Dream to reality – telling friends and family

The Zionist dream of living in Israel is one thing but the decision to go came down to a job. Once Rafi was lucky enough to find work, there was no stopping us. Endless nights talking hypothetically about making Aliyah became very real when we told our parents. It didn’t matter how much we prepared them about the eventuality of our move to Israel, they were still in shock when we told them we were going with the response “we know you spoke about it but we never thought you would actually do it.” Our friends were supportive – albeit for a few of the “you can’t leave us” comments. For every phone call we made saying that we were leaving London, we made a phone call to Israel, telling friends and family that we were on our way in 8 weeks – much more supportive!

A big loss for us will be not having our support network out there with us – gone are the days of free babysitting! On the plus side, we have a lot of family in Israel who have already called us asking what they can do to help. That is invaluable to us and our adjustment to life in Israel.

Now that the cat is out the bag (news travels very fast in North West London), we can openly start our Aliyah preparations – arrangements for our flat in London, meetings with the Jewish Agency to sort out paperwork, meetings with shipment companies (we met with 4 companies – exhausting!) and finding somewhere for us to live in Israel. So much to do – so little time.