Over the many years I have written my column, I have tried to share insights, advice, and even mild criticisms of our lives as halachic Jews and as a community. I have even gone into great detail about my multiple cancer journeys, one that most patients keep very private. Having “been there and done that,” I shared my experiences in order to provide possible guidance on how to navigate this very challenging disease. Knowledge is empowering and an informed patient can be a more effective and listened to advocate.
The Jewish Press, has over the past year, profiled new olim, giving insight to their adjustment in terms of working, going to school and even shopping in a language they are familiar with but not necessarily conversant with.
But the process leading to getting on the plane as a new Israeli hasn’t yet been addressed.
Therefore, I want to share my aliyah odyssey with readers who are contemplating a permanent return to our homeland.
The best way to describe this nearly year-long attempt to be approved is, to quote novelist Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times and the worst of times.”
If this was just my unique experience, then, I wouldn’t need to describe it, but there is a consensus amongst people in North America who are making aliyah, that it is at times a physically, emotionally and even financially draining endeavor. We joke that the reason it is so difficult is to test us. If you have the stamina and determination to get through the process, you’ll make it as an oleh.
Someone told me that if I’m too honest about my aliyah experience that it could make potential olim reconsider moving to Israel, but I liken it to pregnancy and childbirth. They’re so many “hardship” – even “oh no” stories to make a couple think twice about having a baby – but if you want it badly enough, you just go ahead with courage, joy and optimism. And so too with aliyah.
You can’t let senseless bureaucracy, red tape and head scratching requirements stop you from your cherished goal of going home to Israel.
As I write this, I still am waiting for the green light of approval. I was delayed for many, many months due to a cut ribbon on my marriage certificate – I got married in 1976 – and also because of the requirement of a criminal background check by the FBI – even though I left the United States in 1985 and was cleared twice by its Canadian counterpart. Why the requirement if I left decades ago? I believe this is the case for anyone who has lived in more than one country.
Part of the problem I feel is that there is a “one size fits all mentality” that doesn’t account for the applicant’s age, family status – I have, Baruch Hashem, many grandchildren in Israel – and life experiences.
I did send my fingerprints to the FBI but I’m a senior and my finger prints have been worn over the years and they weren’t clear enough and were rejected. I sent in a second set of prints, but they were either lost in the mail, or misfiled. I spoke to many Israelis about my frustrating situation and someone told me perhaps she could help, and she did get that requirement waived.
As for my marriage certificate? It was invalidated because of a cut red ribbon. I still don’t know why that would be an issue since I have an apostilled divorce decree. Obviously in order to be divorced, I had to have been married!
An apostille is an internationally accepted notarization. Canada became part of the apostilled world two years ago after I had started my initial aliyah attempt. Hence the red ribbon. I had gone to the Israeli consulate and the officer in charge gave me a stamp of approval, which was having a ribbon put through two holes that connected my marriage certificate, and his document. Likely a librarian snipped the ribbon when trying to scan both pages to Nefesh B’Nefesh.
I didn’t end up continuing my aliyah at the time because, as I have written about quite extensively, I needed weekly injections for six months leading to a super chemo that nuked my cancerous blood cells – and then an infusion of my own blood stem cells that have been frozen for seven years. I didn’t think I could get on an El Al aliyah flight with thawing stem cells and claim it was tomato soup.
Once the medical stuff was behind me, I started again but was faced with these bewildering roadblocks. And others. In my next column, I hope to share pointers on how to make the process flow more smoothly.
At the end of the day, I feel that there could be better and more timely communication between the agencies involved in aliyah –and the oleh. Because I wasn’t fully briefed in a timely manner on all the things I needed to do, there was a lot of extra stress and unnecessary aggravation and anxiety and pressure because many of the documents expire after six months and have to be repeated. For example, I found out today that there is some flexibility regarding the criminal background check which needs to be done again after six months. Mine expires in mid-May. But another month can be tacked on. Knowing this would have spared me much worry since a month after my interview, I’m still in limbo. And doing a last minute apostille for a document I should have been made aware of months ago.
But like having a baby, making aliyah is phenomenal, and life changing in the best possible way.