Twenty-one month aliyah update – Mentally commit to your aliyah success

>>I would also like to encourage people to try out temporary residence before committing to aliyah. There are many positives to do so. Don’t do aliyah because you need the money from Misrad HaKlitah to live. Experience living for one, two or maximum three years under temporary residence, and if things don’t work out, you always can come back another time.<<

Recently I was speaking with someone in her first year of aliyah who is having a hard time adjusting to all the differences here.  I mentioned that I thought it was beneficial to give yourself enough time to live here to be successful, not to rush to make a geographic change when things are uncomfortable in the beginning.  I also said that I thought it was helpful to mentally commit yourself to living here when making aliyah, but a couple of other women disagreed with me, saying that knowing they could go back to the US if things didn’t work out here was very important for them.  We agreed that this might be a personality issue, but I wanted to flesh out my thoughts on this here.

Before we moved, upon hearing our plans to make aliyah with nine children ranging in age from 2 – 18, many people told us that we could always come back if it didn’t work out.  I told them that we planned to make Israel our long term home, and this was the attitude that we consistently conveyed to our children (and ourselves!).  Not because we closed all the doors behind us when we moved from the US – we didn’t – but I felt it would make it harder for all of us to fully transition if we were holding on to the idea that at the end of a year we would move back to the US  if everything wasn’t comfortable by everyone by then.

Of course if you’ve made your best effort in something and it’s really not working after an extended period of time, you need to reassess.  There’s no benefit to feeling trapped and desperate with a life you don’t want if you have a way to change that.

However, being mentally prepared is very important when making aliyah.  Aliyah is difficult. Really difficult.  It’s particularly difficult if you don’t really want to make the move to start but come because a spouse or parent pulls you along with the power of their desire, but it’s hard enough even if you have the best of thoughts and intentions.  One has to find a balance between finding a perspective that allows you to mentally put your best effort forth on a continual basis without feeling trapped and how to do this is very individual.  While I knew we could move back to the US if we wanted to, this wasn’t what I focused on.  I think our clarity in this area helped out kids because if we had been ambivalent about the tough times and wondered if we had made a mistake, they would have immediately picked up on it.

I think this was a really good idea because it pushed everyone to look forward into building a new life rather than looking back constantly to long for what we left behind.  We left a very nice life behind, with wonderful friends and a wonderful community.  We came to something totally different, we felt isolated and out of place in many ways and everything was a struggle.  If I had given us a year to adjust, we wouldn’t still be here.  At this point, at twenty-one months, the kids and I all agree that it feels like life is getting easier in every area.  After about nine or ten months here, I was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel – though before our one year anniversary things happened that obscured that light for a number of months to come.

Earlier this year we seriously considered moving to a different community; when we decided to stay in Karmiel, we emailed the family who was going to host us for Shabbos to let them know of our change in plans.  They told us they were sorry we wouldn’t get to meet – we were members of the same synagogue in the US and have mutual friends but they moved to Israel before we joined the shul – but said they were happy we had found a way to make it work where we were.  They explained that they had seen many families who moved to their city because they were unhappy with the city they had initially moved to, and too many of these families were just as unhappy in the new place.  Sometimes moving to a new place makes all the difference, but since you take yourself with you wherever you go, often the problems that you hope to escape are recreated in a new setting.

Something I’ve said for years is, ‘Expect the best and be prepared for the worst’.  This sums up how I look at a lot of things.  Think positively and trust that things will be good, but at the same time, be ready to deal with life’s vagaries.  It’s predictable that aliyah will have many challenges.  It’s predictable that at times you may question what in the world made you think this would be a good idea!  Difficulties don’t last forever and aliyah related challenges fade with time.  Give yourself that time by trusting that you can handle the frustrations, look for the good, and believe that you will be successful in making the adjustment. Trust that if you keep your mindset positive and look for the good in everything around you, if  you keep putting one foot in front of the other and doing the next right thing, that you will be successful in making aliyah.

Avivah

7 thoughts on “Twenty-one month aliyah update – Mentally commit to your aliyah success

  1. What a beautiful post! I must say moving cities for educational, learning and medical resources can make a tremendous diffrence in one’s klita and all around emotional well being. We have found so many resources in which we were used to in the States, however due to not speaking the language and being part of a religious segment of the population, we were unable to find those resources in other parts of the country. Moving is NEVER an answer to solve world problems, however if one is willing to work hard and to grow with the hand hashem dealt them, then a move to the proper environment would be benefitial in many ways and if one continues to stand strong in their particular religious identity , a move can be very good if done with the proper guidance on all fronts ! Life is still not easy, adapting to new schools, new shuls, new kehilla norms – but I have spoken to people who have been here over 25 years and have moved a few times and are still not totally settled and climbing through beaurocratic hoops. Unfortunately we are still in galus..

  2. I agree with your post wholeheartedly. I think that is especially important for the children in their adjustment that one approaches the move as permanent. This is much easier for the smaller ones. My older daughter claims that she will move back on her own and attend college in the US. I do not discourage her in this regard either. She is old enough to have her own ideas and I think she feels less trapped knowing she can make her own decisions when she is of age.

  3. Aviva,

    I’m so touched you wrote a post based on my comments!

    If I recall correctly, didn’t you return to the US to Seattle and grow your family before returning to Israel as expatriates? Can you write about that too?

  4. If you are taking care of the elderly, like we used to, we couldn’t choose the temporary residence route because there was no private insurance available in Israel based on the age of the elderly relative. So, the elderly relative had to make aliyah in order to receive any medical treatment. Unfortunately, due to the bureaucracy of social medicine in Israel, she couldn’t get the meds she needed that are readily and easily available in the States and her medical condition deteriorated to the point that we had to leave Israel in order to get her decent medical care, and she had excellent medical insurance in the States. So, even if one were to have positive mental preparations, the realities of the challenges at hand had to be dealt with, in order to save the life of another.

    Other families we’ve met in Israel included many who had to leave because they couldn’t sustain a livelihood, or their children were going off-the-derech if they were to continue to remain. There are probably as many Israelis abroad as there are in Israel just for parnassah, shidduchim and chinuch alone. When the time is right, those who are worthy to be in EY will be there, if not the first time around, the next time around.

    We are still in galus.

    1. Moriah, I have no judgment of those who move back for whatever reason. Everyone has to do what’s right for their family. As I said above, “Of course if you’ve made your best effort in something and it’s really not working after an extended period of time, you need to reassess. There’s no benefit to feeling trapped and desperate with a life you don’t want if you have a way to change that.” The point is that whatever you may do in the future, when you get here it helps everyone feel more settled to mentally be committed to living here.

      Many frustrations resolve once a person tells himself, I’m going to make it work. Some don’t and you need to make a new plan.

  5. When we initially made Aliyah in 1980 with 6 children we received similar comments about coming back. My eldest daughters High School asked what kind of a shiduch could she make in Israel and our Rabbi commented he would be there to welcome us back. So many negative reactions. Well we lasted 11 years and added a Sabra to our family. We left for a short time due to my husband not being able to find work after a work accident. Our stay in US was short that time and we came back because out eldest son was injured. After he was adjusted we again left because of economic reasons. This time we stayed in the US for 17 years and only came back at retirement. We have children & grandchildren here and in USA and I still have a love hate relationship with the country but we are here to stay because with all the negatives here in Israel it feels more like home!

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