Meet the Olim

ERETZ

MEET THE OLIM

Meet Gabriella Katz

‘I can’t see myself anywhere else,’ she says.

AVIVA ZACKS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Gabriella Katz, 24, made aliyah in 2017 from Southfield six months after she got home from seminary. She initially lived in the Old City of Jerusalem and then moved to Givat Shmuel to start studying visual communications at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) of Herzliya. She graduated in 2020, lives in Givat Shmuel and works in Herzliya.

JN: Where did your Zionist education come from?

GK: I went to Akiva (now Farber Hebrew Day School) and Camp Stone, and I davened at the Young Israel of Oak Park, which are all Zionistic.

My parents also instilled Zionism in the home. My mom’s two sisters live in Israel, and my grandmother lives here most of the time. I’ve had Zionism infused in me my entire life.

After high school, I went to Midreshet HaRova for a year and a half, which is all that Zionism times seven. Before I went to HaRova, I was planning to go to college in America and then come on aliyah.

JN: How did you make your final decision?

GK: When I decided to make aliyah, I texted my parents, “I’m making aliyah,” but I decided to go home for six months and live life out of the aliyah bubble. The whole time I was home, I just wanted to come back here.

JN: What was your aliyah experience like?

GK: I made aliyah on July 4. The date of my aliyah was 70 years from the day when my grandfather came to America after the Shoah. Seventy years was the time of Galut, and I had the choice to come back to Israel after such a horrible thing happened to our people.

I was so happy to be on a charter flight where everyone was making aliyah at the same time. When I got off the plane, I felt like a celebrity because there were a lot of people and there was a band playing welcome music. Then I heard my name, and it was my two aunts holding a sign. My friends and teachers from HaRova also showed up.

JN: What are you doing now? GK: I am the content coordinator for a television production company in Herzilya. I love it.

JN: What do you miss about liv-

ing in Detroit?

GK: I miss so many things: Brian’s Calzones, Slurpees, seven-layer, Dunkin’ Donuts, Target — all the materialistic stuff that you don’t get here. I miss my family a lot — my dad’s mother who lives down the street from us, my cousins who live two blocks away, my parents, of course. I talk to them every day, but it’s not the same.

I also miss snow. People from Michigan think I’m crazy, but snow is my favorite season. My dad called me recently to see the snow.

JN: What do you love about living in Israel?

GK: Waking up every day, there’s a purpose to my life because I live where my national history is unfolding. Also, there is an inherent caring about other people that doesn’t exist everywhere else. It’s like a family where you get annoyed with each other, and you yell at each other all the time, but at the end of the day, if the bus starts moving before I’m on it, someone on the bus is going to scream, “Stop!!”

When all the rockets were hitting us this past summer, one fell in Givat Shmuel, where I live. I was home by myself that Shabbat, and it was really scary because it was the first time I had ever experienced that.

After I heard a loud boom that shook our building and the siren stopped, I stepped out of my shelter and went outside. My neighbors asked me if I was by myself. I told them I was, and they immediately said to come to their house. I sat there for the rest of Shabbat, and it was so nice because I had barely talked to them before.

JN: Do you have a message for any young person thinking about making aliyah while single?

GK: It’s good to make aliyah before you go to college because you integrate better. College is a transition period, which makes aliyah a lot easier.

I can’t see myself anywhere else. I’m here to raise my kids in Israel.

I’m here because the people are amazing, yelling and all.