When I talked to people in the US about why I chose to make aliyah, there would inevitably be some eye-rolls--not from my amazing, non-Jewish friends, but from my Jewish ones. Why would I choose to pick up and leave a career, just starting out doing what I love, all my friends, my family, and that which is familiar, to live in a desert, monitor my water intake like a heart attack patient monitors fats, learn Hebrew, and probably struggle to find a job?
Some days I wonder myself. I still don't have many of my own friends here, and those I have are mostly leaving at the end of the school year. It's been a little cold recently, but every time I turn on the heat, I feel spoiled. And frankly, getting up and into ulpan 5 days a week by 8:15 can be a major drag.
But then there's a day--or rather a class--like today. In my uplan class, we've each written texts about a city we grew up in, or lived in. Nothing particular--just to practice writing. Our teacher grades them, and then one at a time, we discuss them in front of the class. Needless to say, I wrote about Wegmans, my beloved city of Rochester, and my other city, Washington, DC. I finished my somewhat amusing (a girl can dream, right?) presentation after another classmate, from Amsterdam.
Then it was another classmate's turn; for her sake, we'll call her Sarah (safe Jewish name, right?). Sarah's the oldest person in my class, at about 50, and today during a conversation, she told me that when she came to Israel, she didn't even know the Hebrew letters. Her husband sells classroom supplies, an hour's commute from where they live, and works ten hours each day. I'm not lying to say I was sort of wondering about why she made aliyah. If it was hard for me at 25, I can't even imagine what it would be like later.
But it turns out that unlike me, who ran to something, Sarah ran away. And today, she told us why. Her grandparents moved from Syria to a small town in Turkey (I assume it's small because I've never heard of it, but it could be a huge city, for all I know...), and she is really, really Turkish. As in, she speaks only Turkish, and when she needs to look up a word in a dictionary, she has to use two, because there's no Hebrew-Turkish one.
She told us how in her home city, she remembers one Passover when men with guns circled her house, and it was only by luck that no one was injured. She paused to stop the tears streaming down her cheeks. They went to the local government, but nothing changed, and the threats and shooting of the Jewish community continued. The threats against the community grew to be really unsafe, so they left. Some came to Israel, and some went to Istanbul.
She went to Istanbul, got married, had two children, and a career. Eventually she came to feel unsafe there too, she said, crying again. The government does nothing to protect it's Jewish citizens, and she's not a fearful woman, but the fact that her Prime Minister rails against the Jews continually really upset her.
I'm not an expert on the Jewish community of Turkey. But I know Sarah, and she's not an alarmist; she's a middle-aged woman, who probably would have been perfectly happy not learning another language, taking two different buses to Hebrew class. But she felt unsafe--so unsafe she had to leave. In 2009 (when she came).
I'm not nearly doing justice to her story, but there's a reason that three of the people in my class of 20 are Turkish. And there's a reason they could make aliyah--that they will be able to learn Hebrew, find jobs, and pay rent. And that reason is partly due to the Israeli government (though don't get me started on them...) and partly due to the generosity of the people who read this blog, American Jews who give.
This is not an advertisement for the Jewish federation system--I'm not being paid, and though I used to work for them, I didn't do any of this. But I can tell you that a serious part of why Sarah's in my ulpan class, why she was able to run, and come to a thriving place--it's because of the philanthropy of American Jews, and because of the Federation system.
So if you're one of them, who thinks maybe in 2010, our local federation should leave more money in the local community (I know about the devastating effects of the economic crisis), because really, who needs Israel today, I'd rather go out for dinner or on vacation, I could spend my money somewhere else or any other excuse, I'd ask you to reconsider your gift--or to raise it.
Israel matters for people like Sarah, who have somewhere to run when they have nowhere else where they can simply be. It matters for me, when I chose to live my life in a place where the air is Jewish and Sunday is just another workday. And it matters for you. Because we're all in this together. Because all of us are responsible, one for the other. Because this is your place, if, chas v'chalilah, you ever need it. Israel matters--and we all need it. Because when someone kicks us out of our cities, like they did to Sarah, they have somewhere to go.
