October 9, 2005

Alison on Aliyah:  Happy Anniversary To Me!

            Tomorrow is the two-year anniversary of the day I made aliyah, and I’ve been feeling very contemplative about the occasion.  We have just celebrated the Jewish New Year, and I am about to celebrate the beginning of my third year here in Israel, as a citizen, as an immigrant, and as an individual struggling to find her place in her new world.

            I spent the past hour looking back at some of the first few articles I wrote, back in July of 2003, and being struck with awe at how different everything looks now.  I remember having no idea where I would live or when I would be able to start my schooling.  I remember that on that first cab ride from the airport, I didn’t know enough Hebrew to ask the driver to roll up his window.  I remember not having a place to go for some of the holidays, and spending the first three months sleeping on an air mattress on the floor of my apartment.  I remember worrying if I would ever meet anyone in this “foreign country” with whom I could envision sharing my life.

            And now here I am, living in Be’er Sheva, about to begin my second year of a combined Master’s and Ph.D. program in social psychology at Ben Gurion University.  I have a thesis advisor who supports and believes in me, and a research project that embodies many of the reasons I came here in the first place.  I have a car and a real home, complete with furnishings, cooking supplies, and framed pictures of friends and family on every surface.  My Hebrew is nearly fluent, and I have begun doing translating work for some of the professors in my department.  I have a great and varied support system of friends and a slew of adoptive families who take me in on every occasion.  My dog has adjusted happily to her new surroundings and is in love with all of my friends here.  And speaking of being in love, I may very well have found that “special someone” myself.

            In short, things are good.  My life has fallen into place, in the perfect place, in a way I could never have predicted or even hoped for.  Just two short years ago, I had more “unknowns” staring me in the face than I had things of which I was certain, and I had nothing to rely on but a ten-year-old dream that I was desperately hoping to fulfill.  I now see Israel as the key to what has become my true happiness.  When I look back on how many years I struggled to build a life and to be happy in America, and how many years I failed at doing so, I can see now that the essential building blocks simply weren’t there.  I was attempting to construct something on top of a faulty foundation, and continually watching everything tumble to the ground.  I was trying to create the life I thought I wanted in a place that I knew simply wasn’t for me.  Moving to Israel was my first step toward constructing the foundation for the life I truly want to lead, and I have watched as the succeeding levels have sprung up with gusto from that foundation.

            Even with so much time here in Israel under my belt, one of the most common questions I still get is whether I will or would ever go back to the US.  Sometimes the question is framed even less optimistically, as in, “How long are you going to stay here?”  It continually amazes me that so many people consider aliyah to be so temporary, and assume that it is only a matter of time until most of us new immigrants cave in and ship back to our “real” homes.  I suppose this may be true for many of us, but not for me.  I always respond swiftly and emphatically that I am here for good and would never consider returning to America for anything more than a visit (and a short one at that!).  I say that I cannot imagine putting in this much work—the moving and the adjusting and the constant and sometimes painful lesson learning—only to throw it all away.  The roots I am in the process of setting down have been hard-won, and are as strong and enduring as steel.  They aren’t going anywhere.  And in two, or ten, or twenty years, when I am looking back on this article, they will still be firmly rooted in Israeli soil.