Introducing This Year in Jerusalem

Welcome to the first installment of This Year in Jerusalem, a weekly syndicated column that will track the adventures of the Zuckier family in Israel this coming year.

In many ways, we are a standard Teaneck family – we went to YU/Stern, have four kids, belong to a large Teaneck shul, send our kids to one of the local schools.

But this fast-approaching year we will be doing something less common – we will be spending the year in Israel. We are not making aliyah (at least not yet!), and you won’t see us in a Nefesh B’Nefesh photo. No, instead we are going for a year, getting a taste of Israel but without making the life-altering decision of aliyah at this point.

Why are we going to Israel now? There are many factors, which seem to have all coalesced at once. We have long had a great love for Eretz Yisrael, but it has not been so feasible to live there for an extended period of time since our own years in yeshiva and seminary. We have spent parts of two summers in Israel, have family members and friends there, and of course we follow Israel news closely and feel connected to the country. This connection has only deepened since the horrifying events of October 7 and the challenging times Israel has faced since then. But coming to Israel for more than a few weeks still seemed difficult, primarily given professional considerations.

Then, about a half-year ago, I learned that I had been accepted as a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow, which would support my research at Hebrew University for the year. While extremely exciting – Israeli Jewish Studies academia has many excellent features unmatched anywhere else – it was still complicated logistically. But we sorted out most of the complications, took a leap of faith with the rest, and made the decision to spend next year in Israel.

At some point after that, I decided (we will find out soon whether it was wise or foolish!) to write a regular column about our time in Israel. I’ve spent nearly five years of my life in Israel, but always as an American, so my perspective is simultaneously insider and outsider. Living between the two communities means constantly noticing differences that each side takes for granted. That perspective will help me share some of the exciting, challenging, and interesting aspects of Israel, and of our family’s time there. So here’s the column – the first of what should hopefully be a weekly take, year-round.

I expect to use this column to illuminate some of the more exciting cultural, religious, and national phenomena that are taking place in Israel, but also to do so from my personal (and American) perspective. So many exciting new developments are coming out of Israel: from theology to tech to Torah, from politics to parsha sheets, from archaeology to artificial intelligence. I will do my best to share these advances – and the challenges too, which are also considerable – from my vantage point in Yerushalayim.

Over the coming year, I'll write about raising American children in Israeli schools, navigating Israeli bureaucracy, experiencing Yamim Tovim in Jerusalem rather than Teaneck, visiting the Shuk and ecstatic Kabbalat Shabbat services, academic life at Hebrew University, encountering Israeli religious life outside the American Orthodox bubble, Israeli politics and culture as experienced on the street rather than online, and the countless small moments that make Israel simultaneously familiar and surprising.

For those wondering about the column’s name: I was considering writing a regular column on this topic and tinkering with titles when Pesach rolled around. At the end of the Seder, as I was exhausted around midnight and a little tipsy after four cups of wine, it suddenly struck me. We’re all saying Le’shana ha’ba’ah biYerushalayim, except this time it is different. We expect to be in Yerushalayim not only if we are zoche for the messianic redemption, but even as a result of the natural course of events. We were actively looking for an apartment in Katamon (since secured!) and schools for our children in the area (just about there!). And so the idea for the column name popped into my head – “This Year in Jerusalem.”

Thank you for joining me on this journey; I look forward to sharing the year with you!

This Year in Jerusalem.