Heller High Jewish History Teachers Discuss Their Lives in Israel

As recounted by David Alon

One of the interesting things that we the Heller High Jewish history teachers have in common is that we all made Aliyah from the U.S. while in our twenties.  Never-the-less, we each took a different path to arriving in Israel and adjusting to our new lives in the Jewish state.

This week our students had a unique opportunity to hear the four of us speak in a panel discussion about our respective experiences.  For me personally, this was quite gratifying since I had thought about putting together this activity for a few years.  My colleagues and I are so busy with our everyday lives, that we don't often get the chance to simply talk candidly about what it was like to make Aliyah.  In fact, I was more intrigued about hearing what my fellow Jewish history teachers had to say than hearing myself talk.  Even though we've been acquainted for a long time, I was surprised to find out things about my friends and co-workers that I didn't know before.

None of this would have been possible without the direct participation of the Heller High students.  We asked them to submit questions in advance so we could gauge what subjects were of interest, and then based the panel discussion off of these queries.  The biggest challenge for us teachers was to stick to the time limit for each response, otherwise none of us would have shut up and we would have been there all day. (We even had a stop watch make us be concise!)

The first question posed was "How did your relationship with your family in the states change when you made Aliyah?"  Although each of us had a slightly different answer, there was a common theme of dealing with being so far away.  There's no question that this is a difficult issue for us that we are still figuring out.  My colleague Evan Wertheim and I pointed out that our spouses and our young children have indeed become our immediate family here in Israel, so that is something to consider as well.  My other colleague Shira Kleinman gave a thoughtful explanation of how her group of close friends has become her support network and very much her family.

Similarly, Evan and I were asked "What does it mean to raise your children as first generation Israelis?"  Evan was proud to remark that his two-and-a-half-year-old son can speak three languages (Hebrew, English, and Arabic from a bi-lingual nursery school).  I described to the students that my two daughters (one five years old and the other nine months old) will grow up as native Israelis and native Hebrew speakers who regard being Jewish as more of their national and cultural identity, more so than I did growing up in America.

Regarding Jewish identity, one question that was asked was "How has your observance of Judaism changed since coming to Israel?"  This might have been the toughest question for us, because it really made us dig deep into our Jewish souls and search for the right thing to say.  One thing that seems clear, based on our respective answers to this question, is that none of us are in the same place religiously where we started out in.  Each of us in our own way has given serious thought to what being religiously observant means when living in Israel as opposed to the diaspora.  Shira gave an outstanding explanation of how kashrut and Shabbat took on a new meaning for her since moving to Israel.  Another member of the faculty, Josh Scharff, explained how in Israel he doesn't have to explain why he can't come to baseball practice on Yom Kippur.  I replied that although I was attracted to Israel's secular Jewish culture in the beginning, my family ended up joining the Reform synagogue in my town Mevesseret Zion.

Likewise, another question that made us think long and hard for the right thing to say was, "if your views on the Arab-Israeli conflict changed or were enhanced by living in Israel?"  Of course we all desire peace, but there's no doubt that each of us has a much deeper and more nuanced understanding of the situation by virtue of just living here.  Evan said it best when he stated in response that if you go through years of your life without ever changing your views periodically, then you're not reading and listening to enough diverse opinions.

Several students submitted questions about the army in Israeli society which provoked interesting responses.  Josh, Shira, and Evan spoke of the importance of the IDF despite the fact they were not drafted.  Each in their own way spoke of integrating into Israeli society, and how their Israeli friends admired them for making Aliyah without any negative attitudes about arriving too late to enlist.  I myself spent six months in Tzahal at the age of 27-28, being trained as part of an artillery crew.  For me, there's no question that my army service played a significant role in my integration into society.  I explained that although I didn't particularly enjoy every minute of it, I felt that I was doing something important for the Jewish people, and that I wanted be able to tell my kids that I was in the army just like they will be some day.

Of all the questions, the one that seemed to bring out the most unified response among the four of us was, "What was your experience like learning Hebrew?"  We all stressed the absolute importance of the Hebrew language, not only for living in Israel, but more importantly for Jewish identity.  This was the one thing we seemed to agree on more than anything else, how central knowing Hebrew is to strengthening one's Jewish identity.  Each of us had to work really hard to become mostly fluent, and there's no doubt that acquiring proficiency was perhaps the biggest challenge for all of us.

Of course we all have this duel Israeli-American identity going on in our heads, so one question that got us thinking was, "If you were asked to choose only one, would you consider/define yourself as American or Israeli?"  Unlike the previous question about Hebrew that we all had the same general reply to, this time there was room for disagreement.  Although we have each retained some elements of American culture (food, slang, pop culture, sports teams, etc.) we each talked about having different feelings about our American upbringing.  Josh, in particular spoke of his strong American patriotism and his emotional reaction to hearing the Star Spangled Banner and HaTikva.  Whereas Evan and I asserted that there's no question that we define ourselves as Israeli first, Josh made a captivating comment that more than anything, he sees himself as a Jew.

Perhaps the most difficult question for us to grapple with was, "Did you ever regret the move, or was there ever a moment when you felt you were not a part of Israeli society yet?"  Each of us had anecdotes about the struggles of being a new immigrant, but on a whole we recounted that native Israelis were extremely welcoming and proud of our decision to make Aliyah.  Shira remarked that Israelis would hear her American accent and try to speak to her in English, to which she immediately replied in Hebrew.  Evan stated emphatically that it's not in his nature to live a life of regrets, and so he doesn't tend to look back and ask if things could have turned out differently.  Myself, I've been living here in Israel for almost 14 years, I'm married to a native Israeli with two sabra daughters.  I'm grateful for every moment I've had in this incredibly complicated, unbelievably beautiful, and constant drama of a country.  I can't wait to do this panel again next semester!