Meet the Olim

ERETZ

MEET THE OLIM

The Woolf family.

THE WOOLF FAMILY

Talya Woolf: In Israel, “You’re Family”

AVIVA ZACKS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Talya Drissman Woolf, 44, made aliyah in 2015, from Farmington Hills with her husband, Ariel, and their baby, Elchanan, who is now 8 and the older brother of Yehonatan, 6, Lilach, 4, and Liora, 21 months.

JN: Where did you make aliyah to?

Talya: We made aliyah to Giv’at Shmuel. We heard it would be a soft landing because there’s a big Englishspeaking community. We lived there for about two years and then moved to a small, mixed neighborhood in Netanya.

JN: What do you think about your community?

Talya: It’s a great community and the schools are amazing. Our kids’ school keeps winning national awards.

JN: What’s your Zionist background?

Talya: The Drissman family is very Zionist, very pro-Israel. We never really talked about living in Israel, but there was a lot of pro-Israel talk in our home. We went to Israel for the first time as a family in 1991, and then my sister started studying here every summer. One summer, I came along with her and studied at Neve Yerushalayim, but back then I never thought about making aliyah.

JN: When did you decide to make aliyah?

Talya: I started thinking about it when I had been a lawyer for a few years. I wondered about how to convert my license so that I could practice in Israel. I started looking into it and found out that if you practice in the U.S. for five years, you don’t have to take the bar exam in Israel. When I met my Israeli husband, he made it clear that he wanted to live in Israel, which was fine with me.

We decided not to move to Israel immediately when we got married because I wanted him to get to know my family. We lived in Detroit for three years.

JN: What do you miss about living in Michigan?

Talya: My dad, my brothers and sister (who lives in Toronto). I also miss snow.

JN: Do you have a message for anyone who’s thinking about making aliyah?

Talya: If you have younger children, absolutely move here because there is nothing like the Israeli community. In America, I felt like the whole world was not Jewish, and we had this little bubble where we would celebrate our holidays. We’d get dressed up for Purim and go to our public high school in our costumes, and we’d always have to explain it. We also had to explain why we missed so much school in September. My kids are growing up where they don’t have to constantly explain their identity.

When I was working in America, I had to go through the calendar and ask for several days off every year for all the holidays. I also had to explain Fridays in the winter when I had to leave early.

Now, my identity is just myself, not the observant Jew who needs time off.

JN: What positive things have you found here?

Talya: People say Israel is so expensive, but here we have great health coverage, which is ridiculously cheap. Schooling and college are also very inexpensive.

If non-observant people are thinking about making aliyah, there are good secular schools here, and there’s a feeling of family even if you’re not religious. On Yom Kippur, everybody rides their bikes because everybody’s off work and no one’s driving. It has become a family day.

Everybody gives you advice on the street even if you didn’t ask for it, and you can get conflicting advice from one block to the next. But it’s only because they love you and they worry about you, even though they don’t know you. Because you’re family.

There will never be the perfect time to make aliyah. Just do it.