One Week in Israel

One week in, and we are starting to feel more at home. We moved to our flat in Modiin on Thursday, and I for one was relieved that it was as nice as it looked in the pictures. After a good clean we were able to start unpacking and apart from the obvious lack of furniture, I could sit back and relax as I reflected on the huge journey we had embarked upon. Having talked about it since going on my gap year 8 years ago, it feels great to finally be here.

The neighbours knocked on from across the hall to introduce themselves and asked if there was anything they could do. Zak immediately asked if we could borrow their wifi code until we got our own set up. I was very impressed with his Israeli levels of Chutzpah; he would never have done that in Hendon! They were only too happy to help.

We had been invited out for Friday night dinner and Shabbat lunch by people we knew from London and Manchester which made our first Shabbat a truly relaxing experience. It is reassuring to be in a place with people that you know, which is one of the reasons we chose Modiin. In Kaiser (the name of our neighbourhood) there is park known as the ‘Shabbat Park’ where people congregate at 5pm when the sun starts to release it’s grip, so we headed round their at the allotted time. To our dismay, as we walked through the park we couldn’t see anyone we knew. Perhaps we had the wrong park, perhaps the wrong time, and then on a bench in front of me an old friend from home who didn’t even know we had arrived! Having spent a good hour or two in the park meeting old friends and being introduced to new ones, we wandered home to put the baby to bed.

It is refreshing being in a community of Olim. Everyone says, but aren’t you worried you won’t integrate? The thing it, everyone here knows what you are going through, because they have been through it themselves, and that is so reassuring.

Buy or get rid of?

How much stuff do you have? The question which olim ask, not from an existential or even a charitable point of view. The simple equation, is how much stuff can I fit in to the smallest space? Will it cost me more to buy this pen again in Israel or should it spend six to eight weeks in a shipping container and meet us again on the other side.

That was today, as we moved from our flat into our parents (or in-laws or grandparents depending who is really writing!) for three weeks before we actually fly.

We realised that possessions fall into two main categories

Those things you want, need and use regularly to be known as ‘shipping’. E.g. photo albums, microwave & bed.

Those things you don’t want, you don’t need and never use to be known as ‘rubbish’. Rail Ticket Discount Card from 1997, seven boxes of icing sugar & anything on VHS.

Then there are all the things in between.

The challenge of aliyah is not the two main categories, but moving things from the middle into either shipping or rubbish. It makes you very sensitive to what you actually need, asking yourself ‘if this were to go down at sea would I bother replacing it?’

As the packers moved out an eerie quiet descended on the flat as it became pretty real that we were actually leaving. Six suitcases and a lot of stuff in carrier bags later we arrived in South Woodford which is to be our temporary home for the next few weeks.