Tova HaAretz Meod Meod 2 – Update for 2020

Author's note - Please see the previous post on this topic if you have not yet done so.


Rabbi Zechariah Wallerstein has a message for us. This made a bit of a splash last week. Apparently, it was an hour-long schmooze but this is the excerpt I got in my inbox.

(Note – Embedded video may not appear in email version. You can get an audio segment HERE).

Essentially, he is telling us that "It is time to go [to E"Y]" while acknowledging that he cannot bring himself to do it as of yet.  He is really struggling. So was I - 23 years ago. It isn’t easy.

We made aliya to Eretz Yisrael in 1997 and all I can say is that I am sure glad we did.

Why did “I” make Aliyah? (I am talking about myself right now, not my wife.)

·       Firstly, as the narrative in my previous post relates, it was my wife’s dream. You could say I did it for shalom bayis. And, yes, we are still talking.

·      Secondly, as the son of a Holocaust survivor and a “student” of holocaust history, I knew only too well how the comfort of the tolerant “Western” society is a mere illusion that could vanish in a moment. At the time, in 1997, my father asked me why I want to make Aliyah? In addition to the previous point, I told him, “Look, we are in golus here just like we were in Europe. Sooner or later there is going to be a mahapeicha (upheaval) here just like there was in Spain and Europe and everywhere else. There has always been. HKBH sees to it. So there will have to be another one. It’s only a question of ‘when?’.  Why should I stick around here and entrench my family and wait for it to happen?” He could not disagree with me on this. (Incidentally, his immediate goal after liberation was to get to Eretz Yisrael. However, he was stymied by the Zionist anti-religious bureaucracy and wound up in the US instead.)

·       Thirdly, the religious Zionist Bnei Akiva indoctrination of my youth left a lasting impression on me and a sense on nationalistic pride – ahavas ha’aretz – even though I had long felt that they fell quite short in ahavas Torah and I had to move on to “blacker” pastures.

·       Fourthly, we had six children at the time and had no plans of shutting down the factory (we have since more than doubled). The excessive tuition and health care costs made it impossible for a large growing family to get ahead financially by natural means. It would always be a struggle. And, as many other olim have said. “If we’re going to struggle anyway, may as well struggle here in E”Y.”

·       And, finally, because I could.

This last point has several connotations. At its simplest level, it means that the door is open in ways that did not exist in previous generations.

At a stronger level, it means not only that I can, but that this is a very auspicious opportunity and it is not likely to stay this way. I was at the prime of my life and the prime of my financial strength and the Israeli economy and international standing (post-Oslo) were in their prime as well. I felt it is sort of a “now or never” situation.

But at the most profound level, I saw it as a responsibility. The conditions were so favorable that it was as if I saw a “heavenly” neon light with an arrow pointing to Eretz Yisroel blinking as if to say, “Go this way >> Go this way >> Go this way >>”. I honestly felt that I would be betraying the fulfillment of the aspirations of generations of ancestors if I did not capitalize on this opportunity.

I also felt a responsibility to my diaspora neighbors. If people like me who have such an opportunity don’t take advantage of it and go, why should anybody go? If I can set an example for others, I need to do it.

So we did. No regrets. I can’t stop thanking my wife, and my Dad, and HKBH.

So last week, Rav Zechariah Wallerstein got onto the Net and told us like it is. It is time to go. He’ll shut the lights.

We all know that the United States of today is not the United States of yesterday. It may not be a communist country, but it is getting closer every day to George Orwell’s Animal Farm – with genuine two-legged animals. In Animal Farm, the mantra “All Animals are Created Equal” was amended to say, “All Animals are Created Equal – but some are more Equal than Others.”

America is a bit different. The mantra “All Men are Created Equal” has been amended to say, “All Men and Women and Children and Animals and Illegal Aliens and Criminals and Straights and Gays and Democrats are Created Equal”. America has become much too equal.

The American masses are starting to discover that we Jews are not created equal. All the non-law-abiding moslems are created equal. All the LGBTQIXYZ are created equal. Black Lives Matter, M-13 Lives Matter, sexual deviants’ lives matter and any chicken’s life matters – but your Jewish life doesn’t matter. Not to them.

More and more distinguished people are saying that it’s time to go (or time to come). Until now it was easy to brush off. Now, it’s getting serious. The most common excuses are: (1) “I have my parnassah here. I have no idea how I will make a living in Israel” and (2) “My extended family is here. How can I disconnect myself?”.

Enter Covid-19! (May it exit just as fast.)

Covid-19 has wiped out the parnassah of 25% of the population. And it has made a significant dent in that of everyone else. It doesn’t answer the question of how one will make it in Eretz Yisroel but, “If we’re going to struggle anyway…”

Covid-19 also introduced may of us to Zoom and its clones. After faxes, emails, electronic banking and online purchasing, distance doesn’t matter as much anymore. I have been more “in touch” and “face to face” with my parents in the US since this crisis began than ever. Of course, I wish they were here, but I am not out of touch. Sure we can’t all be at all the weddings and bar mitzvas, but lately a lot of us have been missing weddings and bar mitzvas even while living in the same town!!!

Moreover, as I wrote in my essay which is displayed in my previous post, Aliyah causes a snowball effect – one sibling goes, then another, then the parents decide they may as well go and be near the siblings who went…and then the rest of the siblings go.

No, it’s not easy. But it isn’t going to get any easier. Right now, the planes aren’t flying. But I believe HKBH will give us (i.e., you) another chance. The planes will get back up there…for a while. But the next time they go down, you may need to pump those bicycle tires like in Roy Neuberger’s 2020 book.

What do you need to do? And what does Rabbi Zechariah Wallerstein need to do?

You need to contact Nefesh B’Nefesh and open up an Aliyah file even if you have no current plans to go. Just go through the motions. Make believe. It only costs $65 to open a file and maybe $130 for a mandatory FBI clearance check (we did not need these). Get the letter from the Rabbi and a photocopy of the wife’s/mother’s kesuba (nobody asked us to show ours when we landed.) And update all of those passports!

If you don’t go through with it, you can always renew the file. NBN will tell you all the rules. You probably won’t even need to set a date up front because the planes aren’t flying anyway. Just be ready for when they are.

Another thing you can do is to open a bank account here in shekels. Not a big one to give you tax issues but enough to have something to come to. Incidentally, the dollar has been slipping against the shekel for the past ten years. If it totally collapses, the shekels will be here.

My dear parents already own an apartment here and they bought karka on Har Hazeisim years ago. But they still live in the US as do two of my married siblings. We want very much for them to come for good on the upper part of the plane with all the seats. So, I asked my father, the Holocaust survivor whose 60 year diamond business was finally KO'ed by Corona, why he doesn’t just come? He told me if “this shmegega” (Joe Biden) reaches the White House, then he’s done with the US.

I told him, “Just for this, I am going to vote for him!”

The only way to succeed at making Aliyah is to commit yourself to making Aliyah. There are no shortcuts!

When I announced my intentions to make Aliyah to my community, some people came and asked me if we are only going on a trial basis to see if we manage or going full steam and burning my bridges?

I answered that we are uprooting a house with six children aged one to ten packing things, selling things, buying things, and shipping things all being subsidized by the Jewish agency. It’s a monumental undertaking. Imagine if in a number of years I have seven, eight, or nine kids and I feel like undoing it all and coming back without any subsidies from the Jewish Agency. Would I be able to manage such a thing? 

So we are here in Eretz Yisrael. We are still here. Yes, I am out of work (lots of time to learn!), which is why I write, but I am far from hungry, B"H. We eat mahn and we drink mei be'er and we are here watching our loved ones in the US trying to stay afloat. We are concerned. We don't like what we see. Decay never reverses itself.

We always tell ourselves, "Someday, we would love to move to Eretz Yisrael." For years, the Jewish Never Again activists have been crying "Never Again is now!" And we (including Rabbi Wallerstein) are crying, "Someday is now!"

Listen to me. Listen to Rabbi Wallerstein. Let Rabbi Wallerstein listen to Rabbi Wallerstein. 

I guarantee you that you will all thank me…in much less than 23 years.