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.

We’re Going!!

We are making Aliyah…in 8 weeks! From the pipedream 9 years ago on our gap years, 5½ years of marriage, a couple of kids, many discussions and who knows how many ‘what ifs’ we have finally started our Aliyah countdown.

Just to introduce ourselves, we are Rafi and Adina Mendelsohn from London. We have two children – Ella who is nearly 3 and Eitan who is 12 weeks old. Through this blog, we want to share our Aliyah experiences – the good, the very good and also the not quite so good bits.

Moving our family and our lives to another country, which however familiar it might be to us through so many visits, is still a foreign country with a foreign culture and a foreign language! The fact that our kids will speak better Ivrit than us and will therefore probably run rings around us is scary. But we also know that this is an incredible opportunity for our family and we are so excited. Before we get too excited though, we have to try and work out how an earth we are going to pack up our lives in just 8 weeks! Let the challenge begin.

www.wzo.org.il/About-Habaya