Letter to my daughter in Poland

My eldest daughter has spent the past week in Poland with her school. From the time we arrived in Israel and she learned that most schools here make the trip to Poland in 11th or 12th grade, she said she wanted to go. Since last May, when she signed up for the trip, the school has spent days and weeks educating the girls, both historically and psychologically, what to expect. They left before dawn last Monday morning, arriving in a cold, wet Warsaw around 8am, and went immediately to a Jewish cemetery. They have traveled the routes traveled by our own ancestors, visited towns and cities where Judaism once thrived, and seen the horrors of Treblinka, Majdenak, and the woods of Zbylitowska Góra where there are mass graves of Jews, including thousands of children, shot to death by the Nazis. Tomorrow, Sunday, is the final day of the trip, one that is spent at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Parents were asked to send a letter to their daughters for them to read over Shabbat, which they spent in the city of Krakow. Below is an edited version of the letter that I wrote to my daughter. It was originally written 2 weeks ago, but I have modified it slightly to reflect the anti-semitic murderous attack that killed 11 Jews in Pittsburgh just one week ago.

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<<I am writing this on Erev Shabbat Lech Lecha, when Hashem commanded Avram to leave his homeland and his birthplace, and to go the land that Hashem would show him. In the parasha, we see Avram’s blind faith in Hashem, how he was willing to leave behind everything that was familiar to him, to follow Hashem.

For thousands of years, the Jewish people yearned to return to Zion, to the Land of Israel, after the exile and the destruction of the Beit haMikdash. The area that makes up the Promised Land has been controlled by so many different powers during these years of Diaspora, and each of these governing people played some role in making sure there was no official Jewish homeland.

Finally, in 1947, immediately following the genocide committed in Europe by Hitler and the Nazis, the British Mandate came good on the Balfour Declaration of 1917, to give the Jewish people their own state. There are those who believe that the only reason the modern state of Israel exists is due to the guilt felt by the world following the Shoah. These people believe that if it weren’t for the Shoah, we would never have our State of Israel, and we would not have been able to establish a Jewish homeland in the Biblical land that was promised to Avraham our patriarch in Parashat Lech Lecha.  I choose to believe differently. I believe that while the Shoah was a factor in us getting back our homeland, the realization of the dream, the establishment of the state, is nothing short of a miracle. You see, as soon as Israel declared independence, all Arab nations surrounding us declared war on us. We had no proper army. Our army was made up of various underground movements who had resisted British, a haphazard group of people with little military training. We had newly arrived immigrants from Europe, (many of whom had arrived illegally, due to British limitations set on the number of Jews allowed to land in Israel in those post-war years) survivors of horrors worse than anyone could imagine, recovering from years of starvation and illness and mistreatment at the hands of the Nazis, who immediately joined forces to fight for their new homeland. It is only by God’s Hand that Israel won that war. As you know, that was only the first war, many more have followed, and still our enemies try to wipe us from the face of the Earth.

When I asked if you were anxious about your trip to Poland, you answered that you were not. You said that you hoped to get some clarity from it, some more understanding of what happened, and to find some connection to your past, to our past.

I have never been to Poland, nor do I have any desire to go. From what I understand from others who have made the trip, the last day is the hardest day.  Auschwitz-Birkenau is always described as devastating – people who didn’t know they could feel such deep emotion, describe how it is impossible not to feel the souls of all those murdered there. Just the sheer size of the place, makes it impossible to digest how many were murdered there.

Yours is the second generation to grow up with the State of Israel as fact and reality, rather than a dream and a prayer. It is difficult to communicate to you and to your siblings and friends, the true meaning of Zionism and why it is so important. Your great-grandparents, and even your grandparents, remember the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. They remember the 1967 Six Day War, which resulted in a unified, free Jerusalem, giving us access to the Old City and the remnants of the Beit haMikdash. It is easy to take this for granted today – that you can hop on a bus and then the light rail in Jerusalem, and show up at the Kotel whenever you feel like it. But we must never take any of it for granted. We must always remember the days when we didn’t have a country of our own, and when we had a country of our own, but no access to the holiest of places for the Jewish people.

Today’s fight is different. We have to continue to fight the BDS movement which does its best to put Israel in a negative light all around the world. When we hear people saying that Israel is an apartheid country it is up to us to show the world that this is not the case.  The Palestinians do not want a 2 state solution – their vision is a single state that is devoid of all Jews. As a Jew, and as an Israeli, it is your job and your duty to educate others, to make sure that they see the truth, the real Israel.

As we learned last Saturday night, anti-semitism is alive and well. Exactly one week ago, eleven Jews, praying in their synagogue on Shabbat morning, just as we do every single week, were murdered, in an act not unlike those carried out by Nazis nearly 80 years ago. It can happen in Pittsburgh. It can happen anywhere. Where there are Jews, there are anti-semites.

I have no doubt that you will return from this trip changed. How can anyone visit Poland, and see what was lost, and not come back feeling changed? When we meet up at the Kotel on Monday morning, look at it with new eyes. Don’t take it for granted. Don’t see an ancient wall. Look again, and see all that is left of the Beit HaMikdash. Look again, and see the miracle that enabled us to reunite Jerusalem in 1967. Look again, and see how God is a part of everything that happens in Eretz Yisrael and Medinat  Yisrael. Look again, and see how the existence of the State of Israel is not a direct result of the Shoah, but the realization of a promise, and of a dream of thousands of years.

I can’t wait to see you on Monday morning. I am sure tomorrow will be a tough day, but hopefully you will return empowered, and believing that God exists, even though we may not understand how He works, and why He makes things happen the way that they do.  I pray that this trip has been all that you expected it to be, and that you return feeling proud to be Jewish and proud to be Israeli.>>

 

Lessons from our first full summer

After a long, hot (very, very hot!) summer, school is back in session since September first.

My 8th grader was excited to return to school – in spite of the few difficulties she has last year, she really likes her school and has lots of friends. I’ve never met a group of teenage girls so happy to be back in school, as those girls who are in Pelech. Even getting up by 6:30am to get her bus is effortless! Long may that last.

The younger two kids refused my offer of walking them into their classrooms on the first day. In fact, when I offered, they asked if I meant that I would drive them to school. When I replied that my intention was to walk with them, they said no thank you, we will walk on our own…

Sadly, as second year olim, my kids are no longer entitled to the six hours of help that they received during school hours last year. Apparently this year they will get 2 hours of pull-out help, plus help in the classroom from the sherut leumi (national service) girls. I sincerely hope this will be enough, especially for my son in Kita Vav (6th grade) who will be starting Middle/High School next year. Time will tell.

Both my elementary aged kids have the same teachers as last year, which is very helpful. My son’s teacher placed him next to the new oleh from this summer, a boy from Denver, CO, who we have had the pleasure of getting to know in the weeks since he arrived. At first I wasn’t sure that this would be a good idea, but it turns our his teacher is a genius. She’s been doing this job so long that she taught most of the parents of the kids who are now in her class (rumour has it she was cajoled out of retirement again to stay with these kids until they graduate at the end of this school year). By having my son sit next to a kid who really can’t speak Hebrew, she is forcing him to listen to her, and to then convey information to his new friend. Turns out he understands a lot more Hebrew than any of us realised…

As for me, what have I learned, my first year back in Israel?

1. Israelis are loud. They yell. A lot. But this doesn’t mean that they are angry or upset with you. Indeed, often they are yelling at you because they want to help you, but you may not realise that, because all you can hear is yelling, and therefore you can’t hear the words…
2. The driving license bureau is a scam. What should be a relatively simple procedure to change a valid driving license from your country of origin to an Israeli license is made really complicated by the number of steps necessary. In addition, no one will take responsibility if there’s a mess up along the way – as discovered by a close friend who now has to claim back money from the licensing bureau, due to a mistake made by the post office, but that neither they nor the licensing bureau will accept responsibility for. So, good luck with that…
3. Summer vacation is very long, and most camps only last for 3 weeks, and only run from 8am–1pm. Which leaves every afternoon in July, and all of August (prone to major heatwaves) to fill in somehow.
4. Joining a pool is a necessity, not a luxury (see 3 above).
5. Shopping for school books and supplies in July is smart. No Israeli shops for school supplies before the 3rd week in August. The down side is that some of the books won’t be available until August, but those can really wait until school has begun – they don’t do much until “after the holidays” anyway.
6. During the last two week of August it is perfectly normal to see little kids at work with their parents, regardless of the line of work. There are no camps or daycare at all for those two weeks. It’s not uncommon to see 3 and 4 year olds “helping” out parents who work in retail stores, medical offices, hi-tech companies – anywhere really. It’s almost a given that you can bring your kid to work.
7. Due to the lack of daycare etc. (see 6 above), it is very difficult to a) get appointments with various doctors, therapists etc. in those last 2 weeks of August, as everyone is on vacation, and b)due to a), very difficult to find hotels to stay in around the country if you would like to go on vacation within Israel during those last two weeks.
8.  Due to 6 and 7, if you want to take vacation during the last two weeks of August, even if just for a couple of days, book your time off with work as early as possible, and make any hotel reservations as early as possible! Alternatively, you can do what we did, and find awesome friends who invite you to stay with them for a couple of nights so that you can have a fun mini vacation without the hotel stay!

One week from tonight will be our second Rosh Hashanah in Rehovot. Allow me to take this opportunity to wish all of you Shana Tova, ketiva vechatima tova, and leshanah habaah beMedinat Yisrael – don’t be afraid to take that step and make aliya! You never know what it may bring – Bon Jovi is coming to Israel in October for the first time ever. If someone had told me that all it would take for them to come here was for me to make aliya (again), I’d have come back years ago!

Aliyaversary: From the eyes of the teen

Today, August 12, marks exactly one year since our Nefesh B’Nefesh flight arrived at Ben Gurion Airport. We were greeted by the then new President of Israel. Ruvi Rivlin, the Chairman of the Jewish Agency, Natan Sharansky, and a host of other people. Rami Kleinstein played piano and sang at our welcome ceremony. A friend busted the dog out of her crate. It was the final point in a long adventure, and now it’s been a year of adventures.

The most asked question, posed by Israelis and non-Israelis alike, is “How are your kids doing? Are they happy? Have they integrated?”

So, I asked my 13 year old daughter, Noffiya, if she would write this blog post for our one year aliyaversary. To my delight, not only did she agree, but she wrote a piece that I’m proud to publish here. I hope she will guest blog for me again in the future.

<<This post is a guest entry written by: Noffiya Brooks

(Some of you might recognize this name from other blog posts because I’m Vanessa’s daughter and she writes about me very frequently)

When my parents announced to us that they were considering making Aliyah, I was hoping for an “April Fools!”, even though it wasn’t April. I was 11 years old, and was feeling sort of like that typical teenage girl in every movie like “ugh mom my life is officially over!” And of course, to top it all off, a pilot trip. Without me. I had never been to Israel before. This is still my first time here. (Never left yet mommy, still waiting for that Florida trip…) All the time my parents would tell my siblings and me so many great things about Israel, from when they were here back in the olden days. “Oh there’s makolet (mah-ko-lete) on every corner” “the fruits and vegetables are fantastic” etc. etc. I was not happy with the decision. When they went on their pilot trip, Chanukah 2013, I kept hoping they would come back and say “we were wrong. Israel is not the place for us to be right now.” But they didn’t.

Well, after the pilot trip, I started to tell my friends. Some said “it’s not such a big deal, its in 8 months” while others said “we have to start doing more things now!” Someone even asked me if I hated my parents for this. I was shocked. I told them that I couldn’t hate my parents for making the decision to move, and that I might be mad at them but I don’t hate them.

I also got tons of (useless) “advice” from people that were more like opinions. Here are examples of a few of them.

~Never buy clothes in Israel they’re terrible! (it depends where you shop though)

~Don’t buy ice cream from the vendors (?)

~Get a boyfriend (why? …)

~ Israeli shoes are the best (some are and some aren’t. just like America)

And of course, during Tzuk Eitan (most recent war, known as Operation Protective Edge in English), I got bombarded with the “are you scared of the rockets and/or sirens???!!?!??” To which I answered “No, not really” to which then I was told I was “very brave” and that I had “such wonderful trust”

Up until that very day, that very second that I put my foot on the plane from New York to Israel, I hadn’t actually thought about everything. That I was moving and leaving my friends and family behind. And I was sad, knowing that I might not see some people again, or for a very long time. So I thought on that plane, and I slept and dreamt about some of my fun experiences that I had in Boca. Then we arrived, and I hated it. I couldn’t stand the thought that now I actually was on a whole other continent than my friends, and that we had actually moved. It was too hard to grasp.

School was very hard for me. Obviously, it was in another language, but that was only the half of it. I had a special teacher that took me out twice a week to teach me. Her English was absolutely terrible, and so was her teaching. There was a girl that sat next to me, whom everyday would scream “you need to do your work! If you don’t do it so then the teacher will be mad at me!” and when I explained to her that I kind of had no clue what the heck those work pages were about, she told me she can help. So when I would ask her a question (after every single word because I didn’t understand) she would scream “I CAN’T HELP YOU I ALSO HAVE TO DO MY WORK” I mean, her English isn’t that good, but why offer something you can’t fulfill. I had to do two projects. One of them was an oral presentation in Hebrew, back in March. I did fine, and after I finished, the teacher then told everyone I was an olah chadasha, in the country for only a few months, and everybody clapped and said my Hebrew was so good for someone who hadn’t even been in the country for a year. The teachers were very understanding. Well… most of them were. I had one teacher who would force me to take tests that I didn’t understand. It wasn’t only me though, because one of my friends who made Aliyah 5 years ago had an exemption from that class as well as me, and she also was forced to do the tests. I have friends now, but I still find it more comfortable to hang out with people who speak English as their mother tongue. Most of the girls my age in Rechovot were born in Israel, so even if they speak English, Hebrew is their first language. Most of my English-speaking-made-aliya friends are in Modi’in, and I would much rather live there.

Now, I’m used to Israel a little bit. I’ve been here a year. Do I love Israel? No. Do I like Israel? I guess. Do I like living here? It’s different. I have to wait for my dad to go to America so I can get clothes, talking to my Boca friends is extremely hard because either I’m in school, or asleep or vice versa. I basically feel like the emoji that has a smile but a tear drop on the side of its head. I have mixed feelings about being here. It’s now my home, or at least; until I’m eighteen. And who knows how I’ll feel by then.>>

Part II

The kids are now practically Israeli (just not the Hebrew speaking kind). They drink chocolate milks from bags, know where the nearest makolet (mini-mart) is, go alone to the park and know how to use the “rav kav” card thingamabob on the buses.

We’re definitely still on our “aliyah-moon” – even when I get annoyed about things, I manage to brush it off with “yiyeh b’seder” (it’ll be ok) and get on with things. The hardest thing we dealt with last week, was not our first siren (that came last Tuesday night) but hearing that our lift would not reach the port in Ashdod until September 8th, and therefore we won’t have our stuff until some time after that. I stewed over that for a few hours, because as pioneering as I am (those of you who know me well, are no doubt snorting liquid out from your nostrils right now at the thought of me being a pioneer at all….) spending another 3 weeks at least without a real cooking utensil, and more importantly, without my make up and nail polish, is really just a  bit much. I can sleep on a mattress on the floor. I can wash the same towels and sheets over and over. I can even manage to cook with the few things people have lent us, and hopefully we will get a real fridge soon which will enable me to shop for more than a day at a time.

But I really want my clothes. I’m tired of the few things I’ve been wearing non stop for 3 weeks. I want to do my nails. Everywhere we go people ask me what my work is here, and I tell them “I’m a certified nail professional”. They probably think I’m certifiable because my nails are unpolished and boring. Oh well. Yiyeh b’seder…

So, we had our first “azaka” (siren) last Tuesday night. It was about 10:45pm, all the kids were in bed, and Keith & I were working on stuff on laptops. The noise started, we glanced at each other for a split second, and both said “oh, that is definitely a siren”. In that split second, our 12 year old woke up, left her bedroom, went straight into the safe room (our 10 year old’s bedroom), opened the window and pulled shut the sealed shutters. Like a pro. Keith picked up our sleeping 7 year old, the dog followed us all, and into the room we went. Our 10 year old woke up only after the siren had stopped and said “what are you all doing in my room?” The 7 year old woke up briefly, and the dog farted, which really was enough to make everyone wish away those 10 minutes really, really fast… No one panicked, no one was scared, everyone went straight back to sleep, and that was that. It did prompt some interesting conversations the next day. Everywhere we went, the kids paid attention, and asked where we would go for cover if there was another siren. But not in any way that makes us  believe they were scared. They are just aware now. 90 seconds is a long time to get to safety, as long as you’re in a built up area. We are lucky, in the south, they only have 15 seconds.

We dealt with more bureaucracy during the week too, with a visit to the Absorption Ministry (how many countries have one of those, by the way? A ministry dedicated solely to helping immigrants?) We learned about the “sal klita” – the absorption basket – money that we will start to receive shortly, and Keith was given information about Ulpan (Hebrew classes). Ulpan, by the way, is 100% free, plus the Absorption Ministry reimburses you 90% of your travel expenses! What a country. 

We got everyone fully signed up for health care. For the first year it is completely free. Imagine that! When I moved to the US from the UK, it was next to impossible for me to get health insurance as an individual who was willing to pay for it, let alone get anything for free! After the first year, health insurance is covered by the Israeli equivalent of social security, but the cost is negligible compared to what you pay in the US. I’m not  going to argue with anyone over the quality of Israeli vs US healthcare, I’ll just say that I’ve lived in Ireland, Israel, the UK and the US, and the US has by far the absolute worst health care system, and Israel has by far the very best. Nothing is perfect.

We went to purchase textbooks for the kids for school. School is free, but the parents buy the books. I was completely overwhelmed when we walked into the store. So I asked if I could possibly leave the lists with them, and come pick up the books when they were ready. They told me yes. When I told someone this in synagogue on Shabbat she said “oh you’re already so Israeli!” – And there was me thinking it was a very Boca thing to do!

Our 12 year old starts school on Thursday. She has an orientation on Wednesday afternoon. Today we drove by her school to see where it is, as we had no idea. It’s a brand new  building, just completed this summer, and from the outside it looks very, very nice. A large building, on lots of campus grounds. She’s a little nervous, but also excited. She has met a number of girls that she will be in school with, and 7th grade is the entrance grade at the school, so it’s new to all of them. She has a late start this year, compared to last year – she’ll be picked up by the bus at 7:15 instead of 7, and the bus is picking her up outside our building. Score!

We have rented a car for the week, so we can explore a little further outside of Rehovot. I have a special birthday coming up on Wednesday. I really wanted a Nespresso coffeemaker for my birthday, but instead, it looks like I will be getting either a bed, a fridge, a washer, or if I’m very lucky indeed, a printer…

Yiyeh B’seder!