Moving up

Former Milwaukeeans make new lives in Israel

Going to Israel may be as easy as getting on an airplane, but the Hebrew language characterizes it as a deeply spiritual act. Arriving in Israel, even just for a visit, is considered aliyah, “going up.”

The term aliyah is commonly understood as immigrating to Israel. And for some former Milwaukeeans, moving to Israel has meant moving up to their spiritual home.

“Israel is my homeland and my destiny,” wrote native Milwaukeean Cantor Heather Tamar Feffer in a personal essay.

She remembers the first time she arrived in Jerusalem, in 1992, for a year of study at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s cantorial program. In a taxi from the airport, she watched as rain, unusual for June, began to fall. After a brief shower, she continued, a rainbow drew across the sky and she sat in amazement.

“It was at that moment, and after a year of intense study of the land, people and state of Israel, that I knew … I must return someday as an olah [new immigrant.] Not only did I feel more at home [in Israel] than anywhere else I had been, I knew that my life’s work would lead me back to Israel,” wrote Feffer, who converted to Judaism at age 19.

Feffer, who received cantorial ordination in 1996 and later earned a master’s in New York University’s Performance Studies program, works to combine theater and prayer leadership. She served as cantor of Congregation Sinai from 1998-2001.

Though her immigrant paperwork will only be official in July, Feffer, 33, moved to Jerusalem last August and began co-teaching in HUC-JIR’s cantorial studies program.
And she’s happy, she said in an e-mail interview. Though she misses friends and family, she feels her life in Israel has meaning. “I’m sure there will be difficult times ahead, like any transition, but I also see and feel so much joy,” she said.

Meaning and purpose

Ryan Friedland, 24, also feels he’s finally at home. Friedland, who moved from Grafton in June 2001, recently told his mother, Pam, that he can’t imagine living anywhere else and that “Israel gives his life meaning and purpose,” she said.

She said growing up as the only Jew in his Grafton school contributed to his sense of belonging in Israel. “It was hard for him sometimes to be the only Jewish kid around. When he got to Israel, there was this overwhelming feeling that he was home, he was among other Jews,” she said.

“He loved it the first time he ever went,” in the summer of 1996, she explained. After spending the summer with family in Jerusalem, he told his parents that he would someday live in Israel.

Ryan returned to Israel with a Birthright Israel trip in 2000, and by the time he arrived home, he had decided to make aliyah. His parents insisted that he finish college, but he refused; he didn’t want to wait. “His desire just grew stronger,” Pam said.

“Ryan is a very good son,” Pam said, explaining that he consulted with Rabbi Ronald Shapiro about leaving while his father, Mort, was very ill. “Even though we miss him terribly, we felt that this was his passion. It was a gift from his dad that we didn’t make a big deal about his going,” she said.

Ryan has visited home four times in the almost two years since he’s been in Israel. Pam visited last year alone; Mort is now too ill to travel.

After arriving in Israel, Ryan attended the ulpan (Hebrew language program) at WUJS (World Union for Jewish Students) Institute in Arad. He later spent about five months in a kibbutz and then moved to Beer Sheva, where he taught English.

Last month, he began a two-year stint in the Israel Defense Forces, far more than the mandatory period for immigrants of his age. Pam explained, “He really feels he has a purpose in helping the country. He believes that you should be in the army and Israel needs to be defended.”

Feeling connected

For Robin and Ron Zalben, the attraction to Israel is also powerful and equally tied up with their destiny and dedication as Jews.

“We made aliyah because we feel most at home here,” Ron said in an e-mail interview. “We feel connected religiously, culturally and socially. Being a Jew here has the most meaning than in any other place in the world.”

The Zalbens moved to Israel last August with their then one-year-old daughter Hadassa. Like many other new immigrants, they lived at an absorption center in Jerusalem first. After about five months, they moved to an apartment in the same neighborhood.

Like Feffer and Friedland, the Zalbens moved to Israel during the current intifada and national economic crisis. In fact, they opened their file at the Israel Center of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation one week after the start of the intifada.

“We spent much time deliberating if we were going to defer aliyah for a year or if we were going to go anyway. We decided that deferring a year was not healthy for us or for our family,” Ron explained.

The determining factor, Ron added, was that if they had already been living there, they would not have returned home once the violence escalated.

“The security situation does make me nervous at times. Our neighborhood borders on an Arab village, and we have lots of security personnel on our buses,” Robin said. But, on the other hand, she explained, while living in their former neighborhood on Milwaukee’s east side, there was an attempted rape, an attack and a hold-up.

“The economic situation concerns us as well,” she continued. “We hope we can make it here financially.”

Ron, an accountant, returned to Milwaukee for the tax season. In the meantime, he said, he found a job at an accounting firm in downtown Jerusalem. Robin, a librarian, is job hunting.

As for the future, Friedland is hoping, after his army service, to study theater at Tel Aviv University. He’s also trying to convince his parents to retire in Israel, an idea that also appeals to Pam, she said.

Feffer sees her life now as dream turned reality, she said, and is “determined to be a voice, in many ways, for the Reform or Progressive movement in Israel…. This country needs many voices of klal Yisrael and I believe in all Jews together, respecting each other as brothers and sisters,” she said.