Category Archives: aliyah

Bas mitzva was great!

aliyah, Parenting

It’s not only because I’ve been so busy that I pushed off the bas mitzva celebration for my dd12 for over a month.  It’s also because thinking about planning it was stressing me.

You’d think that since I’ve made so many family events – bar mitzvas, bas mitzvas, brissim, shalom zachors, kiddushes, siyums – that making this bas mitzva really wouldn’t be a big deal for me.  In fact, dd12’s teacher said to me tonight that she can tell that I’ve done this before since it looks so easy for me.  It’s not that physically preparing is a big deal for me.  The shopping, baking, cooking, and set up definitely took a good bit of time and energy.  But that doesn’t really phase me.

What was bothering me was the idea of having to entertain a large group of Israeli girls.  We were inviting her entire class (34 girls), many of whom dd doesn’t have much of a relationship with, particularly since she doesn’t yet speak Hebrew.  It’s a different culture and I felt very pressured because I didn’t want to emcee an event like this in Hebrew.  What finally helped me reduce my low grade anxiety about this was my decision a few days ago to call in some outside support – a woman who would bring the music and lead the dancing.  This was a huge concern off of my shoulders, since the dances are different here from the US and the girls at this age need someone to actively demonstrate what to do in order to follow the moves.

It was a very busy day, made busier by needing to clean the entire facility that we were renting before using it.  It was a good price, but that wasn’t something I was expecting, and it set me back on schedule by a couple of hours.  So after setting up the tables with the kids, I went back home to get dressed and put together my talk.  No, this really wasn’t part of my plan – I wanted to have everything set up two hours in advance because as I’ve mentioned before, I try to avoid last minute pressures that lead to tension.  While I was at home, I finished prepping the last salad, then tried to reach the woman who was supposed to lead the dancing to make sure she was still on for the evening (our phone line was down since Thursday night so she wouldn’t have been able to get through to me), but her line was busy.  Finally I called a friend to ask her to bring a music cd just in case the first woman was delayed.

I managed to get dressed and spend a whopping three minutes thinking about what I wanted to say before I needed to leave, and got back just in time to welcome the first guests who arrived a few minutes early.  That was when dh told me the dance leader had called him and said she was sick and wouldn’t be coming.  But not to worry, she had asked dd’s teacher to fill in.  Remember, having this woman here was a big factor in me feeling like I wasn’t responsible for the entire evening, and now I had no music, no one to lead the dancing (which was a big part of the scheduled evening) – but obviously that’s how it was meant to be because that’s how it was, so there was no point in getting frustrated.

We decided against a full sit-down meal, and instead had a salad course and a desert course.  The salad course included: tomato olive salad, Moroccan carrot salad, cucumber salad, tabouli, German pasta salad, leafy pomegranate salad and hummous.  We also put out crackers and pretzels, as well as a drink table.  (Those are dried rose petals sprinkled on the table between the serving bowls in the picture below.)

We weren’t able to put together the slide show we wanted to do, but instead dd18 put together a photo montage of dd12 that was displayed for people to look at when they came in.

Photo montage of dd12

This was really nice, since as her classmates began to arrive, they felt a bit uncomfortable.  I suggested they sign the journal with a message for dd, and then they enjoyed looking at the photo montage.  A short time after this (though when you’re waiting for something and not knowing when/if you’re going to get it, it doesn’t seem like a short time!), someone arrived with the music cd that had been sent by the woman who wasn’t able to make it due to sickness.  Music really adds to the ambience, and we had borrowed speakers so we were good on that front.

We made the decision to limit the adults we invited, in order to keep the focus on dd and her friends.  For this reason, we also limited the age of girls attending to 9 and up, though dd is beloved by a number of younger girls in the school and they would have been happy to have come!  We invited about ten women, and six came.

After encouraging everyone to get something to eat, I spoke about the security situation we’re facing in our country and began with having everyone say a chapter of Psalms out loud together after me.  Then I talked about the spiritual inspiration people can feel at times when they feel their lives are threatened – for example, 9-11 was a country-wide wake up for Americans – but that inspiration doesn’t last long unless it’s acted upon.  I tied it into the inspiration of the High Holy days, that are behind us, and the upcoming holiday of Chanuka – the festival of lights.

I shared the quote “The candle of G-d is the soul of man”, and explained that the way we light candles within our souls is by taking action to become better people, to actualize the inspiration we’ve felt.  This is is a particularly important message for a girl becoming bat mitzva – because what we’re celebrating is that a young girl is now spiritually an adult and able to serve G-d with the corresponding increased awareness and responsibility.  I then shared about how dd had risen to the challenge of making aliyah at an age and stage when this is a very difficult thing to do, and the positive character traits that this showed.  Since I spoke in Hebrew, dd16 translated the key points for dd12 to be sure she followed everything.

After I spoke, dd16 spoke about dd12 (also in Hebrew).  Although afterward she was felt that she had forgotten to say many of the things she wanted to say, it was heartfelt and very nice – she spoke about how special dd is and how much she appreciates being her sister, and repeated some of her points in English for dd.

My husband and the boys (except for ds19) were there until this point.  In the middle of my talk, the teacher walked in, and we were able to begin the dancing right after dd16 finished speaking.  This was so, so nice – exactly what I had hoped for.  I really wanted something fun and enjoyable for the girls to do together, something that dd12 could do with them without needing to speak.  I wanted it to be an enjoyable evening for everyone, not just sitting around, eating, and then going home (not to imply there’s anything wrong with that – it’s just that it wasn’t right for dd).

They danced for a long time and then we brought out the desserts.  Dd16 was totally responsible for all of this: three different kinds of jelly roll (white with lemon filling and frosting, white with chocolate filling and frosting, and chocolate with chocolate filling and frosting), chocolate layer cake, Boston cream pie, nut bars, peanut butter diamonds, oatmeal bars, and layered jello and cream.   We also put out snack crackers.

While everyone sat down and had some dessert, dd12’s Hebrew tutor spoke. This is the person outside of our family who has spent the most time with dd and is able to see who she is (this is very different depending on if she’s with English speakers or not).   She started off by saying something like this: ‘Girls, if you don’t speak English you don’t know what you’re missing, because you can’t really know who (dd) is and that’s a big loss for you!  (Insert nice comments about how wonderful dd is here.)  So you have a choice, to learn English or to teach her Hebrew!’  She went on to share some lovely ideas that she tied into dd12’s positive character traits.

After this, dd17 spoke.  She hadn’t been sure she would speak until I called her up to the front, and decided to speak in English.  As a preface to this, I told the girls, “For the next few minutes you’re going to get to see what it’s like for dd12 – except this is what she goes through hour after hour, day after day, week after week, and month after month.  You can get a tiny sense of what it’s like to have to sit and listen to someone and have no idea what they’re saying.”  Then dd spoke, beginning with one of her first memories of dd12 and continuing by telling dd12 how special she is and how happy she is to have her as a sister.  (In case you’re wondering who was listening to her if dd’s classmates speak Hebrew, there were the adult women, the teachers, and about ten of the girls there come from English speaking homes.  As far as the Hebrew speaking classmates, they learn English in school, so there was some level of comprehension – though for some very minimal – of what was being said.  And most importantly was dd, since dd17 wanted her to fully understand what was being said about her.)

After this, we put on the dance music again.  Although the teacher leading the dancing had left, the girls were much more comfortable and they danced, and danced.  As someone said to me, these girls just don’t want to leave!  I was so glad that everyone was having such a nice time!

Family photo minus ds19

The party ended up lasting for 3.5 hours, instead of the projected 1.5 – 2.  We all had a really nice time, especially dd12.  This is the third bas mitzva that I’m sharing about here on my blog, and I am so happy and grateful that it went so well!

Avivah

Emergency preparation information for those in Israel

aliyah

Over 650 rockets having been shot at Israel since Wednesday – this number has been rising quickly so this is likely to be higher by the time you read this.  Residents in the Jerusalem area had an air missile warning sounded on Friday night (my ds19 called me tonight to tell me about this since he’s there), and this took many people by surprise since the center of the country wasn’t considered in target range.  Now that things are spreading from the south to the center of the country (this includes Tel Aviv and the suburbs), a lot more people need to know how to prepare for the current bombings so I thought it would be helpful to share some information on resources to learn about what’s going on, as well as how to react in the event that you hear a missile warning.

Firstly, for English speaking radio and television broadcasts, visit http://www.iba.org.il/world.  This is good for people like me who have been too busy to pay much attention to the news, so you can get a quick sense of what’s going on.

Here’s a very short video showing you what to do to protect yourself during missile attacks:

Here are detailed written  instructions on what to do in case of rocket fire; this is more informational than the short video clip above.  There are different instructions for those who have Mamads/Residential secured space, and those (like me) who live in a home that was built before this feature became standard.   Depending in what part of the country you live, you have up to one minute at the very most to get to a secure shelter, so you must know what to do before you hear the siren.  Practice this before you need it so you will know what to do – in a moment of crisis is a lousy time to try to figure out what to do.

There are detailed instructions for a variety of situations as well as different aspects of emergency preparation on the Home Front Command website.  This site is in Hebrew; here is the English site.

Here is information about preparing a family plan.  I think this is really valuable information because as parents, we want to do what we can to minimize trauma and help kids be prepared in as positive a way as possible for a difficult situation.

Below are radio stations to tune in to hear what’s happening:

  • AM band ofn 954 kHz in the center and south, 1575 in the north
  • FM band – Jerusalem – 101.3 and 88.2; Tel Aviv – 101.2; Beer Sheva – 107.3; Haifa – 93.7; Upper Galilee – 94.4
  • English news can be heard on 88.2 FM in Jerusalem and some parts of central Israel.

The following organizations provide emotional support for those in need. Both have websites in English that can be helpful for you to know about with contact info and emergency numbers.

a) NATAL has been working to provide emotional support to those suffering from trauma and anxiety, their toll free 24/7 hotline is 1-800-363-363; http://www.natal.org.il/english/·

b)Israel Center for Psycho Trauma http://www.traumaweb.org/

Please say a prayer or a chapter of Psalms (20, 83, 121, 130, and 142 are particularly appropriate in this situation) for the protection of our people, including those defending our country at this difficult time.

Let’s hope that the need for this information will be very short-lived!

Avivah

Southern Israel under relentless rocket siege

aliyah

My kids (ages 6 and up) all came home yesterday talking about the latest news – Israel is at war.

Southern Israel has been under rocket attack for months from terrorists located within Israel, and the government of Israel has finally moved definitively to protect its citizens.  Can you imagine what it’s like to live under constant fear, regularly hearing missile warning sirens, racing to bomb shelters, not knowing if it’s safe to walk to the local park or store?  That’s been the reality of Israelis in the south for a long time now, with all of the attendant stresses and trauma.

As of a couple of days ago, the terrorists have stepped up their attacks and over 200 missiles have fallen in the area in just two days.  Remember that Israel is a tiny country the size of the state of New Jersey.  This is a very concentrated attack on a small area, affecting a million people.    People are fleeing the south and homes across the country are being opened up to host them.

Here is a statement from the Prime Minister of Israel explaining very briefly about the launch of Operation Pillar of Defense.

Please keep the many families being affected by this in your thoughts and prayers.

Avivah

Why do American black hat families choose to join the charedi community in Israel?

aliyah

>>Avivah, perhaps you can explain something that I am always curious about. When American yeshivish families make Aliyah, they tend to try to join the Chareidi community. But, it seems from my point of view that American chareidi is actually much more similar to chardal, or what is called “dati torani” (basically the same as chardal but men wear knitted kipot and women wear kercheifs). These communities (chardal and dati torani) are makpid on mehudar hechsherim, on seperation of girls and boys, tznius, etc. Many boys in these communities go on to learn in a kollel, but children are given the educational choices to either continue learning or go on for a higher secular education. In addition, they tend to be more open and accepting of behaviors that are halachically in the norm while out of the chareidi norm (e.g., colored shirts for boys, sneakers for women, sports for boys, etc). Is this not more similar to the American yeshivish than the chareidi society?<<

Your description of the chardal and Torani communities is very accurate, and I agree that it seems many families who aren’t aligned philosophically with the charedi community are nonetheless choosing to affiliate as such.  I’ve thought a lot about this issue: why are families choosing a path that doesn’t match up with who they are and what they want in the long term?  And similarly, why are they not choosing to be part of communities that would seem to be a better match?

There are a few core issues that I see, and I’m going to risk seeming simplistic by sharing them here.

– People will choose a community not only by looking at how they match those in the community from the outside, but based on where their friends are affiliating.  So you have a perpetual cycle of Anglos joining the charedi community because their friends are in the charedi community, and then their friends who move to Israel look at them and think that that’s where they should also affiliate.  This ties in to the next point.

– There’s a tendency to think that those who look the most religious are the highest quality people.  It’s natural if you’re a person who sincerely values growth to want to affiliate with those who seem like they’re on a higher spiritual level.  And the people I see making aliyah very much want to grow spiritually.  This goes both ways – people will avoid options that look like religious compromises or something that isn’t up to their current standards.  When I asked my kids for feedback on this issue, one said, “Everyone who looks like us is charedi, and if we affiliated as Torani, everyone would look down on us and think our family went off the derech (became religiously wayward).”  This is very true – there is a lot of judgment based on externals, and as unfair and inaccurate as these judgments often are, that’s how it is.

– The torani/chardal communities are relatively small and therefore harder to find, so you have to be looking for them to find them.  The chardal communities seem to be mostly in Anglo areas.  Most yeshivish Americans know very little about the Torani community, if they even know that they exist at all.  (I’ve asked people their thoughts on the Torani community, and every single person has given me a blank look and said, “What/who is that?”)

– The schools in the relaxed black hat and yeshivish communities in the US feed into seminaries/yeshivas in Israel that are charedi; they have the same rabbis that they look to for guidance.  This tracking is very significant.

– The position regarding the State of Israel in the Torani community is politically different than those in the charedi community and this makes some people uncomfortable. (Edited to clarify: by this I’m specifically referring to the position on settling the land and army service – the Torani community is very supportive of the this and the charedi community is not.)

But what I really think it comes down to is, people look for what looks familiar to them.  When you look at a community, what you see are the externals, not philosophies.  ‘Black hat’ families come to Israel and see the charedi community looks like them, and that’s where they assume they will best fit in.  Though this may seem superficial and to a degree it is, the fact is that we identify with those who look like us.  And we make the natural assumption that they share our values.

In my experience, many people aren’t aware of the significant philosophical differences in the Israeli charedi community.  For example, I asked someone recently what school she would be sending her son to, and when she told me, I asked why. She said it matched their hashkafa/philosophical views.  From my knowledge of both the school and family, they don’t seem to be a good fit, so I asked in what way she felt the hashkafa was the same.  She responded that the men in the family wear black hats and white shirts during the week.  I’ve heard this same response a number of times from others.  That’s a dress code, not a philosophy, and it’s a mistake to think that because the outsides match, so do the inner values.

Even when Anglos are told about this discrepancy between world views, they usually minimize it or think that those issues won’t affect them, things will change by the time their children are old enough for it to be a concern, etc.  Many Anglos who are new to Israel understandably don’t realize how deep the differences go.  It can take quite a while to see how differently Americans think from their Israeli counterparts about a number of key issues, and once you’re part of a community, you don’t leave it so quickly.

Even if a family recognizes from the outset that the Israeli charedi community has some views that aren’t quite similar to their beliefs, they are faced with the reality that they need to send their kids to school somewhere and once they do, they’ll need to conform to the expectations of the school.   Someone looking for alternatives will quickly find how few choices there are within the charedi system.   The phrase, “If you can’t beat them, join them” has come to my mind many times when contemplating this topic.

The Torani community looks different externally, and what seems like a small difference like the color and material of a kippa has specific associations – for Americans, it’s reminiscent of the modern Orthodox community, though the MO are quite different from the Torani community.  In Israel, there’s not much mixing from community to community, and it makes it hard to get to know people outside of your religious framework so there’s a tendency to make judgments from a distance based on externals.  As superficial as it may sound, setting aside externals means setting aside all of your past associations, which isn’t easily done.  This is an intellectual approach, not emotional, and when you’re moving to a new country, you’re looking for what looks and feels familiar.

The conclusion I’ve come to is that Americans are never going to fit into any non-Anglo community here without adapting their beliefs and practices somewhat, or staying the way they are and accepting that they’re going to be different.  This is a different country and you have to be able to accept that there are differences.  I know that sounds obvious but it’s not!

If there are other points that I left out, please feel free to comment!  If you disagree with me, that’s fine – often I change positions and find myself disagreeing with things I previously believed!  – but please be respectful when you comment.  

Avivah

Bas mitzva preparations begin

aliyah, Parenting

Tonight we sat down to plan for our upcoming bas mitzva!

My dd turned twelve on Sukkos, but things were so busy that we decided to push off the actual party for a few days.  However, due to delays in getting the place we wanted booked, it kept getting pushed off more and more.  When there’s something that needs to be done, my general approach is to do it as soon as possible.  The way I see it is, there’s always more to do and there’s usually not going to be a better time, so I might as well get things done as quickly as possible so they don’t cause mental clutter.

We originally were aiming for Saturday night but booking the location was getting too drawn out – we couldn’t get hold of them, and then when we did we had to call again and again, and then it wasn’t available for when we wanted it – and a few days ago we set the date for a week from now.   A nice thing about switching to a Sunday evening is the set-up will be much easier, since we’ll have more time prior to when things begin to get everything done.  It was worth waiting to be able to rent this place since it’s close to us, a very reasonable price, and has the space that we’ll need.

We wrote up a basic menu plan tonight, and that leaves the next five days to do the shopping, cooking, baking, and organizing. Dh will take care of the invitation either today or tomorrow – that sounds really late, I know, but apparently here it’s typical to give the invitations out just a few days before.  We’re planning a slide show, buffet dinner, and music/dancing.  I don’t know what to do about the bas mitzva speech that the girl usually gives – dd12 doesn’t speak Hebrew yet and her classmates don’t speak English, and a week is way too short a time for her to memorize it in Hebrew.  This will be a much bigger crowd than either of my other girls had for their bas mitzva, since dd12 is in a class of 34, and she’s more hesitant about speaking publicly than either of them were.  I’ll probably speak as well so I’ll have to find some time to put my thoughts together – I don’t mind speaking in Hebrew though I might make some grammatical mistakes but I would like my daughter to understand what I’m saying!  So that’s something else that I have to think about how to handle.

Things are never quiet around here, but this week will be a bit busier than usual!

Avivah

 

31 for 21 – Finding our place in the charedi community

aliyah

Today is Day 20 of 31 for 21, a blogging effort to promote awareness of Down syndrome, also known as Trisomy 21.

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>>How does it play out practically to have different kids in hashkafically (philosophically) different school systems? What I’m really saying is- do you have a community to fit into now??<<

When my husband and I were discussing what school system to put our boys in, the issue of where we – and they – would fit into the community was a major concern.  The charedi community is tightly defined and little things that you do can easily put you outside of the community.

We talked a lot about if the charedi community was the right place for us or not and have agreed that it is.  Though I said the charedi community is tightly defined, it’s not as narrow as it may seem- a major Israeli paper a while back coined the term ‘modern charedi’, and others have used the terms ‘post charedi’ and ‘neo charedim’.  All of these are referring to charedim who don’t quite conform to the charedi mold but affiliate as charedi. I don’t care for any of these terms, but then again I’m not a fan of labeling so that’s not so suprising.  My purpose in bringing this up is to say that we think there are a large number of people in the charedi community who think similarly to us, though most of them will look externally like everyone else and make the choices that everyone else is making.

We do feel that as far as an Israeli charedi community goes, Karmiel is on the open and accepting side.  Having said that, it is still an Israeli charedi community with standards and expectations that are charedi.  In this community, sending to any school but the local cheder is a choice that positions you to be seen as outside of the community.  When making the choice to send our boys to Amichai, we looked at it as follows:

1) People tend to be superficial.  If we and our kids look and act ‘normal’ (by the standards of this community), that’s a big factor to being accepted.  This is what the chief rabbi of the city said when we discussed this decision with him.  This was also true of homeschooling and I believe that was one of the biggest factors to my influence regarding homeschooling in the Orthodox world – that our family didn’t broadcast ‘different’.

2) You don’t have to bring up the differences you have philosophically with others.  It’s much better, in my opinion, to talk about what makes you similar than what makes you different, until you have a decent relationship with someone.  Once you have that framework, then you can talk about your differences and the person you’re speaking to hopefully already has some degree of respect for you as a person.  In my case, this means that I don’t talk about my beliefs that are outside of the charedi norm in casual conversation.

3) We already know many people in the charedi community and are considered part of the community.  I don’t think they’re going to be so quick to turn their backs on us just because our kids go to a different school if we adhere to no. 1 and no. 2 above.

4) When we talked about what we were concerned about socially for the boys, there was the short and long term view.  In the short term, we want them to have like-minded friends.  At this early age this is more external which  means they are very compatible with boys from the cheder.  They can continue to have friends from the charedi community even if they aren’t comfortable at social events geared to only those in the school.  They may or may not be seen as part of the larger group of boys their age in the community, but as long as they have individual friends, the group dynamics aren’t that important.  In any case, when kids run in groups it generally isn’t when the best social experiences happen.  Kind of like when dogs run in packs.  🙂

In the long term, we also want them to have like-minded friends, and this is where we see running into trouble a bit down the road if we send to the cheder because as they get older, the commonalities need to include common goals, aspirations and an overall worldview, in addition to external similarities.  So we’re thinking about how to position them that they’ll have peers at a later age who will be a match for them.   There are some wonderful things about the charedi boys educational system, and there are some things that aren’t quite a fit for our family.  Our goals for our boys are different than the goals of those who send to the cheder in a few key areas; these areas of dissonance are very common to Americans who move to Israel.

As I’ve mentioned before, we see value in sending them to an elementary school where other boys will later be attending high schools in which they will get diplomas that will enable them to pursue higher education, which in turn means they are on track for some kind of career outside of full-time Torah learning.  This probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to those of you outside of Israel, but is so major that it’s the main reason I spent so many hours soul searching if we could call ourselves charedi.

Since where the boys go to school at the elementary level is tied in with where they’ll go to high school, it’s also tied into army service, higher education, and who they will marry, and this last one was a big concern of mine.  Young men who are already working or engaged in studies other than full-time learning (even if they continue to spend hours daily in Torah study) when they get married are definitely viewed as second rate (sug bet), versus those engaged in full-time Torah learning.  Our boys are bright and can be successful in the Torah only model; we’re not choosing a different path because they can’t handle the intensity or rigor.  To us, a young man who is serious about Torah and able to navigate in the professional world is the Torah ideal, and it disturbs me that those who try to rise to these ideals are looked at as less-than.  It’s a more challenging path than the Torah only path and deserves respect; however, I don’t harbor any false hopes about this.

As I said in my last post, I know we’re walking a fine line.  Fine lines aren’t the easiest things to stay balanced on!  But I’m hopeful that we can successfully navigate this and that our family will feel welcome in our local community.

Avivah

31 for 21 – Values based decision regarding boys’ schooling

aliyah, Homeschooling

Today is Day 17 of 31 for 21, a blogging effort to raise awareness of Trisomy 21/Down syndrome.  Thanks to the recent birth of our baby who has an extra chromosome, this is the first year that I’ve been a participant.

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Yesterday morning I got a call from ds6’s teacher at Amichai.  After she told me how wonderful he is (nice when your child’s teacher appreciates him so much!), she got to the point of the call.  She heard about what was going on with the cheder giving us the runaround about not accepting our kids, and wanted to offer her support in advocating for us if we wanted it.  I thanked her and then spent the next half hour explaining why we’re going to keep the boys at Amichai.  Not just until the end of the year, but with the intent to continue there long term and we plan to enroll ds5 in Amichai’s first grade next year.   She kept asking me if I was really okay with this decision or if I was assuming this position by default because we had no choice.  I explained that we aren’t leaving the boys at Amichai because we  have no choice – the cheder will definitely take ds6 and it’s possible they’ll eventually take ds10 if we continue to pressure them.  But we decided that’s not what we want and to drop our pursuit of this school transfer – and we did it from a position of strength.

My husband and I do a lot of talking about the education of our children and the values we hope they have, but this has been seriously ramped up in the last six weeks, as we’ve been deciding where the best elementary school for our elementary aged boys is.  We had decided to transfer them to the local cheder from the school they are currently in, then ran into trouble when we were told our kids wouldn’t be accepted.  But because it wasn’t a real ‘no’, we were in limbo for a while.  This provided us with more opportunities to think again, and again, and again about if this was really the best decision for our boys.  (I wrote about the differences between the two schools here.)

To recap, we thought that making the transfer would assure their social transition into our community and that being in a different school from everyone else in the charedi community would be a big strike against them.  We also felt that the boys in the school we wanted to transfer to have a more carefully guarded home atmosphere, which is similar to ours in many ways.  And yet the school they were in- Amichai – still had all the positives that we saw when we made the initial decision to send them there.

There were so many  issues involved in this – the macro and micro view both religiously and socially, which are intrinsically intertwined.  Religiously things are much more stratified here than in the US, and the boxes you need to fit into are much narrowly defined.  If you don’t choose your box, others will do it for you, but you can’t stay outside of the box.  A big part of this decision was about choosing our box.

There was a strong emotional pull towards and away from both choices, and the more we talked the less clarity we had.  Finally, we sat down and wrote out a list of what our values are.  Decisions this big aren’t based on little things like how long summer vacations are (actually, that can also be a values decision since a longer vacation can mean more family time), but about how well your values match the institution where you send your child.  And to be fair to our children, the school we send them to and ourselves as parents, I think it’s important that we’re consistent in the spoken and unspoken message we project. I don’t want my children caught between different world views and feeling they don’t fit anywhere.

Writing out our values was important because it took the emotion out of the discussion. We looked at each value, as well as the advantages of each institution.  When we did that, we were able to clearly see that the main value in sending to the cheder was social and that our desire to transfer the boys to the cheder was motivated by fear: basically, fear of doing something different.  I’ve never believed that fear is a good place to make a decision from.  But we are looking at the realities behind those fears in order to address them.

When we looked at the positive values we have, we were able to clearly see (once again) that Amichai came out ahead in almost every single category.  One factor we discussed at length is the long term view: what do we want our children to be like religiously and spiritually (those aren’t the same thing!) when they’re adults?  These decisions are being made when you put your children into elementary school, because the schools are tracked and once you’re in one track, it’s not so simple to transfer your child to a school that is in a different religious track.

One issue in which our thinking differs from the charedi community is that we see a positive value in our children learning secular subjects at the high school level.  However, secular subjects not being taught during the elementary years wasn’t a major concern – this is something we could and would supplement on our own.  I know quite well as a homeschooler how little time it actually takes to teach these subjects once a child is ready for them.  So we would have been fine sending our boys to a school without secular subjects for the elementary years.

What I was more concerned about is how this attitude towards secular subjects as well as towards those outside the charedi community would influence their long term choices and their self-image if they chose to make decisions that were different from their peers. I felt it would be unfair of us to have expectations that our boys would get a certain kind of high school education, but put them in an elementary school that had different definitions for success.

We’ve talked a lot about how to walk this very fine line – how to affiliate with the charedi community while not going along with the party line in some areas.  This was a tough, tough decision that requires a lot of independent thinking and willingness to walk a non-mainstream path.  You can see how hard this was since we were initially so clear about what we wanted but then we still got off track after hearing opinions from others.  This won’t be an easy thing to do (nor would it have been easy to deal with the challenges we would have faced at the cheder), but it resonates with us emotionally and intellectually.

This decision follows over a decade of homeschooling.  For years, we had to walk our own path and believe in what we were doing without any positive feedback from others; certainly in the very beginning we would have been strongly dissuaded if we had asked for advice.  But as the years went by and the kids got older, people started to see how our kids were turning out and they started telling us how lucky we were, that hey wished they had the courage to do what we did, and asking us how we had the strength to swim upstream.

Similarly, this isn’t a decision that we’re going to get much support about and in the short term I think very few people will be able to understand why we’re doing what we’re doing.  It’s just too different a way of thinking about education and the goals of education. This decision was really hard but we’ve learned again and again that you get the best results when you act in line with your deepest values and conscience.

Our family is in a unique position to be a bridge for others who may want a choice within the charedi world that allows for more appreciation of diversity, and I hope that more families moving to Karmiel will seriously consider Amichai.  I’ve said before that I really think it’s a much better fit for American immigrants than the cheder in a number of ways.   However, regardless of what anyone else chooses to do, we’re glad to have gotten clarity and realigned our actions with our beliefs.

Avivah

31 for 21 – Why we chose not to homeschool in Israel

aliyah, Homeschooling

Today is Day 13 of 31 for 21, a blogging effort to promote awareness about Trisomy 21.   The potential of children with T21 is amazing and you can click here to find other bloggers sharing their experiences!

>>do you know anyone from the US that successfully homeschooled their children in Israel? I am feeling more and more like homeschooling is right for our family, and now it is one of my greatest fears of living in Israel. I’m nervous my kids will always feel like outsiders and not integrate properly.  Are you kids missing homeschooling?  do you think the transition would have been harder for them had they homeschooled?<<

This has been a long overdue post since I told the person who asked this back in January that I would answer it a week later.  Yes, that’s embarrassing- I did start writing this then – but at least I’m getting to it eventually!

There are absolutely native English speakers who are successfully homeschooling in Israel all the way up through high school.  So if homeschooling is important to you and so is living in Israel, they aren’t contraindicated.

Homeschooling has been something I’ve been passionate for so long, and continue to feel is the ideal option when the factors are right.  I didn’t have the factors in place in Israel to provide my children with the kind of homeschooling experience I wanted to give them, that I was previously able to provide for them.  I haven’t changed my beliefs about education, but since my circumstances have changed, I’ve had to decide in what framework I can now give them those things that are most important to me.

I’ve been hesitant to write about this because I’m the last person to discourage someone from homeschooling.  Realize this decision was personal and specific to me and the ages/stages of my children, as well as to our values.

Linguistically – Speaking the language of the country in which you live at a native level is something I value.  When we were in the US, I expected my children to know how to read, write and speak at a level that would allow them access to higher levels of learning.  Now that I’m in Israel, Hebrew is the language in the country in which I live and my expectations for my children in acquiring the language it to communicate at a native level, again with the ability to integrate into higher levels of learning.  I know a lot of Anglos are okay living in an Anglo area and if their kids don’t learn Hebrew well, that’s not problematic for them.  And there are Anglo homeschoolers for whom this likewise isn’t a priority.  That would be very problematic for me.  I don’t want my kids to be immigrants here long term.  I chose to move to a part of the country that doesn’t have a lot of English speakers, knowing this would make our short term adjustment to living here harder but it would be easier for my children in the long run.  Although my spoken Hebrew is good and my reading and listening comprehension is very good, I don’t have the ability to teach them Hebrew as a native could.  Though I don’t believe school is the only way to learn a language through immersion, it was an easy way.

Being put into a school environment as an older child who doesn’t speak the language is very challenging.  I had children in mid elementary and high school who had to deal with this, and  saw even my social and confident five year old in kindergarten struggle with this in the beginning.  As much as I would have loved to have homeschooled my younger children until at least first grade here, I decided against it due to the language factor.  After a lot of thought, I put my ds3 into gan this year.  It’s so much easier to learn the language at this age when even some children from Hebrew speaking homes aren’t yet speaking well than a year later as a four year old and I felt it was the kindest thing I could do for him.  (This wasn’t the sole reason or even the most important reason, but this is what I see as the main benefit.)  He enjoys going to gan but would prefer being at home, as would ds5, and I could certainly teach them much more.  But the quantity of what they learn wasn’t the issue.

Even though they are learning Hebrew at school, I still do some things at home with them to help them enhance their language acquisition.  The main thing I do at this point is that I read books to them in Hebrew – I read a sentence in Hebrew, then translate, then read the next sentence, etc.  This enables them to hear a range of vocabulary and to learn what it means in a safe environment when there’s no consequence to not understanding it.  It’s low pressure and we all enjoy it.  The key to this is to get books that are at a high enough level to be interesting.  The one that so far worked best was a novel in comic book style, so there were lots of illustrations to hold the interest of the younger ones while they listened (ds6 is the youngest for these books, I read simpler books with ds3 and ds5) and the plot line was sophisticated enough that one day even dd16 was sitting in on it!

The other thing is that we work on Hebrew reading – we took a long break from this but this past week we got back to it.  Reading well is a big part of academic success and though it’s normal for kids who are olim to take a while to catch up in this, I’d like to help them minimize the time that they’re academically struggling.

Socially – When we arrived, I saw that my neighborhood had very few children, which meant that meeting other kids at the local park just didn’t happen.  I quickly learned that social connections happen almost exclusively through the schools – meaning those who aren’t part of the school aren’t part of the social group.  There were almost no extracurricular activities where my kids could meet other kids in the charedi community.  I spent years building a social network for my homeschooled kids in the US, and there was no way that I could create something overnight for kids who were already in middle and high school.  While I think that peer socialization is drastically overrated, raising my kids in a new culture in isolation wasn’t something I felt was in their best interest.  I also live in a community where even very small differences make a big statement – big differences put you outside of the community altogether.

It’s interesting how many teens have told my kids they don’t seem like homeschoolers.  Why?  I don’t know where they got these perceptions since most of them hadn’t met homeschoolers personally and I’d like to think if they had, they wouldn’t have made this comment.  But the response my kids have gotten is that, “You’re not a nerd/you’re so with it/ you don’t dress like homeschoolers” etc. I am bothered the assumption that homeschoolers will be social misfits because it’s just so inaccurate.  Sure, there will always be quirky kids who won’t fit into the standard peg of society, regardless of where they are educated.

The assumption that kids who are homeschooled are losers or their parents are losers and that’s why they homeschool is just flat out wrong.  My kids had – as do most homeschoolers – a variety of experiences with people of different backgrounds and ages, and I felt very comfortable that they were socially integrating in healthy and appropriate ways.   However, when moving here they needed to learn not only a new language, but a new culture.  This is something I absolutely can’t teach them because it has to be experienced.

Now you could tell me, but there are other homeschoolers in Israel – your kids don’t have to be isolated or removed from Israeli society!  That’s true, but without a car and with a limited budget, getting together with other homeschoolers would be difficult and expensive.  There are no other homeschoolers in my city of over 50,000, certainly not any in my religious community where our children would most naturally seek out peers.

I didn’t want my childrens’ only social contacts to be with other kids that they could see – at best – once a month.  Since those contacts would be with English speaking children, it wouldn’t help them learn the language or culture.   And once again, without a car and a large budget, I knew I couldn’t provide them with the many enriching activities that were an integral part of our homeschooling for over a decade.  If I had a very different budget, this would shift things dramatically but I don’t and that’s my reality.

I miss homeschooling.  But I feel that I did the right thing for my kids taking into account the limitations of where we live, and they agree.  One thing that’s good about the school day here is that it’s much shorter than in the US.  Now that we’re over the first year of our aliyah, a question that I’m actively working on is, how to provide my kids who go to school with what I felt were the bigger advantages of homeschooling?  I’m working on this but probably won’t share about this for quite a while since it’s obviously going to be experimental!

(Edited Aug. 2019- we began homeschooling ds5 and ds10 towards the end of the 2012 school year; they were joined by dd12 and ds7 for the following school year and all have been homeschooled since. Clearly my position on homeschooling in Israel as an English speaker has changed!)

Avivah

31 for 21 – Switching our boys to the cheder

aliyah

Today is Day 6 of 31 for 21, a blogging effort to raise awareness for Trisomy 21.

After my last post, some of you may be wondering why my boys are in the school they’re in and not the same school as their peers.  Initially I did this to ease the acclimation for our then fourth grader, since the administration of the school he went to (Amichai)  was much more flexible and understanding toward new immigrants than the cheder, who expect boys to very quickly perform like kids who have lived in Israel all their lives.  They also provided tutoring for new immigrants to help them learn the language.  Then as time went on last year, I started to think that Amichai could be a good option for all of our boys and registered ds6 there for first grade.  It has so many advantages and is technically a better fit for Americans than the cheder – the  main thing that was missing was a strong peer group from boys in the community.  At that point I decided I was willing to be the pioneer and send my boys here and trusted that others moving here would realize it was a valid option.  All it would have taken was one or two other families to do the same to have made Amichai a viable educational option to mainstream families.  But no one else made this choice, and it became obvious to me that my kids were going to pay the price by being socially isolated if I left them there.

That’s the cliff notes version of a very involved issue.  A week and a half into this school year (ie a month ago), I made the decision to transfer them to the local Talmud Torah for social reasons.  This was prior to my boys experiencing any social negativity, but it became clear to me that there’s no way to be part of the charedi community and to make visible choices that are different than what everyone else does.  If we hadn’t had so many other things to deal with, I would taken care of this during the summer but I was busy trying to keep my head above water with a new baby and doctor visits and nursing…and I didn’t have any head space to think about it.

I didn’t anticipate having much of an issue with the transfer.  Why not?  1) Firstly, it was the very beginning of the school year, not weeks into it.  The time before the holidays is always a time of irregularity in all schools. Studies in earnest don’t start until after Sukkos vacation.  2) We’re part of the community and they know our family.  We have an eighth grader at the cheder who is an excellent student and has made a great transition.  We have two more boys in their gan system.  They knew ds6 since he was in their kindergarten last year and was one of the most advanced kids in his class despite being a native English speaker.  There are plenty of people who could vouch for us.  3) Last year, I had a conversation with the principal before registering ds (then 9) at Amichai, to find out if there was any transfer policy that would cause an issue for him at a later date.  I explained that Amichai had support services for  new olim that I thought it would make his transition to life in Israel easier and my plan was to transfer him to the cheder after a year or two, when he was acclimated.  The principal said he understood that and there shouldn’t be any problem.  I wouldn’t have made this school choice without this assurance in advance.

But now that conversation has been forgotten.  When I called the principal, I was told that they don’t take boys from Amichai.  He told me my boys will be behind (remember, ds6 had only been in this school for eight days a this point) and it’s too complicated and it’s impossible.  I’m not going to go into the specifics of what was said, but I finally told the principal that they sounded like excuses and asked what was really going on.

One reason I haven’t written about this because it’s not pretty.  Everyone involved is a good person with good intentions.  But it’s a political issue and what is best for my kids isn’t part of the equation.

Some of you may say I need to find insiders to help me get my kids in.  We’ve tried that from several angles.  One friend is a peer of the decision makers and got the inside scoop on why this is being done, because we seem like the least likely American family for this to happen to and it doesn’t make sense to anyone.  He was very, very upset about this decision as well as the reasons and told them what they were doing to us was terribly wrong.  I had guessed about what was going on from some veiled hints and when I heard the insider’s version it wasn’t a shock to me, it confirmed what I thought.

I spent way too long going over and over in my mind what to do.  Who to contact, how to approach them, was it a mistake to want them in a school that was taking this position, should I send them to a school in a different city instead, should I leave them where they are, should I homeschool them, what would I do with ds5 when he goes into first grade next year, what would we do if our boys were disenfranchised from the community, is the charedi community where we want to affiliate, etc, etc, etc.  My mind just kept going over and over all the different variations of possible problems and solutions.

We had a meeting about this issue right after Yom Kippur with the chief rabbi of the city, who generally stays out of these situations.  Right now we’re in a waiting place.  After lots of efforts and intervention, we were told not right now and to be in touch with them again.  So after Sukkos we’ll give them a call once more.  I have a lot of ambivalence about this situation and regardless of how it all plays out, will probably continue to feel some ambivalence.

The second big reason I didn’t want to post about this is that I know there will be some people who think we deserved this, that we were out of touch for sending our kids to a different school to start with, that there must be something wrong with our family if the school doesn’t want to accept our kids, that we don’t understand charedi society….it’s been unpleasant enough to deal with all of this without these kinds of presumptions and I can’t explain myself more without saying something that will negatively reflect on others.  Yes, I was optimistic about taking a different path than what was typical and thought we could bridge it, but a year ago the emotional and religious climate of the community was different than it is now – and I still believe that was a reasonable belief then.

I do want to share that one thing that was very recently decided – this isn’t public yet but I told the chief rabbi that I felt a responsibility to tell people about this.  More people learn about the charedi community here from my blog than anywhere else, and it’s not fair if people come here with expectations of inclusion that won’t be actualized.  The cheder will no longer be accepting families without looking at them very closely.  They have said they don’t want to take Americans anymore, but this isn’t quite accurate.  I believe they’ll take families who they think are a good fit but my guess (and please realize this isn’t what they’re saying, but me reading between the lines) is that the families of most olim and baalei teshuva or anyone who doesn’t quite walk the mainstream charedi line are likely to be excluded.  This is a definite shift from how it’s been until now.

So that’s the short of a long situation.  It’s ironic to  me that I agonized for countless hours for the last year over the decision to send the boys to the cheder, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I finally decided to make the switch, thinking I would finally have peace of mind about a difficult choice.  Now this situation has me back and forth in my mind again, and what I’m trying to do is shut off my thinking about this and just wait to see what will happen.  This isn’t easy for me at all because it’s not my way of doing things.  So now I’m getting a chance to develop this aspect of my character.  🙂

Avivah

31 for 21 – Simchas beis hashoeva sadness

aliyah

Today is the fifth day of the 31 for 21 effort to raise awareness for Trisomy 21.

A couple of days ago I took my girls to a mother daughter event, with music playing while everyone danced together.  I was filled with such a feeling of joy to see my girls so much part of everything.

The happiness I felt then was matched last night by how sad I was at the simchas beis hashoeva sponsored by the local Talmud Torah school (cheder).  This is where my ds13 goes to school and where my other boys are currently registered in gan.  This is also where ds6 was until a month ago when the school year started.

Really, all the elements were there for it to be a fantastic evening.  Great music, energetic dancing, and plenty of room where it was held outdoors for everyone to be comfortable.  There was just one problem – my boys were miserable.  (Ds13 is in the US and ds5 fell asleep right before we left, so dd17 offered to stay home with them.)  Ds10 and ds6 wandered around trying to find a way to join in and feeling they didn’t belong.  Finally they just sat down at the side.

I had been watching from where I was at for a while, trying to see where they were.  When I finally saw them, I went over to see how they were doing.  One turned to me with tears in his eyes and told me he didn’t know anyone, and the other sadly said he wanted to go home.  So we left.

Ds6 is a very friendly boy who knew all of these boys from kindergarten and was considered one of them until a month ago, and felt so rejected.  When I commented to him that he knows so many people, he looked at me dejectedly and said, “I hardly have any friends any more.  None of them know who I am anymore.”  He said they don’t talk to him when he speaks to them now.  Ds10 hasn’t been able to get to know any of the boys because he’s not in school with them.

In the entire crowd there, we were the only ones who send our boys to a different school, even though it’s just a five minute walk from this school.  We’re part of this community but it seems my boys are essentially not.  This was the potential  issue I grappled with for the last year when trying to decide about ds6’s school placement, wondering if this would be something to worry about.  Finally I decided that he knows all these boys and they like him, and he can continue to be friends with them outside of school hours.  But I was wrong.

Unfortunately, ds6 has already had another very unpleasant experience when we went to shul less than a week ago.  Some older boys (already knowing the answer) asked him if he has a male or female teacher.  When he answered that his teacher is a woman (ironically, the woman who was making the kiddush at shul that everyone was there to celebrate with), they started making fun of him.  And then some boys his age started making fun of him because of this as well.  He came home and spent a half hour curled on the floor of his room crying instead of of being at the meal.  I see him being pushed to the outside of the social circle and it doesn’t make it any easier that I know it’s not about him but about the social reality of how tightly defined communities are.

I guess I’m too sensitive and so are my kids, and maybe they’ll just have to learn to toughen up.   This is a new reality for us.  Maybe this happens to everyone and kids just have to learn to deal with feeling rejected.  But it’s hard to see and I blame myself for making a choice based on my ideals instead of going along and doing what everyone else does.

Avivah