Welcome to Beit Shemesh (Article #18) 8/31/2006

We finally got our lift.

It’s funny how things turn out. We had waited and waited with increasing frustration for our lift to arrive. Yet, when all was said and done, it really did arrive at the perfect time for our needs.

We spent the first two nights in our house sleeping on air mattresses. We had moved out of the summer rental home that came with all the furnishings included (beds, oven, washer and dryer, etc.) in order to make way for the returning owners.

I should make clear that the majority of olim spend much more than 2 nights on air mattresses. Most olim come to Israel with at least a week to wait before their lift arrives. They come with air mattresses and borrow a mini fridge from a Gmach and rely upon the good graces of their neighbors for things like oven use (after the first week or so – when people stop delivering daily hot meals to your door) and laundry machines. Some live like this for a month or more while waiting for their lifts to arrive.

So, sleeping two nights on air mattresses should not be that big a deal. I guess we were spoiled by living in the furnished house, because we couldn’t deal with the air mattresses. The adults and older kids didn’t sleep and we were just miserable.

Thankfully, the Weinsteins furnished the home with an oven (albeit a small sized European style oven) and a fridge – so we had those conveniences. Yet, the lack of beds and furniture was definitely a strain on our family of 8. I think the strain was compounded by our weariness of having to live without our normal, familiar stuff. We were just ready to be “home”.

On Monday night, we took the kids to meet my sister’s family for the first time. With the exception of one nephew who had visited us in America last winter, the kids had not actually met each other, ever. My kids were even a little irritated with us that they had an uncle that they hadn’t seen in their entire lives.

We headed back to the house pretty late and after dropping the kids off, I drove my brother’s car back to his house so that he could have it available to him the next day when he returned from his summer vacation in America.

The next morning we rented a small Hyundai for one month’s time. We still haven’t settled what we are going to do about buying a new/used car/van, but knew that we needed transportation, so this was a good compromise. While I was out picking up the car, Goldie called to tell me that the movers had arrived with the lift.

We had a great experience with the movers here in Israel. They actually arrived on time at around 8:30 AM and the whole unloading process took about 4 hours to complete. I have to say that the entire crew was amazing and very pleasant to work with.

On Monday night we had (on the advice of our shippers) taped a number on the door of each room in the house. As boxes and furniture was unloaded from the truck, all we had to do was tell the “shleppers” what room number the item belonged in and they knew exactly where to go. It actually got to the point where they recognized where certain items (like Rubbermaid containers of kids clothing) would go and they would tell us what room they needed to go to.

Although NY definitely had a worse heat wave than we did, the month of August has been brutal here. Tuesday was no exception. We went through something like 15 liters of liquids for a crew of 5 guys.

I was amazed by the guy who worked inside the truck. His job was to carefully unpack the truck and bring each box or item to the edge of the truck for the shleppers to bring into the house. It was hot like an oven in the truck and I could see the sweat pouring off of him. Yet, he just kept going without complaint.

The shleppers also did a great job. They worked quickly and tried very hard to be careful with each item. As they unloaded the truck, the crew chief was busy in the house reassembling our beds and making sure that the major furniture was unwrapped and placed in the right spot.

By the time they left, we had boxes everywhere and a ton of unpacking to do.

We decided to set up the living/dining room first and then move on to the kitchen before trying to set up beds for the night. We really made good progress that first day. We had most of the kitchen set up and ready to go as well as almost all of the living/dining room.

We started to move the dining room table when it suddenly collapsed! Apparently the move had weakened the screws that kept the table together and they came apart. After the shock wore off, we shot a quick email off to the Beit Shemesh email list asking for repair recommendations.

That night, we replaced the air mattresses with real mattresses. Yet, with the exception of Chaya, we still were all sleeping on the floor. Our room as well as Aliza and Batya’s room still had no A/C (it still doesn’t) so we couldn’t use those beds. We had bought brand new beds for all the boys and the movers only assembled things they had taken apart, so those beds were still in their boxes.

It didn’t make a difference – we finally slept soundly.

Chaim and I spent our entire Wednesday building beds. We started the day building bunk beds for Mordechai and Moshe. Anyone who has ever built something manufactured in a foreign country (in this case Vietnam) will attest to the fact that the directions are impossibly difficult to understand. Although there were only 7 steps in the entire process, since each step actually had 15 – 20 parts and the pictured instructions bore little resemblance to the pieces in front of us, the assembly took some time.

In the afternoon we built Chaim’s loft bed/workstation. It comes with drawers, a trundle bed, a computer work desk, bookshelves and oh yes, a loft bed on top. The assembly instructions were very long, and therefore very easy to follow and we had everyone in assembled beds by Wednesday night.

I had taken half a day off on Sunday to help Goldie with the initial move into the house. Initially, I had made an arrangement with the Yeshiva to take the entire week off whenever our lift arrived. However, since my boss was busy fighting in Lebanon, I needed to be in the Yeshiva as much as possible to help make sure that we were ready to open.

So, I went to work on Monday and only took Tuesday and Wednesday off to unpack and set up the house before returning to work for a half day on Thursday.

Thursday afternoon (after building a desk) we took the kids to a special “Education Day” fair sponsored by Nefesh B’Nefesh. The kids all had activities (Chaim went on a tiyul in the Beit Shemesh hills, Chaya stayed home and the rest of the kids had arts and crafts and other supervised activities) to keep them busy while we attended the seminar.

The sessions were very informative and we were happy to have attended. The opportunity to meet other olim and hear their stories was also terrific and the fact that we got invited to Shabbat dinner (by the Rudolphs who made Aliyah last year from Cedarhurst) was an added bonus.

Chaim started Yeshiva on Friday and we attended the opening day father/son minyan and breakfast together. Unlike American schools, we had been told to expect a certain amount of chaos and disorganization from Israeli schools. We weren’t disappointed.

The school schedule for the first week wasn’t finalized and the building is still under construction. They weren’t sure what the final dismissal time would be and they were very laid back about it. However, Chaim seems to like his Rebbe and his classmates, which to us is the most important thing.

Goldie attended a graduation ceremony for Batya and Mordechai’s ulpan that morning. Both kids gained a lot from their participation in the ulpan programs and were excited to finish and be declared “prepared” for the school year.

That afternoon Chaim and I went to Home Center which is supposed to be like Home Depot in the US. It isn’t. The selection is not as good and they simply don’t have certain things. So, we only took care of 30% of our list that day.

Eventually, we will either buy things in America and bring them in or adapt our needs to the goods available. Since we have not yet done either of those things, we weren’t thrilled when we left the store. Yet, we did see the Block’s (they moved to Chashmonaim from the 5 Towns this summer for a trial year) at Home Center which was a treat.

On Friday afternoon, the neighbors started to arrive with cookies and cake. We also got a visit from the “furniture doctor” who prescribed an insurance claim and a quick fix for the dining room table.

We had a great first Shabbat in Sheinfeld. We had an official welcome both on Friday night as well as on Shabbat, and the entire shul sang V’Shavu Vanim Li’Gevulam for us each time.

There was another new family in shul that week (the Lehrers) that had also recently moved here from London and who turned out to be our backyard neighbors. When I went to introduce myself to them I discovered that he is Lisa Zahn’s brother (Lisa and Levi Zahn’s son Zevi has gone to school with Chaim for the past 10+ years)!

I was personally greeted by the gabboim (one of whom is Gershon Tokayer who made Aliyah from the 5 Towns 14 years ago and whose wife is on the chessed/welcoming committee for the neighborhood) and felt that the entire shul was very welcoming. Many people made special efforts to introduce themselves to us when they heard we were recent olim and we really felt as if they made a conscious effort to make us feel comfortable.

Shabbat afternoon, we farmed the kids out (it is amazing how quickly the kids make friends and disappear) and enjoyed a visit from Naomi and Raizy Schwartz (Olim from the 5 Towns four years ago) who had just returned from an American visit the day before.

I tried to tell Naomi some stories about tiyulim we had gone on and things that had happened to us, but she kept interrupting me by saying, “I read about that already!”

On Sunday, Goldie began the “week with the kids”. All the summer programs we had the kids enrolled in are now finished, and with the exception of Chaim who started Yeshiva on Rosh Chodesh, all the kids are home. And bored. And driving Goldie nuts.

I wisely went to work nice and early on Sunday to attend a staff meeting in anticipation of the arrival of our Northern Hemisphere students on Monday. We finally have all of our staff together (4 members were called to the reserves during the war) and had a chance to bring everyone up to date on what we had done to prepare the Yeshiva and the building for the year.

On Sunday evening, Goldie made a special trip to Yerushalayim. She met me at the Yeshiva and we went to Talpiyot to order closets for all the kids rooms (there are very few houses with built in closets in Israel) and some bookcases for my home office.

I always enjoy negotiating prices with the various tradesman (even those who refuse to lower their prices). I especially love feeling that I got myself a good deal until I realize that the 50 shekel discount I got is the equivalent slightly over $10. On small items, the negotiation is sometimes $2 to $5 all told and it is jarring to realize that I may have spent 10 minutes arguing over $2.

We had a much better week this week. I would say that we felt that we made a lot of progress and there were a lot less emotional lows.

There is still a lot more work that needs to be done before we can say that things are back to normal; we have tons of finishing touches to get the contractors to complete in the house (A/C, painting, kitchen table installation, plumbing repair, etc.), we have major appliances that need to be installed, we have many boxes yet to unpack and we still have no phone or internet (and hence no internet telephone line for America).

Since Goldie is much more focused on things being organized than I am, they irritate her much more than me and I often find myself reassuring her that life will not always be as messy as it is right now. We often hear people tell us that in 6 months we will be laughing at the situations we were in. We often feel that we wish it were already 6 months down the road so that we could begin laughing.

Yet, through it all, we still tell people that we feel as if we were chosen by Hashem to make this move. Even when we think things are going poorly, we will freely admit that we have had a much easier Aliyah than many people – in many different ways. We only hope that we continue to be blessed with more positive growth and as few setbacks as possible.

Mazal Tov to Marc and Miriam Gottlieb and their family upon their Aliyah last week with Nefesh B’nefesh!! May your Klitta be Neimah (May your absorption be pleasant)!