holidays and other occasions; regularly helping one another is everything here.

Living in Vancouver, Adi was frustrated by the positive-thinking approach that was all the rage, but didn’t work for her. She needed to be able to share her concerns openly. She wanted practical advice, instead of being brushed off all the time, with people either trying to divert her attention or change the subject. At least the experience forced her to become more self-reliant.

Adi began to delve into other areas beyond academia, having been turned off the sciences for good. She tapped into her creative side, got her driver’s licence, went swimming, started writing. Both she and Barak took up yoga and meditation.

Adi sought therapy and finally found a therapist who was helpful, which contributed to Adi’s bouncing back from within. Time spent in nature, and developing her writing and artistic skills, offered solace.

It was during this process of self-discovery and self-care that the couple decided to start a family, and they had a son.

When an offer came for Barak to take up a post in Leicester, England, it meant once again picking up and leaving, and having to learn their way around a new place. But, it appealed to them, as Leicester was off the beaten track and the small city ambience appealed to them. As well, the move brought them closer to home. Instead of the 10-hour time difference, they were only two hours behind Israel time-wise and a five-hour flight away.

Outside Israel, Jews tend to belong to communities where they gather to share religious and cultural activities and strengthen their bond with Israel. For me, coming to Israel to live in a predominantly Jewish society was enlightening, yet it wasn’t easy to understand the many different customs. I enjoy the Jewish character and vibe of Israel in many facets of the public sphere. Life revolves largely around the Jewish calendar, especially the celebration of Shabbat and festivals. What binds us is our unique, incredible history and heritage.

Had I been better prepared, come with more defined goals, and more socialized in a Jewish environment, I might have fared better. Even when the going was rough, returning was never an option, however. I am living a meaningful life in Israel, where I have mostly resided in the Jerusalem area.

We have all witnessed Israel evolve into a modern, advanced country, making huge strides in every realm imaginable. On occasional visits to Canada, I enjoy the familiar scenery, the cold, the language and pleasantries, though a noticeably different mindset from the locals is apparent.

Immigration is a tremendous and profoundly complex undertaking. It entails much uncertainty and many twists and turns. No matter how much any immigrant plans, one never knows how things will unfold. It is an arduous process that demands full commitment with every fibre of one’s mind, body and soul. Fellow ex-pats can only offer so much support and help. The individual immigrating has to go through the process on their own terms.

Adi and Barak have since returned to Israel. Over a total of eight years away, they learned a great deal about themselves, individually and as a couple. Growing up in Israel, they naturally identified as Israelis, their Jewish identity cultural. While abroad, they realized that they were viewed by others not only as Israelis, but as Jewish, as a minority. This heightened their awareness, added a new dimension.

Time away has changed them, considerably, and they returned to a somewhat changed Israel. They have settled on a kibbutz 20 minutes from Be’er Sheva, where they and their now two children enjoy spectacular scenery in the Negev, a warm climate and a caring community. They have found their home right here, at home.

Adina Horwich was born in Israel to Canadian parents. In 1960, the family returned to Canada, first living in Halifax, then in a Montreal suburb. In 1975, at age 17, Horwich made aliyah, and has lived mostly in the Jerusalem area.

Turning tragedy to hope

The year 2016 was a milestone for Kalman and Malki Samuels. It marked the inauguration of a dream years in the making – the opening of the Shalva National Centre, one of the largest centres of disability care and inclusion in the world. Built not far from the entrance to Jerusalem, the 12-storey world-class complex features an auditorium, a gymnasium, hydrotherapy and semi-Olympic pools, a virtual reality therapy suite, a research and study institute, a café, some of whose workers have developmental disabilities, and accommodations for 100 respite sleepovers per night.

How was it that Kalman and Malki Samuels came to create this extraordinary organization that assists 2,000 children with disabilities each week, while empowering families and promoting social inclusion? The answer lies in the subtitle of Vancouver native Kalman Samuels’ Dreams Never Dreamed: A Mother’s Promise That Transformed Her Son’s Breakthrough into a Beacon of Hope (Toby Press, 2020) – it was a mother’s promise.

In 1977, the couple’s healthy, lively baby boy, two weeks short of his first birthday, was checked by a doctor at a Jerusalem clinic before receiving his second DTP inoculation; and all his developmental milestones were fine, so the nurse gave him the shot.

But Malki knew the same day that something was wrong. “I took Yossi home and followed the instructions they’d given me at the clinic…. I bathed him, gave him baby paracetamol and let him sleep. The moment he woke, I knew my baby was gone. He looked up at me with shiny eyes as if to say: ‘What have you done to me?’”

Only later did the couple discover that, on that October afternoon, “Israel’s health authorities had already known for almost five months that the vaccine batch they were using … was dangerously flawed.” The defective pertussis (whooping cough) component was from the Connaught Laboratories of Canada. The diphtheria and tetanus components were from the Israeli company Rafa, which had combined the three.

Thus began a saga of almost 40 years of anguish, faith, research, perseverance, legal battles and, ultimately, the realization of dreams, not only for the injured Yossi, but for thousands of other children with disabilities.

Dreams Never Dreamed is written chronologically, beginning with Kalman’s personal story of visiting Israel as a college student in the 1960s, eventually becoming Orthodox, making aliyah and marrying his life partner. He writes his family’s spellbinding story with an honesty and openness that opens and pierces our hearts as well.

Yossi was ultimately diagnosed as legally blind – though he loved to wear glasses because it helped him feel more competent – and legally deaf. He is also severely hyperactive.

The Samuels left their home in Israel for New York, following every medical lead in search of help for their son. While her son was attending the Lighthouse – a famous specialized school for the visually impaired – Malki made a pact with God: “… I promise You this. If You ever decide to help my Yossi, I will dedicate my life helping so many other mothers of children with disabilities whom I know are crying with me for their children.”

Some challenges were especially painful, like when children teased Yossi, or when an important Jerusalem rebbetzin, visiting New York, said to Malki, “It’s not fair to yourselves or your healthy children…. You should consider moving this child out of the house, so you can get on with your lives.” Malki answered her: “You have no faith in God.” She invited the rebbetzin to wait 20 minutes, till Yossi came home from school. She saw a child nicely dressed, with glasses and hearing aids, carefully navigating the steps and hugging and kissing his mother, happy to see her. The rebbetzin cried and asked forgiveness.

A few years later, the couple learned that a lawsuit could only be filed in Israel, since that was where the vaccination had been administered. They found an excellent Israeli lawyer and doctors willing to testify, and the family returned home. Samuels describes the legal battles in excruciating detail. In October 1983, five years after the vaccination and after exhaustive paperwork and research, the couple filed suit against the Canadian Connaught Laboratories, the Israeli Rafa pharmaceutical company, the city of Jerusalem and the State of Israel. (The lawsuit ended in a settlement that, even according to the judge, was less than they deserved, but would save them more years of expensive and aggravating legal action.)

At the age of 8, Yossi experienced a “Helen Keller” moment, when Shoshana Weinstock, a warm and loving teacher who was deaf herself taught him his first word – shulchan (table) – using finger spelling. “All of a sudden, he lit up and he got it,” Kalman is quoted as telling the Jerusalem Post. “She taught him the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Another speech therapist taught him how to speak Hebrew and, slowly, he began to talk.” After that, Yossi was unstoppable. He learned to type on a Braille typewriter, to pray and to speak to those who were able to understand him.

Spurred on by their son’s breakthrough, in 1988, the couple wrote the first proposal for an outreach program that would help other families with children with disabilities. In 1990, that proposal became Shalva, the Israel Association for the Care and Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities, which began as an afterschool program for six children in the Samuels’ Har Nof apartment. The name Shalva is derived from Psalm 127 and means serenity, but, like any new enterprise, the road to success was challenging. The book is filled with anecdotes about how chance meetings on airplanes, or through conversations with a friend or a neighbour, Kalman reached donors who kept Shalva going and led to its development and expansion.

In addition to giving her life and creativity to making sure the professional programs would be the best they can be, Malki, the powerhouse engine behind Shalva, was involved in every aspect of the design and building of the Shalva National Centre, right down to the tiles. She was determined that it feel like a home, not an institution. Renowned Israeli artist David Gerstein, deeply moved by the Shalva story and appreciating Malki’s vision, created a magnificent 20-foot-high mobile of metallic butterflies that hangs in the Shalva atrium.

Around 2005, a gifted young musician, Shai Ben-Shushan, offered his services to Shalva. He had been a member of the Duvdevan special forces unit in the Israel Defence Forces and suffered severe injuries from a grenade attack while pursuing terrorists. He told Kalman, “Like a baby, I had to learn again to eat and to talk. My life was destroyed … I learned what it was like to be helpless and dependent on others … and I began to think about going back to music and sharing it with others who have similar challenges.”

By the end of a year, Shai had created the now world-renowned Shalva Band, signaling to all that having disabilities does not mean one cannot reach for the stars and make dreams come true.

In 2020, Shalva graduated its first program of young men who entered the IDF as soldiers in the Home Front Command unit. Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs brings heads of state and diplomats to Shalva, just as they take them to Yad Vashem: World Holocaust Centre and to Mount Herzl, the burial place of soldiers who died defending the state of Israel.

Dreams Never Dreamed is alternately inspiriting, infuriating, funny and enlightening, but, for me, Malki’s voice and her photograph are missing. If you want to “meet” her, you can watch a mesmerizing Shalva-produced film on YouTube, About Yossi – A Film About Yossi Samuels.

The Yossi of today is smart, learned, eloquent and brave, with a sharp sense of humour. He can type, read, and daven in Braille, and particularly enjoys high-level Torah literature and magazines. He has traveled the world, met with celebrities and presidents (in Israel and America), is a horseback rider and a certified wine connoisseur. Kalman writes, “[Yossi’s] close friends number in the hundreds and acquaintances in the thousands.”

As his walking ability and balance worsened, Yossi eventually required a wheelchair. “Our blind and deaf son said, ‘For the first time in my life, I feel handicapped,’” writes Kalman. “Yossi had never referred to himself as blind or deaf, but rather ‘low vision’ and ‘hard of hearing.’”

Kalman recalls in the book how his daughter, Nechama, told him that he was like Forrest Gump: “Mommy had her dream and told you, ‘Run, Kalman, run!’ You’ve never stopped; it has coloured your life and all of ours.”

And the lives of thousands more.

Toby Klein Greenwald is an award-winning journalist, the artistic director of Raise Your Spirits Theatre, a poet, a teacher and the editor of wholefamily.com. This review first appeared in the Fall 2021 issue of Jewish Action.

Ethiopians’ long road home

Israel’s Operation Tzur Israel, bringing olim from Ethiopia to Israel, began Dec. 3. (photo by Kassaw Molla)

It’s been almost 40 years since Israel coordinated the first airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 1984. The Beta Israel people, a citizenry of more than 100,000 at the time, were facing starvation in the midst of Ethiopia’s civil war. By the end of Operation Moses, some seven weeks and 30 clandestine flights later, more than 8,000 men, women and children had been airlifted to Israel. Since that time, Israel has rescued more than 30,000 Beta Israel from northern and central Ethiopia.

The impetus for saving Ethiopia’s fractured and often-persecuted Jewish populations goes back to 1921. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the then-Ashkenazi chief rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine, made an appeal for Jews to rescue the “holy souls of the House of Israel” from “extinction and contamination” in Ethiopia. His urging would be repeated by numerous other rabbis, including a former Sephardi chief rabbi, the late Ovadia Yosef, who, five decades later, declared the population eligible for aliyah to Israel. Nonetheless, there are thousands of Ethiopian families still waiting for their turn to move to the Jewish homeland.

Descendants of Beta Israel

The Jewish enclaves of Gondar City and the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa are home to the descendants of those first refugees of the 1980s and 1990s: grandchildren and great-grandchildren, fathers, mothers and children who were born while their parents waited for Israel to fulfil its stated promise to provide a new home. Their primitive living conditions, say aid workers, are often the product of circumstance. In a 2014 interview, Rabbi Sybil Sheridan (now Romain), a co-founder of the aid organization Meketa, told me that the Beta Israel moved to Gondar City from their ancestral farmlands decades ago due to persecution, with the implicit understanding that their next home would be in Israel.

“They gave up their things, they gave up their jobs, they left thinking they would actually be on the next plane,” Sheridan said. For many, those years of waiting for the next plane have resulted in a week-to-week existence, hinged on the assurances of a future that will reunite them with their now-Israeli families.

In 2003, the Israeli government announced that 20,000 Jews would be allowed to move to Israel, but that plan was later dropped when the Ethiopian government objected to the mass emigration. In 2015, when it became evident that Jewish populations were still at risk from persecution, the Knesset declared it would rescue 9,000 Ethiopian Jews, and would complete the airlifts by 2020. Fewer than 1,000 individuals have been admitted during that time.

In October 2020, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced that 2,000 olim would be airlifted to Israel by the end of 2020. The deadline for Operation Tzur Israel (Rock of Israel) has been extended to the end of January 2021, and is gradually being fulfilled. Last month, roughly 700 olim arrived from Gondar and Addis Ababa. Another two airlifts this month have brought the total to roughly 1,500.

photo - Israel’s Operation Tzur Israel has brought approximately 1,500 Ethiopians to Israel so far — Israel’s Operation Tzur Israel has brought approximately 1,500 Ethiopians to Israel so far. *(photo by Noga Melsa/Ministry of Absorption and Immigration)*

Family members and aid groups in both countries say the 2,000-person limit is not enough. Those waiting in Israel to see their relatives say they are worried for their families’ safety with the risk of civil war and the coronavirus pandemic. Aid organizations argue that the country’s economic shutdown in March is still causing widespread unemployment. While Meketa and Struggle to Save Ethiopian Jewry (SSEJ), two aid groups that work to support the communities, have been shipping in food to the community synagogues, they warn that families are still at risk from famine.

Avi Bram, a trustee for Meketa, said conditions in Gondar are worrisome. “The community is in a very bad situation. Many, not all, but many are in a very, very poor and unsettled standard of living, especially now because of the pandemic.”

Bram said the original mandate of Meketa, which was established in 2013, was to reinforce independence for the community through training, conversational Hebrew classes and small business micro-loans. It was never designed to be a supplemental food program. But the aid is critical at this time. “It fills a humanitarian need,” he said.

SSEJ representative Jeremy Feit said the organization does what it can to support impoverished members of the Addis Ababa community. It arranges medical assistance for children under 5 and seniors, and hot meals for malnourished children and pregnant and nursing mothers.

“The end goal of the work is to limit needless suffering and deaths, while urging Israel to evaluate their claims and allow those eligible to make aliyah as soon as possible,” said Feit.

photo - Aid groups Meketa and Struggle to Save Ethiopian Jewry provide emergency food to Ethiopian Jewish communities waiting for aliyah — Aid groups Meketa and Struggle to Save Ethiopian Jewry provide emergency food to Ethiopian Jewish communities waiting for aliyah. *(photo from Meketa)*

Mengistu (no last name given), who lives in Ethiopia and has relatives in Israel from a previous aliyah, said the communities are facing increasing danger. “On one side, there’s coronavirus,” said Mengistu. On [another] side there’s the war,” coupled with endemic unemployment and famine.

According to Mengistu, the changing criteria for airlifts are only inciting more stress at home.

“[They] said they would bring 2,000 people at the end of this year,” Mengistu said. “We don’t know if they applied their decision [because] every time they decide [on a quota], they change it.

“So, who are they going to bring? Are they going to bring children? Are they going to [separate] brothers and sisters and leave [some] with their parents? Two thousand people, it’s nothing,” Mengistu said, “compared to the [actual number of] the people still in Ethiopia.”

A stalwart proponent

In May of last year, Pnina Tamano-Shata was appointed minister of absorption and immigration by the Likud-Blue and White coalition. The 38-year-old Ethiopian-born Israeli came with life experiences that made her an ideal candidate for the position. She and her family had immigrated during the 1980s rescue Operation Moses, during which an estimated 4,000 refugees died en route. She knows firsthand the conditions that today’s Ethiopian Jewish communities are forced to endure while they wait for aliyah.

She also isn’t bashful in her support for immigrant rights or services. In October, she negotiated an agreement with the Israeli nonprofit Shavei Israel to airlift approximately 700 Bnei Menashe Jews from North India. As part of the agreement, Shavei Israel would cover all transportation costs. The new immigrants will quarantine at a moshav before settling into their new homes and reuniting with their families.

photo - Israel’s Minister of Absorption and Immigration Pnina Tamano-Shata — Israel’s Minister of Absorption and Immigration Pnina Tamano-Shata is the first Ethiopian-born woman to hold a Knesset seat. *(photo from Ministry of Absorption and Immigration)*

As well, she has put forth a vision and a budget for how to finally resolve the humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia.

In August, Tamano-Shata proposed a plan that would allow, in her words, for Israel to “close the camps” in Gondar and Addis Ababa. Approximately 4,000 of 8,000 olim would be airlifted to Israel by year-end and the rest would follow by 2023. The NIS 1.3 billion ($380 million US at the time) proposal received support from all sides but was never adopted. The Netanyahu government later endorsed a limit of 2,000 by Dec. 31, with assurances of more immigrants at a later date.

Still, Tamano-Shata says she is committed to seeing the aliyah to its end. “[To] my dismay, we were unable to approve the national budget which was supposed to include the outline for the aliyah of those remaining in Ethiopia,” Tamano-Shata told the Jewish Independent in a recent email interview. “However, this does not prevent me from continuing to push for a comprehensive solution for this issue.”

To Mengistu, like many in Ethiopia’s Jewish enclaves, Tamano-Shata’s words are a hopeful sign. “Because now the help for the aliyah is Pnina,” said Mengistu. “She’s one of us. So maybe she will understand the situation and the [reason for] the protests [in Israel.] Maybe things will change.”

With Israel now set to face a fourth election in just two years, Tamano-Shata’s future as the next minister of absorption and immigration is yet to be determined, but her motivation to see the end of what is arguably Israel’s greatest humanitarian crisis remains firm. In 2016, the then-new minister was recognized by humanitarian activist Martin Luther King III for her efforts to establish better protections for Ethiopian immigrants in Israel. Last year, she toured the Addis Ababa enclave and handed out baskets of food to residents. She said she is committed to the rights of Israel’s olim, “despite the policies of lockdowns, shutting of flights and closing of the skies that exists in many countries due to COVID-19.”

At this point, all eyes are on Tamano-Shata. Few doubt that she will meet her stated commitment of 2,000 olim by Jan. 31. But can she, as well, engender better trust between Israel and those waiting for aliyah?

In a recent interview for the podcast One Jewish Family, Ambanesh Biru, former chair of the Gondar Jewish community, summarized the views of a hopeful community that knows its safety may rest in the Israeli government’s understanding of their predicament.

Don’t forget about the Ethiopian Jewish community, said Biru, “especially those [anticipating] aliyah. Because all of the Jews in Gondar and Addis Ababa came from villages expecting they would be going to Israel right away, not to live in Gondar [for the rest of their lives]. So, if anybody comes and talks about aliyah from Israel, please do your best [to follow through].”

Readers can learn more about the Gondar and Addis Ababa communities at meketa.org.uk, ssej.org and jewishagency.org/ethiopian-aliyah-explained.

Jan Lee’s articles and blog posts have been published in B’nai B’rith Magazine, Voices of Conservative and Masorti Judaism, Times of Israel, as well as a number of business, environmental and travel publications. Her blog can be found at multiculturaljew.polestarpassages.com.

Aliyah despite COVID

The breakdown of Nefesh B’Nefesh 2020 aliyah. (image from Nefesh B’Nefesh)

Despite a challenging and tumultuous 2020, 291 individuals from Canada decided to make aliyah and move to Israel with Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN) over the past year. The Canadians were among the 3,168 individuals who moved to Israel from North America in 2020 – 2,625 since the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Founded in 2002, Nefesh B’Nefesh, in partnership with Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael and Jewish National Fund-USA, has assisted in easing the aliyah process for more than 65,000 olim since its inception. With the help of its partners, NBN assisted nearly 90% of the total number of olim that arrived in 2019.

Since January of 2020, Nefesh B’Nefesh olim have most often hailed from New York, New Jersey, California, Florida, Ontario, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Texas. Altogether in the past year, 811 families chose to move their lives to Israel, along with 1,032 singles and 332 retirees. There were 61 physicians among a total of 198 medical professionals who arrived in Israel in the last year, most of whom joined the frontlines in Israel’s fight against the coronavirus. And 390 young men and women stepped off the plane with the desire to serve Israel as lone soldiers.

In addition to the olim who arrived throughout 2020, Nefesh B’Nefesh received 6,704 aliyah applications, in contrast to 3,035 in 2019 – marking a 126% increase in interest in aliyah.

image - The breakdown of Nefesh B’Nefesh 2020 aliyah — The breakdown of Nefesh B’Nefesh 2020 aliyah. *(image from Nefesh B’Nefesh)*

“From the earliest days of the Jewish state, no matter how trying or difficult the circumstances, aliyah has always continued in order to preserve what was once a distant dream for our parents and grandparents,” said Rabbi Yehoshua Fass, NBN co-founder and executive director. “As we look back at the challenges everyone faced in 2020, we are extremely proud of what we have accomplished together. We look forward to watching each oleh grow and build their new lives in Israel, and eagerly look ahead to 2021, a year with the potential to exceed all expectations in aliyah.”

“I welcome the dozens of new olim who chose to leave everything, especially during the time of a global epidemic, and fulfil their dreams of building new homes for themselves in Israel,” said Minister of Aliyah and Integration Pnina Tamano-Shata. “Many will surely remember 2020 as a challenging and complex year, but the olim who arrived [recently] from across the U.S. and are part of the last group of olim this year, are enabling it to be shaded in more encouraging and optimistic colours.

“Despite COVID-19, the Jewish nation is thriving and aliyah is continuing,” Tamano-Shata continued. “In the past year, more than 20,000 olim from 80 countries around the world made aliyah.”

“The thousands of new olim from North America and around the world, during a year of a global pandemic, lockdowns and almost complete paralysis of international air travel, emphasizes how much the longing for Zion is deeply ingrained in the hearts of the Jewish people around the world,” said Isaac Herzog, chair of the Jewish Agency.

The top 10 cities in Israel that new olim chose as their homes this year were Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Beit Shemesh, Ra’anana, Haifa, Herzliya, Netanya, Modiin and Be’er Sheva. The olim most commonly worked as educators, physicians, nurses, social workers and lawyers, as well as in the fields of marketing, sales and business. The average age of an oleh this year is 30, with the oldest being a 97-year-old and the youngest being only 35 days old.

When the pandemic began in earnest in March 2020, Nefesh B’Nefesh adapted its various programming and transitioned into holding virtual meetings, webinars and informational sessions. The online seminars have allowed the organization to reach a much wider audience and have included a wide range of subjects, from choosing communities and special webinars for medical professionals, to how to pack and ship for aliyah.

The ongoing support after aliyah provided by NBN has meant that 90% of its olim have remained in Israel, leading to tens of thousands of new Israelis who go on to make significant contributions to the country.

Building community in Israel

Monthly hikes are one of the many activities offered by the English Speakers Residents Association. (photo from ESRA)

The reasons for making aliyah are many, however, some of the big questions holding back potential olim (immigrants), especially those who are 50+ and are already settled, may include the following: “My Hebrew is almost nonexistent; what am I going to do with myself when I get to Israel?”

One of the ways to help solve these concerns is to join the English Speaking Residents Association (ESRA). My wife, Ida, and I are good examples. We made aliyah in June of 2016 from Toronto when we were in our early 60s. We had two immediate priorities: to find an English-speaking community to live in and to get involved in Israel by finding meaningful volunteer opportunities. Fortunately, we found ESRA.

ESRA was founded some 40 years ago. It has about 2,700 members in 21 different chapters in north, south and central Israel, stretching from Eilat to Nahariya and beyond. The members come from North America, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. The programming, all of which takes place in English, encompasses social activities, outings (when conditions permit), educational mentoring and tutoring programs, charitable and welfare activities and volunteering. In addition, and because of COVID-19, a majority of the social activities, talks, visual tours and cooking classes have been and will continue to be presented on Zoom.

ESRA is not just for those planning on making aliyah. Many people living abroad want to be able to see and hear about Israel generally and/or participate in English-language programs and ESRA’s calendar features talks on a range of topics, from finance, current events, history, the environment and entertainment, as well as clubs, such as bridge, photography and knitting. These programs are accessible around the world and, of course, people can join in ESRA programs when visiting Israel – the group’s monthly hikes have recently restarted.

For more information on ESRA, visit esra.org.il.

– Courtesy English Speakers Residents Association

Israel’s early days

Gloria Levi launches her most recent memoir at the Jewish Book Festival Feb. 12. (photo from Jewish Book Festival)

When local activist and writer Gloria Levi was a teenager, she was immersed in the Labour Zionist movement and “dreamed of becoming a pioneer in Israel.” In 1950, at age 19, she spent several months there. In 1957, with then-husband Norman (whom she had met on the previous trip) and two young children, she made aliyah. Her recently published memoir, Kissing An Old Dream Goodbye, honestly and succinctly relates what took her to Israel – and what brought her back just under two years later.

Levi launches her new book at the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival on Feb. 12, 2 p.m., in the Waldman Library. Levi, who worked as a gerontologist for 30-plus years, has written a series of booklets, Challenges of Later Life, and co-wrote Dealing with Memory Changes as You Grow Older with Kathleen Gose. A lifelong student of Jewish texts and language, she translated The Life and Times of Simcha Bunim of P’shischa from Hebrew into English. She published her first memoir, My Dance with Schechina, in 2012.

Kissing An Old Dream Goodbye starts with Levi standing on the Marseilles pier, “impatient to set sail for Israel, the land of my dreams.” It was there that Norman noticed her, and the two became close over the subsequent months.

Growing up in Brooklyn, Levi had just finished her first year at New York University – “Emotionally, socially and culturally, I was surrounded by Jews and rarely met non-Jews,” she writes. “I was fiercely independent and a bit of a rebel, and had a stormy relationship with my mother. My father had died when I was eleven. I paid my own way through university and had recently been living independently in Greenwich Village.”

Norman, then 23, had joined the British Army in 1944 and “had been with the British troops who liberated Buchenwald concentration camp. In 1947, he was “deployed to India during the bloody time of Partition.” He was traveling to Israel in 1950, intending to settle there.

While she stayed longer than the summer, Levi did return to the United States to finish her undergraduate degree, at the University of Iowa, “renowned for its child psychology department,” and Norman eventually returned to England. When a visit to Iowa City was about to extend past the deadline of his transit visa, the two decided to get married, as Levi’s career would have been jeopardized if they lived together without being married. “So much for romantic proposals!” writes Levi.

The couple ended up getting married in Canada, for various reasons, and then moved to Toronto, to Montreal and, finally, Vancouver. There, newlywed life was challenging, as they got to know each other, struggled with money and started their family. Levi writes with openness about the good and the difficult – a recurring theme is communication troubles between Norman and her. A prime example is that, when things finally began to look good for them, with secure jobs, a reasonable income, Norman suggested they move to Israel. Initially startled, Levi admits that she, too, still wanted to make aliyah, but “didn’t want to say much.”

They arrived in Israel, kids in tow, in late September 1957, heading to Kfar Daniel, a modified kibbutz. There, they adapted to yet another completely new way of life, making friends, learning the jobs they are given – Levi’s first work is cleaning outhouses – and figuring out how to live in a place with snakes, scorpions and other dangers, including possible imprisonment if you accidentally wandered into Jordan, and military service for Norman.

While they loved so many aspects of living in Israel – “the physicality of the land,” feeling like “a link to 2,000 years of history,” connecting “with the guttural, nuanced ancient mystical language of Hebrew” and feeling “that this truly was our home” – other parts of the experience, both on the kibbutz and in Akko, where they moved in 1959, were impossible to reconcile with their beliefs and moral code. Among Levi’s doubts about staying in Israel were “certain negative societal attitudes, my children’s potential education system, political injustices, corruption in the form of ‘protexia,’ and the top-heavy bureaucracy.” It is with regret and ambivalence, as well as some shame that they couldn’t make it work, that Levi and her family returned to Vancouver.

“I never felt concerned about going public,” she told the Independent of the personal nature of the book, “because I was describing my truth.”

And part of her truth is the love for the country that remains, despite the disillusion, especially regarding social justice – how kibbutz members interacted with one another at times, how citizens were treated by the state in certain instances and how Arabs were viewed. An epilogue takes readers briefly through Levi’s views of the political situation in 1964, 1967 and 2019.

“Given today’s controversies regarding Israel-Palestine, I wanted to describe the profound needs, emotions and idealism surrounding the early days of the state,” said Levi. “I wanted to convey my own journey of love and doubt, joy and conflict, idealism and human ego – the controversies inherent in communal living and the clashes of two peoples living and loving one land.”

In writing Kissing An Old Dream Goodbye, Levi said, “I hope I’m able convey the colour and beauty of the land, the strengths and limitations of people in an authentic, compassionate way.”

And Levi continues to write. Her current project is a novel called The Hotelkeeper’s Daughter, a “story about an immigrant Jewish religious family, taking place from 1938 to 1948,” she said. “It is the most exciting writing I’ve ever undertaken.”

For the book festival schedule, visit jewishbookfestival.ca.

Vancouverite to serve in IDF

Vancouverite Maya Gur-Arieh was among the 57 soon-to-be-enlisted Israel Defence Forces lone soldiers who landed at Ben Gurion Airport on Aug. 15. (photo by Gil Zohar)

A happy crowd of approximately 2,000 people – family and friends, along with eight members of the Knesset and assorted officials – arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel at 6 a.m. on Aug. 15 to welcome the second plane of Nefesh b’Nefesh olim (immigrants) and returning citizens to touch down this summer. On board were 239 newcomers, including olim hailing from British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, and 24 American states.

The reception at Terminal 4, a hangar adjoining the tarmac, festooned with banners, featured hora dancing, shofar blowing, tears of joy and shouts of “welcome home” and “mazal tov.” The newcomers varied from babies to retirees, including 30 families, 90 children and three sets of twins. But it was the 57 soon-to-be-enlisted Israel Defence Forces lone soldiers, wearing T-shirts emblazoned in Hebrew with “Ascending to an army uniform,” who garnered most of the accolades.

Among these future IDF soldiers was Maya Gur-Arieh, 18, who was born in Ashkelon but moved with her family to Vancouver when she was six months old. Keen to enlist for the past 24 months, she told the Jewish Independent, “I’m really happy I’m here. I’m really looking forward to my service. I really recommend Garin Tzabar.”

The program, affiliated with the Hebrew Scouts Movement in Israel and largely funded by the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, facilitates service in the IDF and provides a support system for Israelis and Jews from the Diaspora serving in the army who do not have at least one parent living in Israel.

Lone soldiers receive a higher basic salary from the IDF, as well as financial assistance from the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption and the Ministry of Housing. Lone soldiers in combat units receive a monthly salary of NIS 3,100 ($1,200 Cdn), according to the Garin Tzabar website, and they are given help with housing and the right to extra time off, including 30 days per year to visit family overseas.

Gur-Arieh said she attended four Garin Tzabar programs in San Francisco, at her own expense, in anticipation of joining Zahal, the Hebrew acronym for the IDF.

In heading to Israel, she is following a Gur-Arieh family tradition, she said – her two older sisters both served as lone soldiers, one as an artillery instructor and the other as a combat engineering instructor. Both became officers, she said with pride. One of her sisters is making a career in the IDF.

Gur-Arieh doesn’t know where she will be serving since she hasn’t done the battery of physical and psychological tests that all draftees must complete before being assigned to a unit. Like her sisters, she, too, would like to be an instructor in a combat unit.

Until she is drafted, Gur-Arieh – whose surname means lion cub – will be living at Kibbutz Kissufim on the Gaza periphery. Asked about the tensions in the south and the rockets, mortars and incendiary balloons and kites from Gaza that have targeted her adopted home, she was nonplussed.

Founded in 2002, Nefesh b’Nefesh has assisted in bringing 57,000 Jews to Israel from Canada, the United States and Britain. The organization currently assists 3,200 soldiers in its lone soldier program.

The Aug. 15 Nefesh b’Nefesh charter flight was paid for by Heidi Rothberg of Denver, Colo.

Gil Zohar is a journalist based in Jerusalem.

What is it to become Israeli?

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. Becoming Israeli: The Hysterical, Inspiring and Challenging Sides of Making Aliyah (Rimonim Press) is a compilation of blogs and essays written by 40 olim (immigrants), including the editor, Akiva Gersh.

“The book speaks about the various sides of aliyah, from the hysterical, to the challenging, to the frustrating, to the emotional,” Gersh told the Independent.

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.

“I kept thinking, someone must have done this,” said Gersh. “People 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 – finding the blogs, talking to the bloggers, telling them what I’m 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.”

In Becoming Israeli, 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’t yet made the move. “In the book,” he said, “you can really sense the things they love about Israel. Above and beyond that, there is the general world … and much of that includes the Christian world who loves coming to Israel.”

The feedback has been good, especially from olim who have read the book and can relate to their fellow travelers. “They went, ‘Wow! Amazing!’” said Gersh. “Every page, they’re like, ‘This is my story!’ They’re laughing, they’re crying.

“I’ve read the book multiple times and I still laugh at the jokes and cry at the same emotional places,” he added. “It’s a really powerful book and I’ve had really positive feedback from olim who say ‘thank you’ and feel it is awesome … [and] exactly what they’ve been going through and experiencing.”

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.

As a musician and teacher, Gersh offers groups – mainly Christians – who visit Israel an evening program of music, prayer and spirituality from a Jewish perspective. “They love it,” he said. “We pray together, dance together, speak together.”

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.

“So, it’s academic and hands on,” said Gersh. “It’s awesome. I’ve been there about 10 years now. The language of instruction is English and, for those who want to improve their Hebrew, there are opportunities.

“We 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.

“The kids are inspired, enlightened, pumped up about Israel,” he continued. “We’re not a religious program. We’re not a church denomination. We’re pluralistic. We have Jews on staff, but we don’t push Judaism. We just open up a space for kids to explore connections to Judaism.”

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, “I had no connection to Israel growing up at all. I never thought about it, nor talked about it. It just wasn’t a thing in my community. I heard about it a couple times in Hebrew school, but it wasn’t 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.

“That 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,” he said, “it brought me full circle to Judaism. But, I found a new side and a new expression of Judaism that I hadn’t seen before.”

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

“After traveling around there,” he said, “I 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.”

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.

The foreword of Becoming Israeli 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.

“We 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,” said Gersh. “It was amazing to have his voice and his perspective.”

Becoming Israeli is available on Amazon, and Gersh also has a website, becomingisraeli.com.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.