Just over one year has passed since we
pulled away from our house for the last time in a rented pickup truck packed
with 11 suitcases, five carry-ons, five personal items, a stroller, car seats,
toys, activities, and snacks. With our home and cars sold, we and our three
children left our beloved Baltimore behind.
My
husband and I are native Baltimoreans. My mother, Cindy Futeral, a”h, graduated from Bais Yaakov in
1980, and I followed her 26 years later. After high school, I attended Maalot,
Towson, and University of Maryland at Baltimore. My husband had been a student
at Talmudical Academy, Rambam, and Ner Yisrael, followed by University of
Maryland at College Park. We loved Baltimore with its calm lifestyle, where
keeping up with the proverbial Cohens was not central to our success.
We
had been carefully and hesitantly planning our aliyah since our marriage 11 years earlier. Now, with degrees and
job experience relevant to the Israeli job market to make aliyah easier, we drove to JFK airport and boarded a plane to our
new home in Eretz Yisrael. We were leaving everything and everyone we knew
behind to live a life far away from the American dream. Despite our love of the
Baltimore community, we were going to live a dream that was bigger than we were
– to become an integral part of am
Yisrael and closer to Hashem.
We are
regularly asked why we moved to Eretz Yisrael, and like all olim (immigrants), there is no single
answer. We weren’t running from anything. Baruch
Hashem, we were blessed with amazing jobs, we lived in a great neighborhood
with good friends and family close by, and our children were thriving at Bnos
Yisroel. But, like all Jews, we always davened “next year in Yerushalayim,” and
it’s hard to wait. We knew that Hashem leads us on our derech (path), and we dreamed of meeting Mashiach shortly here in
Israel without the need to book a flight. Although we are still in galut in Eretz Yisrael, there is a
connection in Eretz Yisrael that no Jew can feel in America and a reality that
can only be lived from this corner of the world.
I
can’t say it’s been easy. It’s been a rough start. When we landed, we couldn’t
provide the taxi driver with directions or the correct name of our street, and
he couldn’t find our address on Waze. (We’ve since learned that Harav Shamshon
Rafael Hirsch Street is abbreviated as HaRashar Hirsch Street.) When we arrived,
despite having been vaccinated and having tested negative on PCR tests, we went
immediately into a 14-day quarantine in the apartment where we planned to live
until we could purchase one of our own. We were without working appliances or
the ability to go shopping. People kindly brought us food and meals until we
could leave our home. Since then, we’ve learned to “enjoy” multiple periods of
quarantine until Covid regulations finally relaxed, and we learned to ask
Nefesh b’Nefesh for help before we went to a government office rather than
after.
We
bought every wrong item in the store – like corn starch instead of confectionary
sugar (the bags looked exactly the same and were right next to each other). We incorrectly
assumed that we could find gluten-free Cheerios easily, which is critical when
your baby is allergic to gluten and dairy. (If anyone visits, we can always use
more American Cheerios with a price tag of less than $10 per box.) And we went
shopping with the Google translation app (when the internet worked in the store,
i.e., not in the rainy season). We’ve since learned how to shop, communicate in
Hebrew, see doctors, buy an apartment, live and budget in shekels, and rely on
people.
I was
blessed to find a job before we made aliyah
in pharmaceutical regulatory
affairs and quality assurance, where I’m helping my company to get a drug
product approved by the FDA as well as helping to further develop additional
products. I now work in Yavne, which is northwest of Beit Shemesh, two
days a week and at home three days. My firm has the zechut of the being located where Rebbi Yochanan ben Zakai moved
the beit din immediately preceding
the destruction of Yerushalyim and where Rebbi Akiva once learned. It’s special
to look into the fields surrounding the high-tech park and see the remnants of
Yavne from the period of the beit din.
Carpools
don’t interfere with work because our children walk to school. I’ve also been
able to truly fulfill the mitzvah of kiddush
Hashem as everyone employed by my firm now knows that it was a shemittah year. Some of my coworkers are
even considering giving chareidim a
second chance because they have now seen a chareidi
woman up close. Although my husband was fortunate to retain his U.S. job in
software engineering, he has since moved on to an Israeli/American company so
that our hours line up better. He was zocheh
to start a morning kollel with one of the gedolim
in Eretz Yisrael and has a permanent chavruta.
They meet twice a week for shiur and
learn with their chavruta the rest of
the week. Most the kollel members are retirees who either moved here after
retiring or raised their children in Israel.
Our
children adapted, although not without challenges. Our daughter in first grade
is completely fluent in both languages and can easily switch languages and
accents as desired. Any struggles she has since faced are no different than the
struggles she would have faced in Baltimore, except we did gain a less responsive
socialized medical system in Israel. Our fifth grader now invites over friends
who only speak Hebrew, although she is not yet completely independent in school
as the Hebrew in some classes is more difficult. Baruch Hashem, our school is very supportive in helping its students
from abroad slowly acclimate. Our youngest is in a Hebrew daycare and seems to
respond to both languages easily.
The
religious world is thought of as boxed and defined in Eretz Yisrael. However,
we find a continuum of hashkafot. The
boxes are a perception that matter to few and far between – mostly to some
schools and those on the extreme left and right. Our children attend a mama”ch, or mamlachti chareidi, school. These schools are relatively new to
Eretz Yisrael but are growing in popularity. The children receive a strong and
complete religious education along with a full, secular, government-mandated
program. Most Anglos in Ramat Beit Shemesh attend chareidi private schools, which dominate the landscape. In terms of
education, the majority of the private chareidi girls’ schools and mama”ch
girls schools provide a strong education in both religious and secular studies
with a primary difference in the number of school hours. The chareidi boys’ schools vary from those with
no secular education to those with a strong secular education, while the mama”ch boys’ schools are required to
provide a strong secular education. As a mama”ch
school, our school also receives a lot of government funding, such as beautiful
new buildings, that allow for more programming and special services as well as
lower tuition. Baruch Hashem, the
school options are plentiful, and we haven’t been disappointed.
In
our year here, we’ve learned that it’s possible to be an Anglo living in Eretz
Yisrael and to grow and adapt. Most of all, it is possible to retain our
identity and approach to life here in Eretz Yisrael. Although there are those
who profess that we are not Israeli and that we will not become Israelis living
in Ramat Beit Shemesh, we don’t necessarily agree. No Israeli would ever
apologize for who he or she is, and neither should we, as Anglos, feel
apologetic for our birth location. Anglos add tremendous value to Israel both
spiritually and physically that many recognize and appreciate. We have also met
more than a few Israeli families that have intentionally settled in Ramat Beit
Shemesh to gain from the school systems that that Anglos have built over the
years. With these families, our work, friends, and support networks, we have
endless exposure and opportunities to join Israeli society while still feeling
comfortable.
We
are so thankful to Hashem for the opportunity to come home. Before we left,
leaving Baltimore seemed like an impossibility, with insurmountable obstacles.
Now, on the other side, we see that all it took was getting on a plane. As Jews,
we are so intensely and tightly connected to Eretz Yisrael that living here
allows our souls to reach places we can only dream of. Our destinies are too
intertwined to be independent.
A
friend of ours, quoting her rebbi, said that a Jew in America is no different
than a polar bear in the Bronx Zoo. It is never his home, just a temporary
refuge. As much as the zookeepers attempt to model the North Pole, they always
fall short. Living here in Eretz Yisrael, I’ve never felt this more. We daven
that we should merit Mashiach soon and that we can all meet him shortly in
Eretz Yisrael.
Talie
can be reached at avitalshimanovich@gmail.com and Donni at
danielshimanovich@gmail.com for any questions or aliyah he
