Friday, December 09, 2005
Kummunique - Issue 10, Parshat Vayeitzei 5766
Kummunique - Kumah's Shabbat and Holiday Bulletin
Issue 10, Parshat Vayeitzei 5766
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shalom! We are proud to present another issue of Kummunique.
This issue is filled with Aliyah and Eretz Yisrael inspiration - so enjoy!
In this issue you will find:
1. "Illness Buster" by Malkah Fleisher
2. "Kommemiyut" by Yishai Fleisher
3. "Adjusting To Israeli Life A Year After Making Aliyah"
4. "Jewish Agency Poll Shows Aliyah Getting Easier"
5. "Aliyah Figures On The Rise Again" By Ron Littman
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. "Illness Buster" by Malkah Fleisher
So how's about that weather, huh? The world over, weather is weird. In France, they've tired of letting the grandfolks broil, so now they're letting them freeze. In America, people are no longer amused at the concept of the weather outside being frightful and the fire being SO delightful, and letting it snow, letting it snow, letting it snow. And here in Israel, our big trouble is that we've dug out the winter coats but have no opportunity to put them on. Alas - another day in shirt sleeves! Prayers for rain continue unabated in the Holy Land, with nary a drop in sight.
And the entire world is calling in sick, winter weather of all kinds affecting our immune systems.
Barring the Avian Bird Flu (Lo Aleinu!), you have two friends out there who want to get you through it. One friend likes Italian and is often seen hanging out in a well known Jewish healing part of town, Chicken Soup. She's pale, small and unassuming, but is also a warrior, wily and merciless. You guessed it: Garlic.
The other is ruddy-faced and fur clad, laughing at the snowy slush under his heavy winter boots. Gruff and manly, his booming voice has you toasting Glasnost and dancing in circles in the square. With a mandolin in one hand and a Kalashnikov in the other, he's: Vodka.
Like the Jews: apart their tough, but together they're invincible. Your enemies (the germs) won't know what hit them.
Malkah's "Get Away From Me!" Illness Annihilator
2 cups Vodka
15 cloves Garlic
Peel garlic cloves and put in a jar that you can seal tightly. Pour the vodka over the garlic, and seal the jar. Put the jar in the refrigerator and leave it there for 6 weeks. If you feel a cold coming on, pour a shot glass full of the liquid, and say l'chaim. Follow up with another if you're feeling a little dangerous. It's called "Get Away From Me!" because that's what people will be saying to you for at least 24 hours. But at least you'll have your health.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. "Kommemiyut" by Yishai Fleisher
When Jacob was running from his brother Esav - he was scared. Jacob was scared that his brother may catch him and kill him - but he was even more afraid to leave Eretz Yisrael. On his way out of the Land of Israel, Jacob laid down to sleep and dreamt of angels ascending and descending a ladder.
There in Beit El, G-d, in His kindness reassured him:
"Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." (28:15)
This indeed reassured Jacob that everything would work out and therefore he put the peddle to the metal:
'And Jacob lifteth up his feet, and came to the land of the children of the east.' (29:1)
Many adventures and many years passed and finally Jacob returned to Beit El, his special place, to thank G-d for keeping His promise.
There in Beit El, Hashem appears to Jacob again, as once did, so many years before:
'God said to him, "Your name is Jacob; you shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name." Thus He called him Israel.'(35:10)
Our Rabbis ask: why should the Torah tell us that 'You should no longer be called Jacob' - isn't it enough just to tell him his new name 'Israel'?
Rashi explains: "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob: Yaakov is an expression of a man who comes with stealth and guile (Akava), but Yisrael is a term denoting a prince (Sar) and a chief."
Now that you gone through so many adventures and you have returned to the Land of Israel - it's time for you to throw off the old name which signifies being a "thief in the night" - now it is time for you to show the world what you really are: a prince, a noble, an emissary of G-d on this world. The name 'Yaakov' represents the Galut and the constant hounding of the Jewish people. We managed to succeed, to stay alive, but always by the skin of our teeth. 'Yisrael' represents our pride - when we can say proudly (but without haughtiness) - Hashem has returned us to our rightful inheritance. Israel is the name of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel.
***
Recently, I looked up the word "dignity" to see how to say it in Hebrew - I was astounded by the answer:
KOMMEMIYUT = "Uprightly" = Dignity
It is time now to return dignity to the Jewish people - to be proud to be strong. Proud to be Hashem's people, strong in fulfilling His will. The Torah tells us in Parshat Behukotai:
`If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments so as to carry them out" Then:
`I will also walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people. `I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would not be their slaves, and I broke the bars of your yoke and walked you erect - KOMMEMIYUT!
We are slaves no longer - we are Yisrael, and Hashem has walked us proudly to our Land.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. "Adjusting To Israeli Life A Year After Making Aliyah" By Dina Kraft
http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=16094&intcategoryid=1
BEIT SHEMESH, Israel, Dec. 6 (JTA) Sara Benuck, age 8, who immigrated to Israel with her family a little over a year ago from the United States, comes into the kitchen and thrusts a take-home science test in front of her mother. What does this mean? she asks, pointing out a long question in Hebrew about how electricity works.
Her mother, Marni, a trained psychologist, tries to make sense of the Hebrew but then passes the test on to her husband, a doctor, who goes word by word through the question and helps translate it for Sara.
Sometimes its a very humiliating experience doing homework with the kids says Marni, 35, a mother of four. But we show them we struggle too but are not giving up. We will persist.
The Benucks made aliyah from their home in Passaic, N.J. They had good jobs, a spacious house and their children were happy in school. But they had always wanted to make their life in Israel, so they sold their home, packed up their books, the childrens toys, the cherry wood dining room set and matching dark green leather couches and set off to live their dream.
Theirs is a story of planning, realistic expectations and happy landings.
Before they even made aliyah, the couple visited Israel on a pilot trip and chose a community Beit Shemesh, a town in the Jerusalem foothills that has become an increasingly popular residence for American olim and even decided which home they would buy a two-story townhouse still under construction on the end of a quiet street.
There were delays and not everything went as planned. The townhouse, for example, was supposed to be completed by last November, but the Benucks only received the keys in July.
But, Mitchell, 36, says, We had realistic expectations that not everything would go well.
The couples first goal was to find work a process that proved easier than expected. Marni, who worked as a school psychologist at a Jewish day school in New Jersey, was offered a job through Beit Shemeshs municipality to work at two fervently Orthodox schools before they even arrived. The municipality noted her credentials through a posting on a Web site sponsored by Nefesh BNefesh.
Mitchell is one of a group of North American physicians who have immigrated to Israel with their families as an Applebaum Fellow. The program is in memory of Dr. David Applebaum, a Chicago-born Israeli doctor who served as head of emergency services at Jerusalems Shaarei Zedek Hospital until he and his daughter, Nava, were killed in a suicide bombing at a Jerusalem caf? in 2003, on the eve of her wedding. As an Applebaum Fellows of Nefesh BNefesh a North American organization funded by private, philanthropic sources, and the Jewish Agency for Israel the Benucks receive financial and logistical support of up to $18,000 toward beginning anew in Israel.
According to a recent survey commissioned by JAFI of North American olim who just passed their one-year mark in Israel, 90 percent describe themselves as either satisfied or quite satisfied with their arrival into Israeli society. More than a quarter, however, have yet to find job.
Mitchell, a pediatrician, says he feels lucky to have found work in Beit Shemesh working at one of the national health funds. Before he could look for a job, however, he had to get his Israeli medical license. There were some bureaucratic delays such as the Ministry of Health temporarily losing his American license, but fairly quickly a committee convened and determined he would have to do three months of work in an Israeli hospital emergency room before he could be accredited.
Now, medical license in hand, he spends his days working shifts at four different clinics of one of the national health funds in Beit Shemesh. Last week he could be found in a bright, airy office with dangling butterfly and zebra mobiles stethoscope slung around his neck and wearing a Bugs Bunny tie inquiring about the X-ray for a young boy.
The medicine he is practicing in Israel is very different from what he did as an attending physician at a major New Jersey hospital but that, he says, has more to do with the difference between working in a hospital environment and an outpatient clinic.
Two of the clinics service fervently Orthodox neighborhoods, the other two mixed neighborhoods of immigrants from North America, the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia and local Israeli-born residents.
When it comes to his and his wifes new jobs, there is a significant difference in take-home salaries, said Mitchell, but there is one major expense they no longer have to worry about tuition for their children at private Jewish day schools.
Last Tuesday he finished his morning shift at the clinic on Bar-Ilan Street and walked outside into the warm sunshine to pick up his two youngest children from day care. Marveling at the weather, he smiled and said, I hope to not lift a shovel again in my life.
Mitchell then walked a few blocks away to pick up the youngest member of the Benuck family and the only one to be born in Israel Shoshana Meira or Shani for short. She was born just two months after the Benucks made aliyah and was named for Marnis close friend, Shoshana Greenbaum, who had been the maid of honor at the couples wedding. She was killed in the suicide bombing of the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem in August 2001.
Once Shani is in hand, Mitchell walks another few blocks to collect Yonatan, age 5, from his nursery school. Most of Yonathans classmates, like him, are the children of American immigrants.
They are more polite and relaxed. Israeli-born children are more aggressive, says his teacher, Michal Hadad. Yonathan, after his 15 months in the country, speaks Hebrew without an accent.
Abba, look at my picture, he says, pointing out his artwork of the day hanging on the wall.
Meanwhile his teacher thanks Mitchell for the referral to a good orthopedist who has been helping her with her back problems.
The oldest Benuck child, 10-year-old Eli, joins his father and two youngest siblings on the walk home. They pass newly planted palm trees in traffic circles and low stone walls that line the sidewalks.
When they reach their home on Gad Street, they wave to neighbors most of them also recent American olim and then push open the front door, walking past the dark wood side table covered with framed family photos. The table was originally part of a display cabinet that did not make the move when the family realized it would not fit in their new, slightly snugger surroundings.
After lunch, the children settle down for an afternoon of homework with the help of first Mitchell and then Marni when she returns home from work.
Eli, wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap, sits in a corner of the Benuck homes combined living room and dining room and thumbs through a book in English, explaining that he still prefers to read in his native tongue. But, he says, he is adjusting to reading books and doing schoolwork in Hebrew. He figures he only understands about two-thirds of what he reads in Hebrew.
One of Elis new friends, a fellow immigrant from the United States who came a year before he did, is helping him and that, he says, is making a difference Of America, says Eli, I miss my friends. I kind of miss my school.
At his new school he is not an anomaly as an immigrant. Many of his classmates are the children of parents from English-speaking countries, and there are also children from France and Hungary.
And there are advantages to being a kid in Israel, he says. You can play in the street on Shabbos, you can get a taxi without a grown-up and you can ride the public bus. Kids are more independent.
Another added plus: going to the center of town to eat pizza with friends without having your mother or father take you. Another addition to the Benucks life that Eli is thrilled about is that one set of his grandparents Marnis parents now live just a few blocks away, instead of the 3,000 miles away when they all lived in America.
Marnis parents made aliyah three months ago from their home in Los Angeles, in large part to be near their grandchildren. They said they have met other grandparents like them who moved to Israel to be closer to their children and grandchildren.
These are choices that are not easy to make, says Sharlene Balter, Marnis mother. But when I walk down the street and see my grandson going to the park or my granddaughter coming over, this is why we are doing this.
In the backyard the Benuck children swing on their new swing set and laugh and play.
I think there is less stress than people imagine there would be our life is day-to-day. We have jobs to go to, a supermarket to shop in. Weve settled into a routine and it is here, says Mitchell, who is especially looking forward to voting in Israel in the upcoming elections.
And after over a year break since they made aliyah, its back to Tuesday night Grill Night. Its time for hamburgers and a taste of America in their new Israeli backyard.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. "Jewish Agency Poll Shows Aliyah Getting Easier"
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1132475664744&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
As opposed to popular perception, a new poll shows that the aliyah process for North American Jews is a much less daunting ordeal than previously thought.
Representatives of 402 households consisting of 1,464 individuals who made aliyah during the 12-month period from the beginning of September 2004 until the end of August 2005, were polled in the survey, which was carried out by Dr. Mina Zemach of the Dahaf Institute, and was coordinated by the Information, Planning and Evaluation Section of the Department of Aliyah and Absorption of the Jewish Agency.
A large majority of 93 percent of the interviewees expressed a high level of satisfaction with their absorption in Israel.
Seventy-four percent said that they would recommend making aliyah to others.
The amount of economic assistance one receives is a critical factor in ensuring successful aliyah, and here too interviewees expressed a great deal of satisfaction.
Eighty percent of the new olim said they had received substantial assistance from organizations such as government ministries, the Jewish Agency and, or Nefesh BeNefesh, while 84% of the olim received assistance of some kind in the aliyah process.
Nonetheless, the survey results confirm that employment is a central component in successful absorption and that a comprehensive effort is required to improve the assistance provided to olim in this area.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. "Aliyah Figures On The Rise Again" By Ron Littman
http://info.jpost.com/C005/Supplements/5766/08.html
The number of new immigrants to Israel in the past year increased for the first time since 1999, according to The Jewish Agency for Israel and the World Zionist Organization.
The new change was attributed to an increase in Aliya from France and North America. Immigration from Ethiopia also increased in the past year. On the other hand, the number of Olim from the CIS was lower than in the previous year, although they still represent nearly half of the total annual immigrants.
Some of the places that contributed smaller amounts of newcomers included more "exotic" countries such as Pakistan, Thailand, the Philippines, Brunei, China, Japan, Mali, and Zimbabwe.
In total, since September 2004, 23,124 Olim immigrated to Israel, as compared to 21,604 who arrived in the previous year.
Zeev Bielski, chairman of the Jewish agency, credits the change to the improved security and economic conditions in Israel and to new marketing strategies taken by his agency and by other local institutions. One of these strategies was "stepwise Aliya" in which prospective youth were first brought to Israel for brief visits, followed by longer introductory periods in which they got acquainted with Israeli life and learned about relocation options.
Bielski stated that the prime minister and his staff placed the issue of Diaspora and Aliya in particular as his highest priority.
Issue 10, Parshat Vayeitzei 5766
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shalom! We are proud to present another issue of Kummunique.
This issue is filled with Aliyah and Eretz Yisrael inspiration - so enjoy!
In this issue you will find:
1. "Illness Buster" by Malkah Fleisher
2. "Kommemiyut" by Yishai Fleisher
3. "Adjusting To Israeli Life A Year After Making Aliyah"
4. "Jewish Agency Poll Shows Aliyah Getting Easier"
5. "Aliyah Figures On The Rise Again" By Ron Littman
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. "Illness Buster" by Malkah Fleisher
So how's about that weather, huh? The world over, weather is weird. In France, they've tired of letting the grandfolks broil, so now they're letting them freeze. In America, people are no longer amused at the concept of the weather outside being frightful and the fire being SO delightful, and letting it snow, letting it snow, letting it snow. And here in Israel, our big trouble is that we've dug out the winter coats but have no opportunity to put them on. Alas - another day in shirt sleeves! Prayers for rain continue unabated in the Holy Land, with nary a drop in sight.
And the entire world is calling in sick, winter weather of all kinds affecting our immune systems.
Barring the Avian Bird Flu (Lo Aleinu!), you have two friends out there who want to get you through it. One friend likes Italian and is often seen hanging out in a well known Jewish healing part of town, Chicken Soup. She's pale, small and unassuming, but is also a warrior, wily and merciless. You guessed it: Garlic.
The other is ruddy-faced and fur clad, laughing at the snowy slush under his heavy winter boots. Gruff and manly, his booming voice has you toasting Glasnost and dancing in circles in the square. With a mandolin in one hand and a Kalashnikov in the other, he's: Vodka.
Like the Jews: apart their tough, but together they're invincible. Your enemies (the germs) won't know what hit them.
Malkah's "Get Away From Me!" Illness Annihilator
2 cups Vodka
15 cloves Garlic
Peel garlic cloves and put in a jar that you can seal tightly. Pour the vodka over the garlic, and seal the jar. Put the jar in the refrigerator and leave it there for 6 weeks. If you feel a cold coming on, pour a shot glass full of the liquid, and say l'chaim. Follow up with another if you're feeling a little dangerous. It's called "Get Away From Me!" because that's what people will be saying to you for at least 24 hours. But at least you'll have your health.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. "Kommemiyut" by Yishai Fleisher
When Jacob was running from his brother Esav - he was scared. Jacob was scared that his brother may catch him and kill him - but he was even more afraid to leave Eretz Yisrael. On his way out of the Land of Israel, Jacob laid down to sleep and dreamt of angels ascending and descending a ladder.
There in Beit El, G-d, in His kindness reassured him:
"Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." (28:15)
This indeed reassured Jacob that everything would work out and therefore he put the peddle to the metal:
'And Jacob lifteth up his feet, and came to the land of the children of the east.' (29:1)
Many adventures and many years passed and finally Jacob returned to Beit El, his special place, to thank G-d for keeping His promise.
There in Beit El, Hashem appears to Jacob again, as once did, so many years before:
'God said to him, "Your name is Jacob; you shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name." Thus He called him Israel.'(35:10)
Our Rabbis ask: why should the Torah tell us that 'You should no longer be called Jacob' - isn't it enough just to tell him his new name 'Israel'?
Rashi explains: "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob: Yaakov is an expression of a man who comes with stealth and guile (Akava), but Yisrael is a term denoting a prince (Sar) and a chief."
Now that you gone through so many adventures and you have returned to the Land of Israel - it's time for you to throw off the old name which signifies being a "thief in the night" - now it is time for you to show the world what you really are: a prince, a noble, an emissary of G-d on this world. The name 'Yaakov' represents the Galut and the constant hounding of the Jewish people. We managed to succeed, to stay alive, but always by the skin of our teeth. 'Yisrael' represents our pride - when we can say proudly (but without haughtiness) - Hashem has returned us to our rightful inheritance. Israel is the name of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel.
***
Recently, I looked up the word "dignity" to see how to say it in Hebrew - I was astounded by the answer:
KOMMEMIYUT = "Uprightly" = Dignity
It is time now to return dignity to the Jewish people - to be proud to be strong. Proud to be Hashem's people, strong in fulfilling His will. The Torah tells us in Parshat Behukotai:
`If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments so as to carry them out" Then:
`I will also walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people. `I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would not be their slaves, and I broke the bars of your yoke and walked you erect - KOMMEMIYUT!
We are slaves no longer - we are Yisrael, and Hashem has walked us proudly to our Land.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. "Adjusting To Israeli Life A Year After Making Aliyah" By Dina Kraft
http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=16094&intcategoryid=1
BEIT SHEMESH, Israel, Dec. 6 (JTA) Sara Benuck, age 8, who immigrated to Israel with her family a little over a year ago from the United States, comes into the kitchen and thrusts a take-home science test in front of her mother. What does this mean? she asks, pointing out a long question in Hebrew about how electricity works.
Her mother, Marni, a trained psychologist, tries to make sense of the Hebrew but then passes the test on to her husband, a doctor, who goes word by word through the question and helps translate it for Sara.
Sometimes its a very humiliating experience doing homework with the kids says Marni, 35, a mother of four. But we show them we struggle too but are not giving up. We will persist.
The Benucks made aliyah from their home in Passaic, N.J. They had good jobs, a spacious house and their children were happy in school. But they had always wanted to make their life in Israel, so they sold their home, packed up their books, the childrens toys, the cherry wood dining room set and matching dark green leather couches and set off to live their dream.
Theirs is a story of planning, realistic expectations and happy landings.
Before they even made aliyah, the couple visited Israel on a pilot trip and chose a community Beit Shemesh, a town in the Jerusalem foothills that has become an increasingly popular residence for American olim and even decided which home they would buy a two-story townhouse still under construction on the end of a quiet street.
There were delays and not everything went as planned. The townhouse, for example, was supposed to be completed by last November, but the Benucks only received the keys in July.
But, Mitchell, 36, says, We had realistic expectations that not everything would go well.
The couples first goal was to find work a process that proved easier than expected. Marni, who worked as a school psychologist at a Jewish day school in New Jersey, was offered a job through Beit Shemeshs municipality to work at two fervently Orthodox schools before they even arrived. The municipality noted her credentials through a posting on a Web site sponsored by Nefesh BNefesh.
Mitchell is one of a group of North American physicians who have immigrated to Israel with their families as an Applebaum Fellow. The program is in memory of Dr. David Applebaum, a Chicago-born Israeli doctor who served as head of emergency services at Jerusalems Shaarei Zedek Hospital until he and his daughter, Nava, were killed in a suicide bombing at a Jerusalem caf? in 2003, on the eve of her wedding. As an Applebaum Fellows of Nefesh BNefesh a North American organization funded by private, philanthropic sources, and the Jewish Agency for Israel the Benucks receive financial and logistical support of up to $18,000 toward beginning anew in Israel.
According to a recent survey commissioned by JAFI of North American olim who just passed their one-year mark in Israel, 90 percent describe themselves as either satisfied or quite satisfied with their arrival into Israeli society. More than a quarter, however, have yet to find job.
Mitchell, a pediatrician, says he feels lucky to have found work in Beit Shemesh working at one of the national health funds. Before he could look for a job, however, he had to get his Israeli medical license. There were some bureaucratic delays such as the Ministry of Health temporarily losing his American license, but fairly quickly a committee convened and determined he would have to do three months of work in an Israeli hospital emergency room before he could be accredited.
Now, medical license in hand, he spends his days working shifts at four different clinics of one of the national health funds in Beit Shemesh. Last week he could be found in a bright, airy office with dangling butterfly and zebra mobiles stethoscope slung around his neck and wearing a Bugs Bunny tie inquiring about the X-ray for a young boy.
The medicine he is practicing in Israel is very different from what he did as an attending physician at a major New Jersey hospital but that, he says, has more to do with the difference between working in a hospital environment and an outpatient clinic.
Two of the clinics service fervently Orthodox neighborhoods, the other two mixed neighborhoods of immigrants from North America, the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia and local Israeli-born residents.
When it comes to his and his wifes new jobs, there is a significant difference in take-home salaries, said Mitchell, but there is one major expense they no longer have to worry about tuition for their children at private Jewish day schools.
Last Tuesday he finished his morning shift at the clinic on Bar-Ilan Street and walked outside into the warm sunshine to pick up his two youngest children from day care. Marveling at the weather, he smiled and said, I hope to not lift a shovel again in my life.
Mitchell then walked a few blocks away to pick up the youngest member of the Benuck family and the only one to be born in Israel Shoshana Meira or Shani for short. She was born just two months after the Benucks made aliyah and was named for Marnis close friend, Shoshana Greenbaum, who had been the maid of honor at the couples wedding. She was killed in the suicide bombing of the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem in August 2001.
Once Shani is in hand, Mitchell walks another few blocks to collect Yonatan, age 5, from his nursery school. Most of Yonathans classmates, like him, are the children of American immigrants.
They are more polite and relaxed. Israeli-born children are more aggressive, says his teacher, Michal Hadad. Yonathan, after his 15 months in the country, speaks Hebrew without an accent.
Abba, look at my picture, he says, pointing out his artwork of the day hanging on the wall.
Meanwhile his teacher thanks Mitchell for the referral to a good orthopedist who has been helping her with her back problems.
The oldest Benuck child, 10-year-old Eli, joins his father and two youngest siblings on the walk home. They pass newly planted palm trees in traffic circles and low stone walls that line the sidewalks.
When they reach their home on Gad Street, they wave to neighbors most of them also recent American olim and then push open the front door, walking past the dark wood side table covered with framed family photos. The table was originally part of a display cabinet that did not make the move when the family realized it would not fit in their new, slightly snugger surroundings.
After lunch, the children settle down for an afternoon of homework with the help of first Mitchell and then Marni when she returns home from work.
Eli, wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap, sits in a corner of the Benuck homes combined living room and dining room and thumbs through a book in English, explaining that he still prefers to read in his native tongue. But, he says, he is adjusting to reading books and doing schoolwork in Hebrew. He figures he only understands about two-thirds of what he reads in Hebrew.
One of Elis new friends, a fellow immigrant from the United States who came a year before he did, is helping him and that, he says, is making a difference Of America, says Eli, I miss my friends. I kind of miss my school.
At his new school he is not an anomaly as an immigrant. Many of his classmates are the children of parents from English-speaking countries, and there are also children from France and Hungary.
And there are advantages to being a kid in Israel, he says. You can play in the street on Shabbos, you can get a taxi without a grown-up and you can ride the public bus. Kids are more independent.
Another added plus: going to the center of town to eat pizza with friends without having your mother or father take you. Another addition to the Benucks life that Eli is thrilled about is that one set of his grandparents Marnis parents now live just a few blocks away, instead of the 3,000 miles away when they all lived in America.
Marnis parents made aliyah three months ago from their home in Los Angeles, in large part to be near their grandchildren. They said they have met other grandparents like them who moved to Israel to be closer to their children and grandchildren.
These are choices that are not easy to make, says Sharlene Balter, Marnis mother. But when I walk down the street and see my grandson going to the park or my granddaughter coming over, this is why we are doing this.
In the backyard the Benuck children swing on their new swing set and laugh and play.
I think there is less stress than people imagine there would be our life is day-to-day. We have jobs to go to, a supermarket to shop in. Weve settled into a routine and it is here, says Mitchell, who is especially looking forward to voting in Israel in the upcoming elections.
And after over a year break since they made aliyah, its back to Tuesday night Grill Night. Its time for hamburgers and a taste of America in their new Israeli backyard.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. "Jewish Agency Poll Shows Aliyah Getting Easier"
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1132475664744&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
As opposed to popular perception, a new poll shows that the aliyah process for North American Jews is a much less daunting ordeal than previously thought.
Representatives of 402 households consisting of 1,464 individuals who made aliyah during the 12-month period from the beginning of September 2004 until the end of August 2005, were polled in the survey, which was carried out by Dr. Mina Zemach of the Dahaf Institute, and was coordinated by the Information, Planning and Evaluation Section of the Department of Aliyah and Absorption of the Jewish Agency.
A large majority of 93 percent of the interviewees expressed a high level of satisfaction with their absorption in Israel.
Seventy-four percent said that they would recommend making aliyah to others.
The amount of economic assistance one receives is a critical factor in ensuring successful aliyah, and here too interviewees expressed a great deal of satisfaction.
Eighty percent of the new olim said they had received substantial assistance from organizations such as government ministries, the Jewish Agency and, or Nefesh BeNefesh, while 84% of the olim received assistance of some kind in the aliyah process.
Nonetheless, the survey results confirm that employment is a central component in successful absorption and that a comprehensive effort is required to improve the assistance provided to olim in this area.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. "Aliyah Figures On The Rise Again" By Ron Littman
http://info.jpost.com/C005/Supplements/5766/08.html
The number of new immigrants to Israel in the past year increased for the first time since 1999, according to The Jewish Agency for Israel and the World Zionist Organization.
The new change was attributed to an increase in Aliya from France and North America. Immigration from Ethiopia also increased in the past year. On the other hand, the number of Olim from the CIS was lower than in the previous year, although they still represent nearly half of the total annual immigrants.
Some of the places that contributed smaller amounts of newcomers included more "exotic" countries such as Pakistan, Thailand, the Philippines, Brunei, China, Japan, Mali, and Zimbabwe.
In total, since September 2004, 23,124 Olim immigrated to Israel, as compared to 21,604 who arrived in the previous year.
Zeev Bielski, chairman of the Jewish agency, credits the change to the improved security and economic conditions in Israel and to new marketing strategies taken by his agency and by other local institutions. One of these strategies was "stepwise Aliya" in which prospective youth were first brought to Israel for brief visits, followed by longer introductory periods in which they got acquainted with Israeli life and learned about relocation options.
Bielski stated that the prime minister and his staff placed the issue of Diaspora and Aliya in particular as his highest priority.
// posted by Pinchas @ 12:12 AM 
