A Tale of Two Cities (Article #21) 9/21/2006

When I got to the airport on Sunday morning, I discovered that the yeshiva’s travel agent had not done a very good job of making my reservations. He had neglected to order the glatt meal for me (although I got lucky there) and hadn’t bothered to reserve a seat for me—so I ended up with a middle seat. At six-foot-two, I am a rather large guy, so a middle seat would not have been my preference.

A side note about kashrut: I believe that it is not so easy to actually find treif food in Israel. Most things have some form of hashgachah on it. However, there are many different hashgachot and they use various different rulings in how they determine what is acceptable as kosher. Accordingly, our yeshiva recommends that our talmidim eat from “mehadrin” hashgachot as a minimum, and we try to apply that standard to our family as well. Therefore, I requested the glatt meal on the airplane—I am in no way saying that the El Al hashgachah is not valid, I just prefer to order the glatt as an extra stringency.

I had deliberately stayed up almost the whole night motzaei Shabbat in order to make sure that I would be tired for the flight to America on Sunday. Unfortunately, as a day flight, I really couldn’t get comfortable enough to sleep, and the people around me were also all well-rested, so they were making plenty of noise throughout the flight.

By the time we got to New York (Kennedy Airport), I was tired and ready to get moving. Immigration was a breeze. From the time they opened the plane until I was at the baggage carousel, I think 12 minutes had passed. Then I waited for the luggage.

And waited.

And waited.

It took over an hour for my luggage to appear. I don’t understand why it took so long. There were a lot of other people who were still waiting when I left, so I guess I was lucky, but it should never have taken so long.

By the time I got out to get my rental car, I was nice and grumpy. It didn’t help that there are almost no signs that make sense in Kennedy and it took me three tries to find the train to the rental car and get on the right train (silly me, I thought the trains would be clearly marked as to which was which).

I had reserved my car online from Dollar; Dollar had quoted a rate which was the cheapest by a lot—at least $10 less per day. It didn’t take long to discover why they were so cheap.

They had one person manning the rental counter with a long line. I think I waited 45 minutes to get my paperwork processed. The line to pick up the car was just as long. By the time I drove out of the rental car lot it had been more than three hours after we had been let out of the plane. I was disgusted by the inefficiency at JFK.

I was also somewhat disappointed. The Young Israel of Hewlett (my shul before we made aliyah) was having a picnic/BBQ that afternoon, and I had planned to catch the end of it, surprising all of our friends. However, by the time I was out of the airport, it was way too late to try to make it to there.

Being back in New York was kinda weird. The first adjustment was the car. It was way too big. In Israel, the rental car we are using (until we buy a car) is much smaller—all the cars are smaller. The American cars are much larger and have tons of room.

Back at home, Goldie was not having an easy time of it. It is of course a rule that whenever things happen, they will happen at the most inopportune time. It is tough to be the only parent when you are used to having a team. I know she feels more comfortable when I am in the house, and she has told me that she never feels safe when I am away—even if it is only for a late meeting.

Compounding all of this is the fact that we simply have no comfort level yet. We live in a foreign country, where nothing is familiar to us. We have developed no routine or standard approach to daily life. Everything is new and strange to us and until we have spent months adapting to the changes, each day takes an enormous amount of effort.

Of course, inevitably, things that could have gone wrong at home, began to. Aliza (and several other of her new olim classmates) spent an hour crying in school because they don’t understand what is going on in class. Then, the s’ ulpan was moved to a different building and Goldie had to scramble to arrange transportation for them. The repairs to various systems (like the A/C) are ongoing. The car battery died and she needed to go get the car replaced. So Goldie had a tough few days after I left.

It was strange to go back to our old neighborhood and see everyone for the first time. Since we have tried to adapt so hard, and have invested so much energy and emotion into making new friends, we have not really had time to miss the friends we left behind. We have spoken to people on our internet phone, and have kept in contact via e-mails and instant messaging, but it isn’t the same as actually being there.

Driving was also much different. In Beit Shemesh, where we live and do most of our driving, there are almost no traffic lights. Wherever there is an intersection of major cross streets, there is a traffic circle. Drivers enter and exit the traffic circle when there is an interval between cars which makes for a pretty orderly flow of traffic. I love these traffic circles. It eliminates a lot of wasted time spent waiting for a traffic light.

I had approached driving in Israel with concern. Goldie was even more worried. The reputation of Israeli drivers and driving was that it was very dangerous and discourteous. However, we have found driving in Israel to be pretty comfortable, orderly and calm. Goldie drives into Yerushalayim without concern and we have been pleasantly surprised by how easily we adapted to the driving patterns. So it was strange to be sitting at red lights again.

I enjoyed the trip to New York. I was busy running around to see people (fundraising is after all a major part of my job), connect with our alumni at the various universities they attend (I had a really nice breakfast with our YU alumni and a great lunch with the NYU guys), visit friends and see how they are doing and also spend some time with our family.

The Yeshiva of South Shore happened to have their back to school night while I was in New York. So I decided to hang out there so that I could see all the people who I had worked with and wouldn’t have the opportunity to make a special visit to see. It was really funny to watch everyone’s reaction as they saw me at the entrance to the building.

I really enjoyed that shocked reaction all week; it was just very exciting to see everyone (in both cities).

Although the trip was a “business trip,” there were various things Goldie wanted me to pick up for the kids and the house that simply aren’t available in Israel. So I made sure to pack an extra empty bag to bring stuff back in. In the end, my mother-in-law bought so many things for the kids that I was very lucky to have thought of bringing that empty suitcase with me.

Among the things that we needed were paper blinds for all of our main floor windows. Most windows in Israel have trissim (shutters) that roll up and down for privacy, except in our neighborhood. In our neighborhood, the majority of the houses—including ours—do not seem to have trissim on the main floor.

When you consider the fact that the main floor is about five feet below ground level and that we have a lot of windows, privacy becomes a major issue. Each day at 7:00 p.m., the construction workers across the street assemble to wait for their bus home. The workers are all Thai, so we have had to deal with 20 or so Thai workers literally staring into our home as we eat dinner, do homework and go about our lives. Plus, I am sure that the neighbors are sick of seeing into our house.

In the end, after measuring the window space, I had to buy 14 different packages of blinds at Home Depot. Of course, they didn’t fit into my suitcase, so I had to tape them together into a bundle and shlep them with me through the airport, on the plane and everywhere else I had to go on my way to Chicago.

The arrival in Chicago was as great as the arrival in New York was awful. Mine were the third and fourth bags to hit the carousel and I had a great experience with Enterprise Rent-A-Car. They greeted me at the door with a bottle of water, and were so cheerful and fun. And they had the cheapest price too.

As a Chicago native, I find it ironic that I will most likely be visiting Chicago more often now that I have moved to Israel than I did when I lived in New York. Our yeshiva has strong Chicago connections and we have a significant amount of Chicago alumni as well.

At my first meeting the first day in Chicago, I got a panicked call from Goldie. Her terrible week was continuing. She was panicked and incoherent because of something with the kids. After a lot of trying to figure out what she was saying, I finally caught one word. “Nit.”

We had been warned over and over that no matter how lucky we had been in the past that there was no way we would escape the lice issue. Apparently, everyone in Israel has this problem and usually more than once. There are many families who simply don’t care if their kids get it or if they pass it on to others.

Goldie was totally panicked. In her words, “I was so sure that we would be different, that I would make sure that they were clean and we would not get lice. I knew people had said that it was inevitable, but I didn’t really believe it could possibly happen to us. I think I was more shocked that it actually happened than I was about them having it.”

Goldie learned a lot about hair lice this week, having to deal with two cases of it in the house. Chaia Broderick was great. She ran to our house immediately and jumped right in, calming Goldie and helping strip linens and check hair.

She also called one of her friends, a teacher in the s’ school, who came to our house on her way to a Bar Mitzvah (all dressed up) just to show Goldie what to do. By the end of the day, they had gone a long way in getting Goldie back to normal, but I really felt bad that she had to be alone when this happened (not that I really wanted to deal with hair lice—but I still felt bad).

The time in Chicago started much slower than New York. After that first day, where I was able to get stuff done, I hit Erev Shabbat and then Shabbat. I was able to do a little more shopping (a new wireless router and a camera and mike to set up Skype for the kids to talk to their grandparents and friends via computer) as well as prepare notes for a couple of speeches.

These articles are running both in New York and in Chicago. When we scheduled this trip, I had been asked to speak in Chicago about our experiences and perspective as new olim. I spoke at Seudah Shlishit in my parents’ shul, KINS, as well as twice on Sunday (once between Mincha and Ma’ariv at Or Torah in Skokie and once at a special event organized by Religious Zionists of Chicago whose newsletter runs these articles).

Goldie had wanted me to try to move my return up a day or two (partly in shellshock from what had happened while I was gone). However, it was a good thing that I stayed, because I had come to Chicago to prepare for a parlor meeting we are having there after Yom Tov and I really needed to get some wrinkles straightened out on Monday.

I will be flying back via Newark on Tuesday, overnight into Wednesday, and I will have a couple days to prepare for Rosh Hashanah—our first.

As we prepare to enter the new year, we are filled with mixed feelings. We are of course excited that we have begun our lives here. We are also worried about the various issues that can crop up for us, and about the kids and their acclimation into the school system and the neighborhood.
Not everything is guaranteed to go well, and we hope that Hashem answers our Tefillot this year as positively as he did last year (making our aliyah possible).

On behalf of Goldie and all the kids, we wish one and all a Shana Tova Umetuka, health, happiness and that Hashem grant that your Tefillot are answered with the best possible results for you and your families.