The Ten Percent – Did We Fail in Our Aliyah?

At first, I thought it was twenty per cent, but it is indeed ten per cent. We are among the ten percent who don’t stay. Ninety percent of people who make Aliyah from North America, through Nefesh B’Nefesh, make a successful integration into Israeli society.  Ten percent leave again. They either move on and try another country, if they have the resources, or they go back home. Is it a failure? That is a contentious rhetorical question. At what point do you realize you’ve reached your final destination?

We’re still out there, dangling in limbo. The high holidays have just finished, and I missed key dates. I was ill with back-to-back flu with a bladder infection. A low-grade fever and some nausea curtailed my appetite and my energy.

This would have been my second Yom Kippur after the irregular version I experienced in Spain so many years ago.  While on vacation in Seville, we found ourselves with a small congregation who had rented a hotel conference room for services.  There is no synagogue in Seville. The rabbi was imported from England. She gave the sermon in English. A Spanish translation was handed out to the attendees.  This just didn’t seem authentic.  I was looking forward to the Yom Kippur in the orthodox synagogue in Nuremberg.

I’m enjoying the cool Franconian autumn air outside on our terrace, especially after our two-week stay in the ever-summer of Panama’s monotonously constant thirty-degree-temperatures with an overload of humidity.  Even sweat begins to sweat.  From now on, I will never complain about the cold.  It can never be too cold. I know the test is coming for me in the post-Christmas Nuremberg when El Nino subsides, and we are chilled to the bone by that anticipated polar vortex.  But it will never be as bad as the -18 Celsius Februarys in Toronto, ironically one of Canada’s most southern most points.

I’m looking for the silver linings, some of which will eventually come to pass but are yet not known to me. We say we will decide what to do or where to go at the end of October, an arbitrary time after the Israeli election. Is it safe to say that moving back to Israel is still on the table? I don’t even have the energy to think about it now. I’m worn down. I think I only have one more “big move” left in me.

I have a more pleasant struggle on my mind.  The thoughts of whether I will or will not follow through and convert to Judaism is a very pleasant distraction that occupies my mind.  This is an inner and personal journey that I can take with me wherever we move.

I feel I’ve changed significantly since October 7^th. Simon says that I seem to have taken on the tsuris of the Jews.  Why not make it official? Despite the lighthearted intellectual persona seen through an Instagram lens, the true me is plagued by self-doubt, anxiety and some genuine concerns about family estrangement and sibling conflict.

No, I wouldn’t convert for shock value, for giving family members additional ammunition to be upset with me or even for the reason a cleansing, a rebirth or renewal.  It’s not like that.

The change has already happened within me.  It’s a path that I’m following.  There is no sudden paradigm shift. This path was always before me.  I would convert because I feel like Judaism is now a better fit, maybe even the right fit all along. I wasn’t looking but perhaps I was trying to find a way that life with its pains and joys would all make sense.

Unlike Simon, the atheist Jew, I’ve always been agnostic. A former therapist had stated that those who believe in the afterlife have an easier time with death.  They suffer far less from anxiety.  This sounded like genuine relief, a resolution for the daily grind of self-doubt.  I’ve lived so long with generalized anxiety disorder that I inanely know that I will survive each recurring round.  However, it would be a bit more of a comfort to realize that there is a plan behind life’s uncertainties and that I’m a very small part in that great design.  Sometimes I obsess. I have a fear of death – not just mine but of loved ones.

Perhaps it was always a better fit, but I’d never known it, until I came into greater contact with the Jewish mindset. Our rabbi says Judaism seems to come naturally to me. I was always asking questions and wanting to know more.  Though the next line would be laughable to many Jews reading this for its sheer simplicity, I would like to state the following.  Judaism is not just a religion, a culture or ethnicity, but a lifestyle and a way of thought. It’s a perpetual connection to the Man upstairs and fulfilling a covenant.  Doing good and living well are not transactions for a reward but duties – obligations to Hashem.

I don’t know how I’ll get there. It depends on where we end up after the “Big Decision” of November 1. Currently in Nuremberg, there is only the Orthodox Synagogue. That might be a difficult location to pursue a conversion.  It’s conservative. Of course, they, the congregant know that we’re a gay couple, but it’s never mentioned. Of course, they know I’m not Jewish, but it’s not mentioned. Just like it’s not mentioned how many in the community have their cell phone on, are carrying keys in their pockets and have used subway or have driven to shabbat services.

If we elect to return to Toronto, I will have access to many reform synagogues. The transition might prove easier. Furthermore, I can make connections – new friends to replace the ones I lost.

Those former friends had opinions that so quickly morphed into hardened convictions.  They needed to debate the righteousness of their convictions. The argument left no room for empathy. What it was like for us to leave the country of our birth and home for sixty plus years. To take a leap of faith and become Israelis. Probably one of the least logical decisions.  Some just could not understand choosing to be Israeli and turning your back on Canada.  Why would you want to live there?  Why don’t you want to live here?

I’ve gone way past the point where I wish to educate anybody.  I’ve done the work on myself, and I know I don’t have superior intelligence.  I’ve attempted to inform and educate others, it was like speaking to a wall and other times, becoming that smashed bug on a windshield.

I’ve been overexposed to the latest inversion, the genocide libel. It sits out there in the ether like a black noxious cloud.  Best to hold my breath.  Arguing with those convinced that their virtue signaling is not dressed-up antisemitism is pointless.  I’ve become cagily stoic and occasionally aloof. For those who haven’t yet “taken a side” but are still willing to listen, I’d have such a simple answer. If there wasn’t an October 7^th, there wouldn’t have been a war – fair or not.

Maybe, it’s because I married a Jew – albeit a secular one.  I watch him sleeping at night and wonder, why would somebody want to murder him, categorically and without hesitation?  I see a man who has often said, he would give it up (his Judaism) if he could.  Then he always says, you don’t find Judaism, it finds you.  And that is so true. Born a Jew, always a Jew.

That first post-October 7^th Chanukah, I observed how suddenly, he would ceremoniously light each of the candles on the Hannukiah with such intention and say the blessings.  Fluid Hebrew streaming forth from his lips, the way my late Italian Catholic mother-in-law would bullet through the rosary in the Abruzzi dialect. I never suspected the depth of his Hebrew school formation or the grip of this childhood imprinting.

I’ve watched the atheist go to synagogue in Germany for over ten months.  I go with him. I’m always lost as we cycle through the different prayers in the Siddur.  But sometimes, so is he. At least he can follow the Hebrew. I can barely follow the German transliteration – a phonetic transcription not based on English phonetics.

So back to the dilemma. Looking for the ultimate solution.  I’ve created a matrix to find the optimal result.  Cities along the top and characteristics down the side.  Each cell will be colour coded with either green, yellow or red. The colours speak for themselves.

The cities are, Nuremberg, Tel Aviv, Toronto and Panama City – my subjective order of preference.  The characteristics along the vertical are not necessarily of equal weight but I’ve tried to lump certain ideas together.

The colour coding will give a quick visual – an overlook so that we’re not always harping on the one major overshadowing factor:  the cost of health care insurance. If that is the only factor, we’re immediately down to two choices where we have state-paid health insurance:  Canada or Israel.

The characteristics, in no specific order, are:

• Lifestyle which would include the comfort level of thriving in that city,
• Health care costs,
• Physical safety,
• Mental or psychological safety (a lack of Pro-pally protests and graffiti),
• Family (we both have a daughter and Simon also has daughter, sister and a granddaughter in Canada. I have family in Germany. He has family in Israel.
• City safety – Am I dodging the drug addicts, the schizophrenics and the homeless? Location and access to desired destinations, ease of travel,
• Political climate,
• Cultural landscape
• Cost of living,
• Climate and weather extremes and counter measures.

The matrix was a good exercise. It helped to pull some things together.  But just recently we’ve been talking cautiously about the decision that we will take…as we talk, it sounds like a decision is already in the works.  We seem to be agreeing. Sometimes I feel I’ve steered it in that direction but maybe it was mutual.   It’s a compromise and one I wish I could have avoided.

Israel seems unlikely. Panama just doesn’t seem probable. Nuremberg is palatable but costly.  Will we flirt with biding our time for one more you to see if a clouded Canadian political climate will resolve and whether antisemitism in Canada becomes tolerable.  It never acceptable. Anywhere.  Currently, if there is antisemitism in Nuremberg, it is very hidden. We seem to be living in a bubble. The memory of Nazis shadow cast a long shadow. We just commemorated the verdict of the Nuremberg trials, read 80 years ago.

In my attempt to resolve the indecision, I ask friends what is home for them.   Our neighbour is an American ex-pat of thirty years. Her vote is with Nürnberg.  There are many people calling us back to Israel, but they fully understand when we shy away from a difficult life.  I asked my friends Belle and Edmond, Israelis who were visiting in Berlin, “Where’s home?”  Edmond was quick to reply – It’s where family is.

His and Belle’s family are all in Israel.  This is the same Edmond who upon our first visit told me a joke about when the Jews can expect happiness and safety. The punch line was:  Don’t worry; everything will be alright…in 3,000 years. Edmond is so wise.

Yesterday I landed in Canada. I need to renew my driver’s license and health card.  I’ve also come here to feel this place out.  Will it prove livable for us, in particular for me?  On the train from the airport to the downtown, I blink away the tears. I feel like such a failure and such a foreigner.  The train is noisy. They are speaking English.

I make it to my friend, Lucie’s condo in the L-tower, on the 50^th floor.  The view is spectacular.  We have a quiet evening, soft discussion, a good hearty stew with some red wine. That night, I have a good cry, despite the magnificent view of the skyline – steel and glass towers emitting light and colours.  I’m lamenting the life we have lost here in space and in time. I’m grieving the loss of daughters as I once knew them.  Tomorrow is the third anniversary of the October 7^th Massacre, as well as the 16^th anniversary of my mother’s death.  Those two incidents are now perpetually linked.

In the wee hours of the morning, as the sun burns oranges and then gradations of blue tones into the horizon, I photograph the reflections of the mirror-like angular structures, from my high vantage point.  Lucie and I have our morning coffee and discuss my situation, my mood and my anxiety.  I tell her I’m going to try and concentrate on the beauty and the positive around me. Lucie pipes up and says, every morning when I wake up now, I give thanks to God for giving me another day.  I said Lucie, you would have made a superb Jew!  I take this as a sign. Baruch Hashem. Indeed!