Misrad Hapanim: Diary of an Olah
What qualifies someone as an “olah chadasha”? Is it deciding to move to Israel? Actually making the move? Living through culture shock, language barriers, and the absence of familiarity and family? Is it the struggle to build a life and a world out of pieces that don’t fit neatly together?
Or is it simply possessing a teudat olah, granted to you at long last by Misrad Hapnim?
The answer is elusive. I can, however, report that all these things have shaped my experience as an olah chadasha over the past two years and change. So rather than pretending I have a neat definition, this column is my attempt to keep honing the answer week by week – and, more importantly, to amuse you (and vindicate myself) with everyday tales of Israeli ineptitude, absurdity, and plain craziness.
Is this a comprehensive list of the struggles and triumphs that define the olah experience? Probably not. Is it even possible to explain it to the uninitiated? Unlikely. What I can do is offer a glimpse of what life in Israel feels like each week through the eyes of someone still learning how to live here – preferably without being yelled at by a bus driver, cashier, or government employee before noon.
This week was marked by what was meant to be a significant occasion: I thought I would finally procure my teudat olah, after much delay. I arrived at Misrad Hapnim, a place many olim know well, with a heart full of idealistic Zionist hope and excitement that, somehow, hasn’t faded, not even after my first three visits to the Ministry.
The plan was simple: drop off what was meant to be the final document I needed to complete my aliyah, and walk out with a Teudat Olah. With that magical slip of paper, I imagined I would finally stop looking like a very American twenty-two-year-old who apologizes profusely to people who bump into her, and instead transform into a Naot-wearing, giant-mipachat-sporting Israeli woman who, with a slightly peeved and deeply self assured attitude, delivers unbelievable war stories in perfect Hebrew, complete with Arabic slang.
After waiting in line at the Ministry for an hour, during which everyone seemed to be arguing, soothing a hysterical child, or conducting urgent phone calls on speaker at maximum volume, I was finally granted an audience with a grumpy man who looked completely done with me, his job, and life before he had even arrived that morning. About twenty seconds after I handed him the document I’d been told to bring, he exasperatedly informed me that a totally different one was now expired – a document which, for the record, had been perfectly valid during my first two of four total pilgrimages to Misrad Hapnim.
Luckily, after a few years here, I’ve learned that getting anything done in Israel requires a balance of American tact, Israeli aggression, and zero embarrassment. I gathered myself to my full five-foot-one, sparkly headband included, and mustered all the authority a Jewish American Princess can manage. In my most eloquent Heblish, I instructed the agent to submit the application with the expired document and attach a note explaining the delay. I was not leaving until it reached the Jewish Agency (insert intimidating glare here).
At my request, the now incredulous agent called over his manager, who then summoned another worker, each firing off questions about my application (Is my FBI background check really that suspicious? Do I look like a smuggler, drug dealer, or con artist?). After a round of back-and-forth, most of it over my head, they agreed to submit it, with no promises attached.
No one in Israel ever believes something will work the first time, or in the way it was meant to, so I walked out viewing the ordeal as mildly annoying because I missed my gym session that morning, but not surprising in the slightest.
While the bureaucracy in this country can be very frustrating for a new olah, the actual interface with the people dealing with my Aliyah, and with born members of Israeli society in general, is often really positive. I found my time with the agents oddly cute and heartening in a very Israeli way: gritty, shockingly informal, thoroughly chaotic, and ultimately well-intentioned. They may think I’m not all that smart for moving here (or maybe that impression is just the result of my lackluster Hebrew). They often find me naive or sheltered, and make sure I know it.
But, for all the fun I have poking jabs at the way this society functions, Israeli people are almost universally hopeful for me and genuinely try to help. Sometimes too much, sometimes unasked for, and sometimes in ways that feel more like being barked at than advised.
And yes, there are certainly weeks when the rough edges of life here wear me down. That too is a part of being an olah chadasha. But this wasn’t one of those weeks. This week people were kind, and I felt hopeful. I look around my new apartment and the small world I’ve built in Jerusalem and feel settled, grateful, and at home – even if Misrad Hapnim still isn’t quite convinced.
