My fiancé Daniel and I just boarded the plane at Ben-Gurion Airport to go back home to Los Angeles and I burst into tears.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“Yes. I’ve never felt this before,” I say between sobs. “I don’t want to leave.”
“That’s because Israel is your home.”
The year was 2015. I’d just spent three glorious weeks in Israel studying at a seminary in Jerusalem and then touring the country for a few days. During the trip, Daniel proposed to me at the Kotel on a snowy night. I was going home with a beautiful ring on my finger and hopes for our bright future together, but I was still melancholy.
I didn’t want to leave; I was on a spiritual high. When I prayed at the Kotel, delved into Jewish wisdom with incredible teachers, heard Israeli music for the first time, tasted the delicious shawarma and saw the stunning sea in Tel Aviv, I knew I belonged there.
But I had to get back to my normal life. How could I just move to another country that was over a 20-hour journey away from LA? I wasn’t born Jewish – would they accept a convert? I didn’t speak Hebrew, so how would I get by?
There were just too many questions. It was way too complicated to even think about. And so I focused on our wedding and marriage instead.
A few years later, after Daniel and I had gotten married, anti-Semitism started increasing in the United States. I felt scared to go back to shul after the Pittsburgh massacre and encouraged our board to hire an armed guard. I told Daniel to cover his yarmulke with his baseball cap after the attacks in Crown Heights and a Persian synagogue just down the road from us was ransacked one Shabbat. I was freaked out that Daniel was at our local Chabad during Pesach last year when just two hours away a shooter had attacked the Chabad of Poway that same day.
So we started planning to make aliyah. “That’s it. We’re really leaving this time.” But then I got pregnant with our first child, our daughter, and we focused on her.
When our daughter was five months old, COVID-19 lockdowns began in LA. We were suddenly forced to stay inside and celebrate Pesach and Shavuot, two of my favorite holidays, alone. And on Shavuot, as I was taking my daughter on a long walk around the neighborhood on a beautiful sunny Shabbat, a man came up to me and told me to get inside by 8 p.m. because of a curfew. I saw helicopters circling downtown. I heard sirens in the distance. I couldn’t turn on my phone to see what was happening, so I ran home.
After Shabbat, I turned on my TV and saw live aerial footage of the shopping mall next to me after it had just been looted. I wrote articles about Jewish businesses looted during the riots, as well as synagogues and pharmacies spray-painted with anti-Semitic language.
I’d had enough. I logged onto Nefesh B’Nefesh and spent the next few weeks filling out all my forms for making aliyah. This time, I was for real.
Though the aliyah process will take several months, my husband and I hope to go as soon as we can. It’s been our goal to live in Israel for a long time; he loved it when he spent a year there post-high school. We needed a final push to get us there. This is it.
We’ve heard from a few Holocaust survivors that the kind of events occurring in the U.S. now are eerily like what they experienced. I hope that things get back to normal in America but I no longer feel completely secure.
But we aren’t making aliyah for that reason. Instead, we see that it’s now or never. Many people have told us that if we don’t do it while our daughter is young, then we never will. A lot of friends have told us they wished they’d made aliyah when they were in our position, and they regretted not doing it. I absolutely love America, but I can’t envision staying here for the long term because Israel seems to offer so much more.
In Israel, hopefully our daughter will have Jewish pride, something that is tough in an anti-Semitic environment and in our anti-religious LA culture. We want to be surrounded by our Jewish brothers and sisters, especially if another world crisis happens again.
We want to contribute to Israel’s economy and bring our unique skills there to build it up, helping to ensure the future of the state. We want to feel safe under the protection of not only one of the finest militaries around, but also, of course, God where we palpably feel His presence. We want to experience what it’s like to live in the only Jewish state in the world and feel its history, as well as realize a dream that so many generations before us could not.
I imagine returning to IsraeI, smiling at the people greeting us with Israeli flags, and tears are running down my cheeks. But this time, they'll be tears of joy.
(13) Eldad, July 29, 2020 4:09 AM
Real estate assistance for olim
This is a beautiful article and I wish you that B"h your family will have an easy adjustment and that you will build an amazing Jewish home in the Holy land. We have a company, working mainly with new olim and with Anglos who are already made Aliyah with renting and buying homes in Israel and we will be happy to assist olim chadashim in this challenging process. Please go to zivrealty.com, read the testimonials and feel free to contact with any question. Good luck to everyone and B"h lots of success in your Aliyah process. Eldad
(12) Rachel, July 17, 2020 4:48 AM
Couldn't do it at your age, but good for you
I had a chronically ill parent for my entire adult life, so it was not feasible for us. I'm so happy for you and others who have been able to make Aliyah. The pandemic has given us a new perspective about the fact that we cannot be certain that we can always go overseas if we want to. We're not at the paperwork stage yet, but we're starting to get our finances in order to make it possible. Best of luck.
(11) William, July 16, 2020 8:38 PM
Israel Citizenship
I have Jewish YDNA and mtDNA, I able to get Israel Citizenship if I move there. I am 74 years old and have my own income.
(10) Sharon, July 16, 2020 5:02 PM
ask not what your country can do for you, but rather...
Why do we only hear about which country has more to offer? Life is not a shmorgasboard. One would hope that a Jew would choose the place where he can live more fully as a Jew. I wanted to live in the Jewish homeland, G-d's promised land, so I came as a young girl, not running from anything but materialism, 36 years ago. Never considered going back. This is home. People who come for the wrong reason are more likely to go back disappointed. But hopefully this writer will find everything she's looking for.
(9) Sher, July 15, 2020 5:20 PM
beautiful article about aliyah
Well written and inspirational article about a young fanily's aliyah to Israel ...hope it goes smoothly for them! I have visited Israel twice and love the country and Jerusalem. I am Christian, but unfortunately not Jewish. I pray often for the protection and success of Israel. May Yaweh bless you!♡
(8) Eliezer, July 15, 2020 11:59 AM
thankyou
maybe like u, been back n fourth sooo many times. i live in the most amazing City of Melbourne yet the Negev is home. now getting organised. cya there
(7) david, July 15, 2020 12:53 AM
aliyah paperwork
The Jewish Agency has made more paperwork necessary to make Aliyah. Documents now need to have apostilles to certify that they are legal. The biggest time consumer is the FBI background check and then getting the state department to apostille it. There are several good FB aliyah groups to get advice from.
(6) Anonymous, July 14, 2020 7:16 PM
Kol hakavod for making aliyah
You're a very smart woman. Kol hakavod to you for deciding to come home. We made Aliyah almost 12 years ago ( in Aug) from NY. We had a wonderful life there but unfortunately, America is finished. I pray for my family to be safe and to hopefully get here before it's too late. Wake up everyone! It's time to come home
(5) Andrea Schonberger, July 14, 2020 7:16 PM
Me too
My husband and I are also thinking of making Aliyah and I've been looking at the Nefesh B’Nefesh web site plus seeing how I can transport my pet cat to Israel. We don't require much in the way of our possessions--just essential clothing, Judaica, and most favorite books and pictures. I'm prepared to downsize and make sacrifices. We went there 2 years ago and it's livable plus we've lived overseas before, 3 years in Germany and 2 in Korea, so we're adaptable. May Hashem see us through this.
(4) Nancy, July 14, 2020 11:40 AM
Of course I don't know what my future holds.....
But every day I understand more and more why people make Aliyah. Last November I took my very first trip to Israel and I smile every day when I think about the experience. If you had asked me several years ago about the possibility of making Aliyah I would have said of course not. Now, the answer is not so certain. Obviously, I am not getting on a plane at the moment but I want very much to visit Israel again as soon as I can. I have greatly appreciated your journey to Judaism and wish you and your family health and safety. Please write a follow up article on your Aliya journey.
(3) MESA, July 14, 2020 12:22 AM
May Hashem bring us all Home very soon.
(2) Aviel, July 13, 2020 6:00 PM
smart move it seems to me congrats
it's not easy but in history it's rarely if ever never been easier, and you are doing your daughter and future kids a big favor.I wish more Jews would come without conditions deteriorating in the USA, but that seems to be the way Jews usually end up home. Best of luck and know you are following the Torah's directive. Not suggested it come to that, but one can even divorce a spouse if he/she won't move to Israel
(1) Regina, July 13, 2020 11:27 AM
Mazal Tov!
Dear Kylie and family,
I hope this finds you well and soon-to-be thriving in Eretz Yisroel.
We ALL need to be thinking seriously about making Aliya,
not only because things continue to deteriorate /become more dangerous for us but because Israel has so much to offer. Sadly, many of our brothers and sisters outside of Israel aren't receptive to this discussion - kudos to you for sharing your experience and inspiring the rest of us to TAKE ACTION! AM YISROEL CHAI!