Baltimore Families Are Still Making Aliyah By Gabriella Burman MAY 05, 2000 Baltimore Jewish Times Thinking of moving to Israel? Sure, you can still enjoy the best of what life has to offer: museums, stocked supermarkets, an evening at the opera. But chances are in Israel you'll arrive at an evening gala in a sundress and sandals, and, most likely, by Egged bus or sherut, a shared taxi. If you do drive, it'll be in your small, white, stick-shift Peugeot, and you'll park it with two wheels on the curb by a block of white stone apartment buildings. Much of Israel is made of stone. The sun glinting off the buildings enhances the country's beauty, set as it is against sparse greenery and hilltops. But is it "home"? Richard and Joyce Levitas of Smith-Greenspring certainly think so. Come July, they are packing up their house and four school-age children, and relocating to the Nofei Aviv neighborhood of Beit Shemesh, a town of 30,000 on the outskirts of Jerusalem. They have chosen Nofei Aviv because they have close friends there and they are looking for a suburban lifestyle not dissimilar to the one they enjoy here. Nofei Aviv is "highly Anglo," says Ms. Levitas, 34, referring to the term used by Israelis to describe English-speaking olim, or immigrants, from North America, Great Britain, Australia and South Africa. Both she and Mr. Levitas describe their Hebrew as, at best, "fair," although helping their children with homework sent home from Yeshivat Rambam/Maimonides Academy has improved it some. In preparation for making aliyah — the word means ascension in Hebrew and is used to describe one's move to Israel — the entire family currently works with a tutor who is assisting the children to improve their Hebrew reading skills. As Ms. Levitas points out, "The kids will be learning math in Hebrew. They'll have to understand what textbook instructions are asking." They also have chosen Nofei Aviv because it is affordable. The family plans to rent a house for about $750 a month until they acclimate and choose a permanent home. Rental assistance to new immigrants is offered by the government on a sliding scale for 60 months. The amount varies depending on a person's marital status. For the first 12 months, a family receives a subsidy of about $100 a month; thereafter, the amounts diminish. Once the family purchases a house, as new immigrants they will also receive mortgage assistance, provided they buy a home within seven years of their arrival. Upon the formation of the State of Israel in 1948, the government absorbed survivors of the Holocaust who had nothing and provided them with free housing, job training, Hebrew language instruction, food and clothing. As the state blossomed and international anti-Semitism waned, and the status of Jews improved in many countries, Israel began to address the needs of olim on a country-by-country basis, and benefits were determined by whether a person was fleeing a country of distress, such as the Soviet Union or Ethiopia, or coming to Israel by choice. Today, the list of immigrant benefits seems impressive: five months of ulpan, or Hebrew language courses, free if used within one year; unemployment benefits for the first year if both spouses are not working; six months free health care; reduced customs duty on cars; and the tax-free shipment of appliances to Israel for three years after one's arrival. The incentives are regarded as merely "basic" by immigrants and shlichim alike. (Shlichim are Israeli emissaries who cultivate interest in and plan programming on moving to Israel.) "The benefits are offered simply in order to make aliyah viable," says Judi Widetzky, who for two years has served as regional director of the Israel Aliyah Center in Rockville. "Whatever it is that will help you furnish a home and help you make a living." She herself made aliyah by boat in 1951 at age 10 from Minneapolis with her family. Back then, she says, "Americans were seen as idealists who could make it on our own. They're still regarded that way." The perk, she says, is the $50 one-way aliyah fare to Israel, and the fact that children 12-and-under fly free. The process by which one arrives at that point, however, when one is handed his or her flight voucher, can be daunting. Only those who are meticulous, detail-oriented, organized individuals who thrive on stress will succeed. Enter Ms. Levitas. Charged with selling the house here, photocopying dental and medical records, obtaining letters from rabbis and pediatricians, researching shipping companies, registering the children in schools in Israel, and filling out countless forms and applications, the Randallstown native and technology director at Yeshivat Rambam says the initial elation following the family's decision to make aliyah soon settled into "the reality of being consumed by and focused on the details. It's like running a business." The family will run an actual business from Israel. Mr. Levitas, 39, and Ms. Levitas own an educationally-focused start-up company called okquest.com, which provides ready-made, technology-integrated, problem-solving activities for educators accessible via the Internet. They plan to launch the site from Israel in late summer, hire curriculum developers from both Israel and the United States, and sell their products into American markets. "We love America," says Mr. Levitas. "We've benefited from it and we hope to continue to benefit from it. Economically, we know we could do well if we stayed in the U.S. But when does enough become enough? It's not wrong to say, 'I want more.' That's the American dream. But we want to live the dream there, too. "For us, we have enough money now to give aliyah a shot, enough to get through the first few years. In prayer we talk about returning to Zion, and now that we have the sovereignty and the opportunity to go, I think we have a duty to live there, or at least to try. I respect any family that has gone, even if they've had to come back, for whatever reason, because at least they tried." Should okquest.com fail, he says, "Both Joyce and I are technically-oriented. We're told we'll have no problem getting jobs in Israel's high-tech sector, where business is conducted almost entirely in English." Neither of them, however, expects to fail. Making it in Israel requires perseverance, a shift in priorities, and a relaxation of high expectations. One moves to Israel not to duplicate life in America, says Mr. Levitas. "It's not the 51st state." Take for instance, says Ms. Levitas, the experience she had last summer, registering her children for school in Beit Shemesh. She had been under the impression that she could not enroll her children in school without their teudah zehut, identification card, which they will receive upon their arrival in Israel. As she met with countless absorption and school officials, she was sent from person to person, presumably to the individual who could inform her about registering her children in school. Other changes will be harder, says the couple. "In Baltimore we've made a lot of friends through our involvement in our synagogue [Suburban Orthodox-Toras Chaim Congregation] and the Associated. In Israel, they don't know what a volunteer is!" says Mr. Levitas. But being involved less in the community will allow him to "focus on the family," he says, and make sure "everyone is adjusting." The older children, Tali, 10, and Ari, 9, both students at Yeshivat Rambam who have been to Israel twice, are excited about the move and practice their Hebrew around the house. "Tali," says Mr. Levitas, "was ready to go, even without the family." Says Tali: "Every time I go there, it just feels like home." Even had the family not been planning to move, she says, she would have wanted to become a bat mitzvah there. "My best friend lives there." Ari says he'll miss his extended family, most of whom live in Maryland, but not places like Toys 'R' Us. "We might be giving up stuff like Toys 'R' Us, but we get more there in other ways, like more kosher restaurants," explains Tali, jumping in. And the opportunity to take their Jewish education to the next level, adds Ms. Levitas. "Everything the kids are learning in school will come alive," she says. Frequent tiyulim, or field trips, to biblical and archaeological sites are common features of Israeli education. "Children in Israel," she believes, "are more free than they are here, and revered. Here I would never let Tali take public transportation or go to the mall by herself, but I felt completely comfortable doing so there." Echoing a common refrain, she explains why. "In Israel, the people are its assets. It's a child-oriented society," Ms. Levitas says, relating the common example of mothers being routinely chastised by strangers for either bundling up their children too much or too little, depending on the weather. Likewise, she says, young children are reprimanded by strangers if they don't give up their seat on the bus for a pregnant or elderly woman. Frankly, she adds, "We don't love living as Orthodox Jews in a Christian society. We know there is a secular side to Israel, and that it's no Utopia, but there we can be who we really are. We won't have to explain why men wear kippot, or why we need to take days off from work for the holidays. We won't have to worry so much about assimilation and intermarriage either. "It's just a different spiritual plane." Ms. Widetzky of the Israel Aliyah Center says that across denominations, the people making aliyah today are those "who want to live a Jewish life that is based not only on going to the synagogue. They want to turn on the radio and hear Hebrew songs, they want to walk outside on Rosh Hashanah and feel that it is Rosh Hashanah without stepping foot into shul. Zionism and Judaism are ideologies you can capture only by living in Israel. And there are millions of small examples — seeing soldiers walking on the street, eating a falafel." The Levitas family's enthusiasm for their "Jewish adventure," as they call it, is tempered only by the knowledge that the nature of their close relationship with four grandparents will necessarily change. "That's the most difficult part about moving," says Mr. Levitas, who has taken pains to convince his mother, Estelle, that the family will visit the United States once a year if they can afford to, and that "there is e-mail and video conferencing, and it costs only 12.5 cents a minute to call Israel." But Estelle Levitas counters, "It's not the same thing as walking five blocks." She and her husband used to attend Shabbat dinner every Friday night at her son's home. "It's hit me very hard," she says. "They're taking those kids away from two sets of grandparents who give unconditional love. In my generation, children would never leave their parents. But I guess the younger generation doesn't feel guilt." "I wish they were more materialistic," Estelle says of her son and daughter-in-law. "Then they'd never go." But it is precisely because "our parents are well enough to travel, and because Tali has one more year of elementary school left, which will make it easier for her to integrate with her classmates before adolescence, that we're going now," says Ms. Levitas. She urges young families who are considering aliyah to "Go now! Later on, it might become more difficult, for a variety of reasons." Rabbi Ervin Preis of Suburban Orthodox furnished the Israel Aliyah Center with the requisite letter verifying the family's Jewish identity and involvement in the synagogue. He says he, too, would love to make aliyah but "I have an elderly mother and three married children living in America. It's easier to make aliyah when you are younger and you can take your children with you." In his 23 years at Suburban Orthodox, he can think immediately of 10 families who've made aliyah. "Some had to come back," he says. "But we're a staunchly pro-Israel congregation. I speak about aliyah from the pulpit, certainly." When she arrived in the United States, Ms. Widetzky says she was surprised to find how little the American Jewish community in general promotes aliyah. "Why should anyone be surprised? It's not a viable agenda for most American Jews," says Beth El Congregation's Rabbi Mark G. Loeb. Over the past 25 years, he says he has never encouraged aliyah. "Jews are not looking for a message to leave America. Why would anyone leave the safest, most democratic, most prosperous nation in the world? "Anyone who makes aliyah is exceptional," he says. "A rabbi will have no more influence over that decision than one's own mother — a mother will have more! If I encouraged aliyah, the parents of my congregants would get angry with me. Zionism without aliyah is an American tradition." Says Mr. Levitas: "It makes sense to stay, and it makes sense to go. It's a case-by-case decision. We're not looking to be pioneers or to make a stand. I won't even understand at first what the politicians are saying. But the political situation is irrelevant. We're going because it's our land." Karl "Moses" Freidheim, a 6-foot-6 wing guard at Western Maryland College in Westminster, is going for another reason. He wants to play basketball overseas after he graduates in May, and a former teammate, an Israeli from Haifa, encouraged him to make aliyah, and try out for a team as an "Israeli." Foreign basketball teams only allow two American players per team so that they do not dominate, Mr. Freidheim explains. His status as an Israeli will put whatever team he plays for at an advantage, as it will allow two "other" Americans to join the team. He plans to make aliyah this summer in advance of the basketball season, which starts in September. "Before I met my friend, I didn't even know they had basketball over there," says Mr. Freidheim, 21. He brought his whole family into Judi Widetzky's office for his initial interview at the Israel Aliyah Center, and discovered that a Towson University senior, Ryan Lexer, had successfully made aliyah a few years ago, and plays for HaPoel Jerusalem. The two are in touch, and Mr. Freidheim hopes to replicate Mr. Lexer's smooth transition — join a team, settle in the city he plays for, room with a teammate. Because he will be 22 and unmarried when he makes aliyah, he will have to serve 100 days in the army, in order to receive basic training. "I'm nervous and excited," he says. "But I want to experience something new. If I'm not ready for changes, I shouldn't be going at all." Were he going to university, explains Ms. Widetzky, he could defer service for three years. "We've looked at his stats. He has a chance of making it," says Shellie Ben-David, the administrative assistant at the Israel Aliyah Center in Rockville. "But we want Karl to take advantage of ulpan before his tryouts, because if he plays for a few years and then wants to coach, he can't do it without the language and he'll have to pay to go to a private ulpan." In a letter she wrote to Mr. Freidheim recently, she told him, "You don't want to find yourself in the same position as other sportsmen who've lived in Israel for 10 years and don't speak the language — it will make it harder to socialize and earn a living." The army, also, will not take him without his having completed ulpan. Although itching to spend the summer playing basketball with his friend in Haifa, Mr. Freidheim says he does realize the importance of learning Hebrew. "I don't want to be the ugly American who thinks he can get away speaking English and using American mannerisms," he says. His spiritual leader, Rabbi Robert Saks, of Columbia Jewish Congregation, thinks Mr. Freidheim's basketball talent "may be his ticket to employment and to acceptance by Israeli society." He is, however, surprised that Mr. Freidheim or any young person today is making aliyah. "Israel is of greater meaning to the Holocaust generation," says Rabbi Saks. "Young people are enjoying a good economy, and anti-Semitism is down. There is no push from America to go to Israel right now." And yet, says Ms. Widetzky, one-third of the people making aliyah today are young singles like Mr. Freidheim with college degrees. "They contribute to the economy and dispel the notion that only peripheral Jews who don't fit into the upper echelons of American Jewish society and people who need saving make aliyah," she says. Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, of Greenspring's Shomreh Emunah Congregation, argues that there are three reasons for American Jews to make aliyah. "There is a religious imperative, that it is a mitzvah [commandment] to live in Israel, and that there are certain mitzvot one can only fulfill by living in Israel," he says. "A democratic argument, that Israel needs a strong American aliyah comprised of highly educated, highly skilled, democratic individuals. And a happiness argument, that Jews will be happier living in Israel because there they feel authentic as Jews. The existential nature of living in the Diaspora is that we live with a certain degree of inauthenticity." Or as 10-year-old Tali Levitas puts it: "You can only feel holy in the Holy Land."