Two Years in the Place I Always Knew Was Home

It was the spring of 2005. My parents sat my siblings and me down to talk to us about summer vacation that year. That, in and of itself, was unusual: We often went away in the summer, typically to one of my mother’s sisters in Florida, but “advance planning” in my parents’ house meant thinking about it more than a week in advance. Not months in advance.

And then they surprised us with tickets to Israel. My mother’s older sister had made aliyah with her family in 2002, and we would be spending the month of July with them.

I have very fond memories of that trip. I was young, but I remember traipsing up and down the country, sightseeing, eating, and packing whatever we could into that one month. But what I remember most of all is the feeling that this is home, and promising myself that I would one day turn that feeling into a reality.

It took nineteen years to fulfill that promise I made, and this week marks two years since I stepped off the plane as a newly-minted Israeli citizen. You would think that last year, the first-year anniversary, would be much more momentous than this year. I’ll be honest: I didn’t even realize until a few days later that I had passed the one-year mark. (I’m not generally one to pay close attention to dates—I mostly remember that it’s my birthday because it’s the first of the month and so I notice that we’ve turned the calendar to the next month.) But this year, in advance of my hitting the two year mark, I find myself thinking more and more about the momentous occasion of my aliyah-versary.

It is not hyperbolic to say that making aliyah was one of the best decisions of my life. Thank God, I had a really smooth landing, finding a job fairly quickly and plunging myself into Israeli life. I was also lucky enough to move here with a strong enough Hebrew that I didn’t need to take any classes, and I’ve had regular opportunities to build my fluency through near-daily use in the intervening two years. And I am unbelievably blessed to have had the opportunity to live in Jerusalem for these last two years, the beating heart of the Jewish people and my absolute favorite city in the world.

The longer I’m here, though, the more I stand in awe of the people who make aliyah and don’t have it so easy. The people who have families and have to integrate their children into new schools that are bound up in a new culture and a different language. The people who can’t converse easily in Hebrew—or who barely speak two words of Hebrew—yet choose to come anyway. The people who don’t find a job right away but are determined to find a way to make things work in this new home of theirs. The people whose lifts show up months late, like my old roommate who was wearing summer clothes well into the winter because her winter clothes were somewhere in the Atlantic long after they should have arrived on Israeli shores.

And as I reflect on two years living in the land of Israel, I must acknowledge how much I feel as though Israel—and Israelis—embraced me. In the first few months after I made aliyah, anytime I stumbled in conversation, I would apologize with a sheepish, “Sorry, I’m a recent immigrant,” and every time, without fail, the Israeli on the other side of the conversation would reassure me, patiently(!), that I was doing great. Israelis are known for being rough around the edges, but they’re also known for having big hearts, and the more I live here, the more I see the hearts of gold that animate the rough exteriors.

Yes, Israel is a very real country with very real problems. Politics here are not for the faint of heart. The very regular, very disruptive protests make me question the right to freedom of assembly. If I could, I would replace all car horns with the sounds of rubber ducks squeaking, just to break the habit that it seems like 90% of the country has of sitting on their horns. And brown sugar, of all things, a staple in my kitchen, appears to be a specialty item based on how infrequently I see it in the grocery store.

Yet, even with all of those problems, I could not be happier that I live here. It’s hard to believe that it’s been two years, because it both feels like forever and no time at all. And even though it’s only been two years, there’s no question in my mind that this is where I belong.

In fact, the longer I’ve lived here, the more firmly I believe that aliyah is, in fact, for everyone. Right now might not be the right time, but the right time will come, and when it does, Israel will welcome you with open arms.

Because this is where we belong.