I have always had a love for Eretz Yisrael and wanted to make aliyah, but I was determined never to leave my mother behind. My mother, Emma Sarah Hubert Mogilensky, a”h, moved to Baltimore about six months after we did. Born in Germany, she was sent away from home alone on the Kindertransport and lost her parents in the Holocaust. Rebuilding her life with my father in America, she became a widow at age 56. When she passed away at age 92, it was time to reconsider our life choices.

At the time, all three of our sons were living in Israel, two in Jerusalem and one in Bnei Brak. Our daughter lives in Lakewood, NJ. I had switched jobs about a year-and-a-half earlier, and I had mentioned at the interview that I would one day want to move to Israel and take my job with me. Amazingly enough, they were open to the idea. So, a month or so after my mother passed away, I told them that we were moving. One year after my mother passed away, we moved to Jerusalem. I had traveled to Israel seven months previously and bought an apartment in the Maalot Dafna neighborhood of Jerusalem, near two of our sons. We sold our home in Baltimore, and it became a down payment on our far smaller Jerusalem apartment. (Location, location, location!)

Making aliyah is incredibly exciting – the fulfillment of a dream. At the same time, it is totally overwhelming. There is so much to adjust to. I was 59, and my husband was 62 when we made aliyah. Learning to manage in Hebrew was and still is quite challenging. Let’s look at possibly the three biggest adjustments other than the language: grocery shopping, transportation, and health care. When you, i”yH, make aliyah one day, you can thank me for the heads up.