Rabbi Wein made me cry by Avi Glazer

I was privileged recently to hear a lecture by the incomparable Rabbi Berel Wein at Bais Torah, the synagogue that he founded before making aliyah. Rabbi Wein returned to Monsey, NY, to promote The Legacy: Teaching for Life from the Great Lithuanian Rabbis, which he wrote in collaboration with South African Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein. As a proud Litvak myself, I was eager to attend and hear his thoughts.

When I arrived at Bais Torah, the parking lot was already full. While I had to park some distance away and walk back to the shul, it was gratifying to see so many people at the event. In fact, before Rabbi Wein could start speaking we were asked to move from the auditorium to the shul, as there was not enough room for the overflow crowd.

Rabbi Wein spoke about the honesty of Lithuanian Jews, their good humor and their attitude that living a Torah life was an honor and privilege. He discussed the mussar movement that arose in Lithuania as the natural outgrowth of the intense focus on personal growth that characterized Lithuanian Jewry. He also emphasized that, even while embroiled in the various disputes that engulfed European Jewry during the 19th and 20th centuries, Litvaks managed to not lose their attitude of pleasantness toward one another. Despite the turbulence that characterized much of that period, and the various religious and political groups that were at odds with one another, there was still collaboration between the groups when possible, and the discussions were more scholarly and less acrimonious than in other places.Rabbi Wein began by speaking in glowing terms about the South African Jewish community, the vast majority of which is of Lithuanian descent. He quoted the late Ponevezher Rav, Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, who lauded their good character traits and and pleasant ways. Rabbi Wein contrasted that with American Jews, who, when they arrived here from Europe, were so determined to give their children what they themselves did not have, that they forget to pass along the good things that they did possess.

Throughout his speech, Rabbi Wein kept the audience entertained with his trademark dry wit and captivating anecdotes about his father and father-in-law, his teachers, and other rabbinic personalities. He spoke of a Pesach seder that Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzinski organized for the Socialist university students in Vilna, and described his shock at first hearing his father-in-law’s heavy Lithuanian accent and lisp – “He began kiddush with “Yom Hasisi” and I almost fell off my chair”. He described how Rabbi Mendel Kaplan, his school rebbe in Chicago, came to the US without speaking a word of English and yet was able to keep a classroom of boys spellbound by teaching them how to interpret newspaper articles in return for the boys teaching him English. At one point during his speech, Rabbi Wein’s cell phone rang. Slightly embarrassed, he quipped “if it’s not the Pope, I’m not answering” while silencing the ringer.

Rabbi Wein then began speaking about the intense love of Lithuanian Jews for the land of Israel. He spoke of the aliyah of the students of the Vilna Gaon, and of the strong push within Lithuanian Jewry for a return to Israel. He recalled the immense pride that Jews in Chicago felt upon the announcement of the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, and the tears of his father when he heard the news. He described the heavy emotion that was felt when the Israeli flag was raised at the Chicago rally in support of the newly-formed State.

It was at this point that I started to cry.

At the beginning of this past week’s parsha, we find Yaakov Avinu leaving his parents’ house for Haran. The Torah tells us וַיֵּצֵא יַעֲקֹב, מִבְּאֵר שָׁבַע; וַיֵּלֶךְ, חָרָנָה – “and Yaakov left Be’er Sheva and traveled toward Haran”. The Beis HaLevi, Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, is bothered by the seeming redundancy in the verse. The Torah could have simply said that Yaakov traveled toward Haran, and it would be obvious to us that he left Be’er Sheva. What message is the Torah telling us by including the “extra” piece of information?

The Beis HaLevi answers that there are two reasons for people to travel from one place to another. In some cases, a person is forced to leave his place, and his ultimate destination is only a secondary concern. In other cases, a person sees an opportunity that is only available in a new place, and leaves his current location only a means to that end. In Yaakov’s case, both aspects are true. Yaakov was forced to leave Be’er Sheva to escape the wrath of his brother Eisav, and travelled specifically to Haran to find a wife. Therefore, the Torah included both statements.

The night before Rabbi Wein’s speech, my wife and I spoke, yet again, of leaving Monsey. There are a number of reasons for us to move – we are dissatisfied with the education that our children currently receive, we are tired of the “me-first” New York attitude that so many people here seem to exhibit, and we are disgusted by the stories of corruption and law-breaking that often dominate the local headlines. While we are happy to be close to family, we are in agreement that we would be better off elsewhere.

But while there are many things pushing us away from Monsey, there is no place in the US that pulls us, that tells us “move here, this is the place for you!” Boston and Baltimore, Philly and Phoenix, Dallas and Denver, Cleveland and Chicago. All are fine communities, and all have much to offer. But like my ancestors hundreds of years ago, I know where I truly belong.

And so I cried. I cried for the circumstances that have kept me from Israel for the past fifteen years, and for the circumstances that continue to keep me from returning. I cried because I know that my immediate future is still in the United States, either in Monsey or somewhere else. But mostly, I cried because I miss the alleys of Jerusalem and the hills of Tzfat, the smell of the sea and the sights of the shuk. In the poetic words of Yehuda HeLevi, לִבִּי בְמִזְרָח וְאָנֹכִי בְּסוֹף מַעֲרָב. “my heart is in the East, but I am in the utter West.”

I want to come home.

This is a graduation cap designed by Renee Wietschner, of Woodmere, Long Island, worn at Yeshiva University H.S. Girls (“Central”) 2013 graduation.

The unique and meaningful mortar board caught the attention of Dr. Paul Brody, of Great Neck, Long Island, who sang the HaTikva at the ceremony, and was seated immediately behind the graduates. His daughter Limor is the last of four sisters, known as the “Brody Bunch,” to graduate Yeshiva University HS Girls (Central).

Both Renee and Limor will be attending Tiferet Center for Advanced Torah Studies for Women in Ramat Bet Shemesh, directed by Rabbi Azriel Rosner. In fact, almost all of the Central graduates will attend Seminaries in Israel next year. As stated in the Talmud, “Avira D’Arah Machkim”—”the very Air of the Land of Israel Makes One Wise!” (Babylonian Talmud, Babba Batra, 168b).

At the podium is Head of School, Mrs. CB Neugroschl.

Joy of Israel Episode 1 - Cooking with Cowboys with Jamie Geller

Watch the premiere episode of the Joy of Israel with Jamie Geller a one-of-a-kind food and travel show set in Israel. Join Jamie Geller and her family as they travel to the snow covered Mount Hermon in the North of Israel followed by a stop to ride horses and cook dinner with real Israeli Cowboys at Kibbutz Merom Golan. Learn to make Poyke, traditional Israeli cowboy food and view the breathtaking landscape. Help fund this series - We are raising $50,000 from advertisers and sponsors and we are looking for matching funds from people around the world who are as excited as we are about bringing the real image of life in Israel and the people of Israel to the world, click here to donate - http://jewcer.com/project/joy-of-isra...

Aliyah (The Maccabeats)

Aliyah (The Maccabeats)

NYT: Enlisting From Afar for the Love of Israel

LOD, Israel — Three days into Josh Warhit’s first-ever visit to Israel, as a 16-year-old on a summer tour, war broke out in Lebanon, which transformed the group’s itinerary — and his life plan. On Tuesday, with talk rampant about the possibility of an imminent Israeli attack on Iran, Mr. Warhit became a citizen of Israel to enlist in its army.

“Our parents were freaking out,” Mr. Warhit, now 22, recalled of that first trip during the war against Hezbollah. “It only made us more thirsty. I love the Jewish people. Love involves commitment. Right now we need people to commit.

“Of course it’s scary,” he added, regarding Iran, “but if you feel a commitment, that’s the thing to do.”

Mr. Warhit, who grew up in New Rochelle, N.Y., and graduated from the University of Rochester after spending several summers in Israel, was one of 127 soldiers-to-be who landed Tuesday morning at Ben-Gurion International Airport here. They arrived after a week of intense media speculation that an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities was increasingly likely, though the premier enemy of the moment was not mentioned by name during a hero’s welcome that included a live band, balloon hats and a speech by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Part of a growing cadre of what are known as lone soldiers, they left behind parents, girlfriends, cars and stuffed animals to become infantrymen, intelligence officers, paratroopers and pilots in a formerly foreign land. All told, according to a military spokeswoman, Israel has enlisted 8,217 men and women from other countries since 2009, 1,661 of them from the United States, second only to Russia’s 1,685.

They receive a host of special benefits: three times the typical soldier’s salary, a personal day off each month, a free flight home and vouchers for holiday meals. But with few exceptions for dual citizens from certain countries, they serve side by side in even elite combat units with native Israelis drafted out of high school.

“Their motivation is often way higher than the average Israeli,” said Col. Shuli Ayal, who oversees the lone-soldier program. “They want to make their service as meaningful as possible.”

Mr. Warhit, for one, aspires to the Givati Brigade, a ground-forces unit formed before Israel became a state in 1948 that in the past decade has been active around the Gaza Strip. Elona Brage, 22, the daughter of doctors from San Francisco, hopes to be a medic — “anything but combat,” she said. And Daniel Rechenbach of Ridgewood, N.J., a graduate of Clark University whose sisters moved to Israel ahead of him, wants to join Oketz, the canine unit.

“I hope to spend my time in Israel protecting those I love, not torturing those who hate me,” Mr. Rechenbach, also 22, said in an e-mail interview ahead of the flight. “If my dog and I successfully locate materials meant to harm Israeli soldiers or civilians, I would be incredibly proud.”

As they adopt new identities as Israeli soldiers, the recruits are joining a military, and a society, struggling with its own identity crisis. The Supreme Court in February declared illegal a program exempting thousands of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students from the draft, and Parliament failed to come up with a new program to enroll them as well asPalestinian citizens of Israel into the army or civilian service. On Monday, ultra-Orthodox leaders issued a warning to young men not to sign draft notices.

Mr. Netanyahu welcomed the troops on Tuesday into a battle against what he called “a new anti-Semitism.”

“You’ve decided to defend the Jewish future,” he told them. “In previous times, for almost two millennia, the Jews could not defend themselves.”

According to the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, the number of people coming to Israel over all rose to 19,020 last year from 15,875 in 2008, after a steady slide from 61,723 in 2000 and the huge influx of nearly one million, mostly Soviet Jews, in the 1990s.

The soldiers were among 351 new immigrants arriving Tuesday on a flight chartered by Nefesh b’Nefesh, a 10-year-old group that has helped bring 30,000 people here. On board were five sets of twins; 16 people joining children and grandchildren who had preceded them (several of these families designed and wore special T-shirts chronicling the generational influx); Jamie Geller, a cookbook author and founder of the kosher Media Network; and six dogs. The oldest newcomer was 85, the youngest was born in July.

Hundreds arrived at the airport to greet them, bearing homemade signs cheering Ilan and Matz, Sandy and Jerry, Mani and Abby. “The Frieds are home at last!” read one. “Bruchim haba’im, Bubbe and Zayde,” said another, combining the Hebrew for “welcome” with the Yiddish for Grandma and Grandpa.

The center of the celebration was the soldiers, who wore army-green T-shirts and broad smiles. Most came through Garin Tzabar, a diaspora offshoot of the Israel Scouts program, and prepared over four weekend workshops since January. They hugged and held one another in a manner reminiscent of summer camp or college orientation. Before basic training this fall, they will study Hebrew on kibbutzim around the country.

There were young women with pierced lips (the studs will come out upon enlistment) and men with skullcaps and prayer fringes who danced in a circle among themselves. Many are the children of Israelis, for whom army service is a staple of life, but Mr. Warhit, whose four grandparents were all born in America, had some convincing to do.

“You want to teach your kids to love Israel, but you don’t want them necessarily to take you so literally,” his mother, Ilissa Warhit, said in a telephone interview after what she described as 24 hours of nonstop tears. “You always know the dangers, and it’s very far away.”

Last week, Mr. Warhit and his father spent four days playing in a wood-bat baseball tournament in Cooperstown, N.Y. Though the soldiers-to-be are allowed three suitcases of 70 pounds each, he filled two, at 40 pounds each, and a small duffel. The hardest thing, he said, has been explaining his choice to non-Jewish friends.

“Sometimes life in the States is just so easy, you think, ‘Maybe I should go to law school,’ ” he said. “I love my family, I love my friends and I love the Jewish people. The Jewish people don’t need another Jew in suburban New York.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: August 15, 2012

An earlier version of this article contained an incorrect quote by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at one point. He said, “In previous times, for almost two millennia, the Jews could not defend themselves,” not “for almost two million years.”

'You All Come from Israel,' Netanyahu Tells Olim

‘Joy of Kosher’ Author Moves Her Kitchen to Israel Jamie “Joy of Kosher” Geller started a new life in Israel Tuesday, after years as a highly successful journalist and TV producer.

Jamie Geller, author of “Joy of Kosher,” started a new life in Israel Tuesday, after years of being a highly successful US journalist and TV producer.

In an interview with the Jewish Forward several days before leaving the United States, Geller, a household name in thousands of Jewish homes, revealed that she was “a disaster on wheels in the kitchen” when she married.

“Basically when I grew up my mother had a dream for me to be the first Jewish woman president of the United States,” she told interviewer Katherine Martinelli.

“When I got married, my husband was like ‘what’s for dinner?’ …I was a disaster on wheels in the kitchen. I had gotten all of these kitchen contraptions for our wedding, like a food processor with a video of how to use it… I started making these 911 calls to people in my husband’s family who are all amazing cooks, and they came over and cooked with me. And whatever they thought was easy, I made them easier and easier. And it tasted good!”

A former journalist for CNN, she came up with the idea of “Joy of Kosher,” which started out with a blog and blossomed into a book and a full-blown business.

Geller was raised in a Jewish home in Philadelphia but not as an orthodox Jew. She recalled that she studied in Israel for one year during high school and told her mother, “I want to live here…this is home.”

She plans to continue her career in Israel, where she has discovered she has many followers. 

Geller told Martinelli that she is not worried about missing any foods or ingredients in Israel, where virtually all supermarkets are kosher and where shelves art stocked with almost everything one would find outside the country.

“I like that [Israeli] food itself is so much riper and more flavorful,” she said in theinterview. “It’s healthier cooking. It’s farm to table, and I’m not talking in the trendy sense, I mean there’s literally less time from the farm to your plate, it’s that much fresher…

“I think that Jewish food is the original fusion cuisine because we’ve been scattered throughout the four corners of the earth and the Diaspora, and we’ve really melded them with the flavors of our host country. Israel is the ultimate melting pot for the Jewish people, you have every type of Jewish person there from north African to Russian, whatever, so I feel like it’s incredible to see what that brings and be exposed in the most authentic way."

Nefesh B’Nefesh Video – I’m Making Aliyah for…

"We are very proud to wish Mazal Tov to our beloved Menachem Falik,upon his one-year anniversary of service in the IDF Tank Corps,protecting Am Yisrael in Eretz Yisrael.To all of our friends in Los Angeles,we send greetings,and blessings for a "nechomat Tzion & binyan Yerushalayim bimhayra". Please pray for Menachem Falik ben Yehudit,who is currently entering a six-month tour-of-duty on the Gaza border. We can be reached at *rabbispan@yahoo.com;judith1779@yahoo.com & pyro92@yahoo.com*. We can use skype almost free to call. Send an email with your  phone#and the best time to call.  Sincerely,Judith & Harry Greenspan"

Would Moses Make Aliyah Today?

Ha ha ha ha ha! What a stupid question! Ha ha ha ha ha! Of course he would! Moshe wanted to make aliyah more than anything else in the world!

This week’s Torah portion begins with Moshe beseeching Hashem to let him go to the Land of Israel: “I pray Thee, let me go over and see the good Land that is beyond the Yarden, the goodly mountain region and the Levanon” (Devarim, 3:25).

Noting that the Hebrew verb for “And I besought,”(Va’etchanan), has a gematria of 515, our Sages teach that Moshe offered 515 prayers to Hashem, begging him to allow him to enter the Land of Israel.

He didn’t say, “I’ll go when Moshiach comes.”

Or, “I’ll go after my children finish getting their masters degrees and doctorates in Egypt.”

Or, “I don’t want to go into the IDF.”

Or, “It’s too dangerous in Israel.”

Or, “The Canaanites drive their chariots on Shabbos.”

Or, “I’m worried I won’t find a job that pays the same that I’m making now.”

Moshe Rabainu didn’t say any of the other 515 excuses you usually hear. Just the opposite. Moshe begged again and again and again, 515 prayers, to be granted the incomparable blessing of entering the Land. Dropping down on his knees and prostrating himself on the ground, he pleaded, “Please, Hashem. Turn me into an ant, if You want, and let me crawl into the Holy Land. I don’t have to be the king of the Jews, or the Chief Rabbi, or a Federation director, or any other fancy title. Make me into an ant and I’ll be happy. Just let me enter the Land!!!”

If Hashem had said OK, Moshe would have raised up the hem of his tunic and sprinted like an Olympic racer, all the way to Israel in his joy to reach the Land. Even though it was filled with bloodthirsty idol worshippers and there wasn’t even one kosher bakery to be found.

Today, there are people frummer than Moshe. The Land of Israel isn’t glatt enough for them. Or they don’t want to serve in the army. Or they don’t like the government. Or they’re worried about finding jobs, as if the hand of Hashem is too short to feed them. They prefer to rely on Uncle Sam instead.

I don’t know whether to cry or to laugh. Imagine. People frummer than Moshe!

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Frummer than Moshe Rabainu!

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry!

Tisha B'Av, Eretz Yisrael, and Geula; Ninth of Av Message on Moving to Israel – Rabbi Beryl Wein, Rabbi Zev Leff and Rabbi Shalom Gold

Fleisher on ShalomTV: ‘Let’s Not Live in Fear, Let’s Live in Reality.’

Yishai Fleisher on ShalomTV

Yishai Fleisher, managing editor of JewishPress.com, appeared on L’Chaim, a show that has been running on ShalomTV for years. The segment appears on their new live channel, as well as on-demand.

Fleisher spoke with Rabbi Mark Golub about the fear preventing a strong, united Jewish future. He described the challenges the Jewish people face today and split them into three categories – delegitimization, division, and most importantly, fear. “Fear is everywhere,” he said. “[People] go silent when I talk about fear because they realize how much fear they live with…we need to be proud.” Fleisher wants to eliminate the fear, and in doing so, bring Jews home. He touched on many subjects during the interview ranging from the reasons behind the fear in the U.S. and the problems in the Middle East that induce it.

First, many American Jews fear that their own relationship with America will suffer if they move to Israel, or even develop a stronger connection with it than their own country. He revealed his desire to connect the American Jew with the Israeli Jew. Citing the Atlantic Ocean as one of the deepest physical boundaries between the two cultures, he said that he wants to make that border feel smaller. American Jews push their connection to Israel aside, due to a fear that choosing Israel makes them appear disloyal to the country they have lived in for years. “We’re culturally American, we watch Seinfeld, but the Jew always feels that at the end of the day, this is not his home,” he said. Fleisher’s determination is the reason he continues to appear on television and speak at college campuses and other communities throughout America. ”We have to put Israel first,” he said. “…We have to get together to build the Jewish state.”

Further, there is a duality among American Jews. They not only fear the Arab nation, but feel conflicted about how the Israelis treat them due to the negative media coverage. Fleisher pointed out that most American Jews are liberal. They’re liberal because they believe in the “intrinsic value of every human being.” He doesn’t sugarcoat it. There is a clear understanding that some liberties need to be abrogated in order for Jews to protect themselves. But what many American Jews don’t understand is that there is a mitzvah in place that sanctions such self-defense. It’s written in the Talmud that when someone intends to harm you, you have a responsibility to fight back. Jews want to live as a righteous community, but in order to do so they must survive first. It’s immoral for Israel to allow rockets to be amassed by people who will use them, Fleisher explained. “We are only 60 some odd years after the Holocaust,” he said. “It’s not a joke. Let’s not live in fear, let’s live in reality.”

Fleisher was born to Russian parents in Haifa, where he lived until age 8. His family moved to America for economic reasons. Although he went to Jewish schools, he craved more of a connection to Israel and couldn’t stay away for long. He skipped his senior year and at 17, went back to Israel to study in Yeshiva and serve in the army as a paratrooper. After an injury, Fleisher returned to America to study at Yeshiva University and obtain a post-graduate degree at Cardozo Law School. There, he met his wife Malkah. The two moved to Israel to get married and establish their home. In the interview, Fleisher didn’t deny that there’s an atmosphere of tension in Israel and that they have to be vigilant, but living in Israel and raising a family there is something he never questions.

Fleisher emphasized that at the end of the day Israel is the homeland of the Jews. Residents can be critical of the nation’s politics and of the current state of warfare, but they should do it without fear and argue about it in their own nation. There are many enticing countries out there, Fleisher said, but Israel needs to be number one.

Joy and Pride Hit 100% at Nefesh B'Nefesh Landing A planeload of Abraham's progeny comes home from the U.S. and there is hardly a dry eye in the airport.

True joy and pride were at peak levels in Ben Gurion Airport Thursday morning as a planeload of olim from the United States arrived on a Nefesh B'Nefesh flight.

"This is like 40 years of a dream coming true… love it!"… "Why do we do it? Because we looove Israel! Woooo!"… "It's a fulfillment of a prophecy after 2,000 years. May I feelthis way every day!"… "I'm so happy I've been crying the whole flight"…

These were some of the utterances made by joyful olim who spoke to Arutz Shevaupon landing in Israel.

All we can add is: Bruchim haba'im – welcome! May we all feel this way every day.

100 reasons to make aliyah

Moshe Lederman gives himself a special 100th birthday present -- aliyah from Brazil • “I have met many thousands of new immigrants and one thing is common to all of them -- whether you are 10 or 100, aliyah makes you younger.”

Yori Yalon

New Israeli immigrant: 100-year-old Moshe Lederman.  |  Photo credit: Eliezer Lederman

Moshe Lederman is one of the oldest new immigrants in Israel. The former Brazilian celebrated his 100th birthday last month together with his family and friends, and then left them to fulfill his life-long dream of making aliyah to Israel.

“I am optimistic, full of energy and have a lot of plans for the future. I have always wanted to emigrate to Israel. I have happily fulfilled that dream and have been united with my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who are living in Israel,” the new immigrant told Israel Hayom on Saturday.

Lederman arrived in Israel on Friday from Brazil with the help of the Jewish Agency. “Even though I am an elderly person, I am sure I can still start a new life in Israel,” he said excitedly.

Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky congratulated Lederman and said, “I have met many thousands of new immigrants and one thing is common to all of them -- whether you are 10 or 100, aliyah makes you younger.”

Moishe, as his family calls him, was born on Feb. 15, 1912, in Chelmno, Poland. He was the youngest child of Yakov and Leah Lederman and the brother of Fanny, Mayer and Paula. In 1930, at the age of 18, Lederman emigrated to Brazil and settled down in the northern city of Recife, Brazil’s fifth-largest city. The city was home to a small community of Jews from Poland, Russia, Romania and Serbia, including some of Lederman’s relatives.

Lederman worked as a merchant and in 1942 married Miriam Alkalay, from a local Spanish Jewish family, who passed away last year. The couple had three children: George, now deceased, Eliezer, 65, who also intends to make aliyah, and Leah, 57, who made aliyah in 1983. Lederman also has seven grandchildren, three of whom live in Israel, and five great-grandchildren, two of whom live in Israel.

“It’s a great joy that he decided to fulfill his dream and emigrate to Israel. My father is a good man, charismatic and full of energy,” Lederman’s daughter, Leah, said. “He likes to read books and newspapers in Portuguese and Yiddish and has always participated in events held by the Chabad house in Recife. He instilled in our family Jewish customs and culture, and the principles of Zionism.”

Lederman is not the only centenarian to become a new Israeli immigrant recently. In August 2011, Golda Goberman, a 100-year-old unabashed communist from Ukraine, arrived and officially became Israeli as well. Goberman, who never hid her Jewishness in Ukraine, was an active member of the Communist Party for more than 70 years, and said upon her arrival, “If Israel became communist, everyone would have equal opportunity. It would be a great thing for the Jewish state.”

From Times Square To Jerusalem

Never Too Late: US Couple in 90s Makes Aliyah The oldest couple to make aliyah has landed in Israel from Baltimore. Welcome to Israel, Phillip and Dorothy Grossman, ages 95 and 93.

The oldest couple ever to make aliyah landed in Israel on Tuesday from Baltimore. Welcome to Israel, Phillip and Dorothy Grossman, ages 95 and 93.

They are part of a Nefesh B’Nefesh group with more than 40 other new immigrants from North America. The Grossmans immediately headed for their new home in Jerusalem.

“We love Israel and we are very excited about our Aliyah,” said Dorothy Grossman. “We are also extremely happy that we can live close to all our family in Israel.”

The couple was born in the United States and has been married for 71 years. Grossman is a retired accountant.

One of their three children already lives in Israel, and a second plans to move to the country this summer.

They also have five grandchildren, three of them in Israel, 14 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren, many of whom greeted them at the airport upon Tuesday morning.

“Phillip and Dorothy are probably the oldest Olim couple that the State of Israel has ever absorbed, and they are proof that it is never too late to fulfill your dream and make such a significant decision in life,” said Erez Halfon, Vice Chairman of Nefesh B’Nefesh. “We congratulate them and wish them many more years of health and happiness living together with their family in Israel.”

The oldest person ever to make aliyah is a woman from New York who moved to Israel at the age of 102. Nearly six years ago, another Baltimore resident and a former friend of the Grossmans made aliyah at the age of 99.

Mishpacha Magazine: New Heights, New Views

Mishpacha's feature article in this week's edition, which focuses mainly on various aliyah issues, is an article entitled "New heights, New Views". The article is very interesting as it gives a perspective of moving to Eretz Yisrael from the perspective of 3 community leaders.

Why would an American success story leave it all behind and start the painful process of putting down roots in a new country? Ever since Avraham Avinu passed the challenge of Lech Lecha, his descendants have had the yearning for the kedushah of Eretz Yisrael implanted in their genetic composition, and have been drawn there as if by gravitational pull. In a candid discussion, Rabbi Emanuel Feldman, the Bostoner Rebbe, and Rabbi Shmuel Bloom, all of whom were at the height of their “careers” as leaders of communities in America when they made the move, discuss the pull that they felt towards Eretz Yisrael, and share some insight into the prospects of making aliyah today

No Coca Cola?

An announcement from friends or relatives that they have decided to make aliyah will always elicit surprise, but when such an announcement comes from a rav or community leader, it is all that much more shocking. How and by whom will the void left in their wake be filled? Will the community continue to thrive with a new leader?


But devastating as the news may seem to those left behind, aliyah seems to be gaining popularity among leaders, with several North American rabbanim making the move each year.


Gathered at Mishpacha’s headquarters in Jerusalem are three people — giants, really, each in his own way — whose departure from America left great voids: Rabbi Emanuel Feldman, who built and led the Atlanta kehillah for several decades before making aliyah; Rabbi Mayer Horowitz, the Bostoner Rebbe of Yerushalayim, who founded and ran several Torah institutions in Boston before moving; and Rabbi Shmuel Bloom, who recently retired as executive vice president of Agudath Yisrael of America.


Geographic distance between their respective cities in the US notwithstanding, the three turn out to be old friends, and as we settle into our discussion, they commiserate about some of the banes of living here these days: the difficulty in finding parking and the continuous rise in the price of the shekel verses the dollar. The overwhelming mutual respect is obvious, and they all feel that the others should be the first to speak.


The first and most obvious question is: What would make a leader of American Jewry pack up and leave? Were you harboring thoughts of making the move all along and were just waiting for the opportunity, or was it a snap decision at some point?
Rabbi Feldman and the Bostoner Rebbe both yield to Rabbi Bloom, who, the Bostoner Rebbe notes, is “the youngest here” — i.e., the one who most recently made the move and had his “rebirth” in Eretz Yisrael.


Rabbi Bloom: 
“Back when I was living in America, whenever I used to visit Eretz Yisrael, taxi drivers would ask me, ‘Why don’t you live in Eretz Yisrael?’
‘Where does the Israeli ambassador to America live?’ I would reply. ‘In Washington DC, because that’s where his diplomatic mission is.’
“When you are an ambassador for the Ribono shel Olam, you may have an assignment in a different part of the world. But when the assignment is done or you find a new assignment, then it’s time to go back home.
“For me, the decision was simply to follow what I had been telling the taxi drivers all along.”


Bostoner Rebbe: 
“Why did I come here? I want to answer from both my father’s standpoint and my own. My father came here for his bar mitzvah — perhaps one of the first boys to be brought to Eretz Yisrael for his bar mitzvah. My grandfather quoted a Zohar that states that if you become bar mitzvah in Eretz Yisrael, you are given a special neshamah, so he insisted on bringing my father here. For my father, being in Eretz Yisrael was a homecoming of sorts; he always wanted to be here.


“As for me, I benefited from the system that thousands of young Americans are gaining from until today — I came to learn in Eretz Yisrael as a bochur. When I came, of course, it wasn’t de rigueur. It wasn’t an accepted fact that everyone came to learn here. My older brother had been the trailblazer, and I followed in his footsteps. There were three or four Americans in Ponevezh at the time, and almost no Americans in Mir, which had less than 100 talmidim then. 


“The experience was life altering. At first, I wasn’t sure if it was the right move for me. I had taken the SATs before I left America, and had scored high enough to make university studies a viable option. But I remember a turning point when I felt that I wanted to be here: I was about to walk up the hill to Ponevezh, and three young children were standing at the bottom of the hill. One of them turned to the others and said with pride as he pointed to me, ‘Hu lomeid b’Ponovezh’ (He learns in Ponovezh).


“When I saw that the recognition of the value of Torah, the importance of Torah, is so much greater here in Eretz Yisrael than it is elsewhere, I knew that I wanted to be here. I’m not putting down America, chas v’shalom. There are great yeshivos there, and a lot of Torah learning there. But there is a counterbalance: the focus on the money that one can earn, which is much less of a consideration here. As soon as you have something on the other side of the scale, the weightiness of Torah is not as significant.”


Rabbi Feldman: 
“Sometimes, when I’m standing in front of a Misrad Hapnim [Interior Ministry] clerk or some other government bureaucrat, I ask myself that very question: ‘Why am I here?’
“But when I see the side that the Rebbe just mentioned — the ruchniyus that’s available here that’s not available elsewhere — I know why I came. In truth, I wanted to come all through my life. About twenty years before I came, I asked my father, who was a rav in Baltimore, whether I could move. He told me that I have a tafkid, a purpose to fulfill in America, and I may not move. I also addressed the question to other gedolei Yisrael, and they told me the same thing.
“I still had a tafkid when I moved, but I left my son behind to fill that job.”


“My cousin, Rabbi Yosef Nayowitz,” adds Rabbi Bloom, “founded many Jewish initiatives in Memphis, and he made many baalei teshuvah. He wanted to move to Eretz Yisrael, but before doing so, he came here and visited gedolei Yisrael. They told him that he can’t move unless he finds someone to replace him. Their advice to him was always in the back of my mind. As long as I felt that there was no one to replace me in the Agudah, I felt that I had no choice but to stay. But when people came up in the ranks who could take over, I felt that it was time to make the move.”
(you can see more of the article on mishpacha.com (it is too long to post the whole thing here), buy the magazine, or wait until it appears here in full in a few days)