L’CHAIM | BY DEBORAH FINEBLUM | JNS.ORG
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NEW IMMIGRANTS TO ISRAEL JUMP RIGHT IN... TO A CORONAVIRUS QUARANTINE
week from Highland Park, N.J. The hardest part? Not being able to go outside or see the kids or grandchildren who live in Israel. (His wife Clara came two weeks earlier before quarantine was mandated, so is able to run errands and bring in food etc.). The empty arrival hall at Ben“I figured that Israel Gurion International Airport on is one of the safest March 11, 2020. Photo by Flash90. places to be right now because of its proactive he first few weeks after making aliyah policy — one of the strictest in the world,” he are typically a flurry of activity, with says. “But I was still shocked when I landed the newly minted Israeli dashing and witnessed Ben-Gurion Airport deserted.” from government offices to banks to setting Still, says Bassous, he’s “so happy to be up utilities to schools to register the kids, not home after a 2,500-year exile.” His own to mention finding a terrific falafel stand. journey has spanned his Calcutta birthplace, But what if instead of all that, upon arrival England and Jerusalem as a student before you were transported to your new home moving to Canada, and from there to the and instructed to stay there for two weeks? United States and now, at age 61, to Israel. Everyone moving to Israel after March 4 — And like Bassous, most of the folks on the the Jewish Agency puts the number at 163 Nefesh B’Nefesh aliyah list have soldiered (and returning Israelis as well) needs to stay on with their plans to make Israel their in quarantine; in Hebrew, bedood — for new home, coronavirus or no coronavirus, two weeks before they can venture out and quarantine or no quarantine. explore their new home. “It makes sense,” says Rabbi David Aaron, “On the list of stressors, moving is right author of The Secret Life of God, among up there,” says Jerusalem-based social others and dean of Isralight who moved worker Aliza Shapiro, who often works with to Israel from Toronto at 18. “Once you’ve immigrant teens and who made aliyah herself made the decision to come and live your life’s from Cleveland in 2010. “And when you’re dream in Eretz Yisrael, this isn’t going to stop moving to a place where everything is new you. It’s the greatness of these people and this to you: the language, the culture, the grocery land that shows itself at a time like this.” stores, quarantine adds another layer of stress The silver lining: Crises tend to bring to on top of the rest.” the fore the time-honored Israeli tradition “I didn’t realize how hard quarantine would of welcoming the newcomer, whether it’s be,” says David Bassous who made aliyah last
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L’CHAIM SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE • APRIL 2020
dropping off dinner, a tip on the best dentist in town or helping out with the kids. (In addition, the Jewish Agency and other groups are making sure that quarantined new olim don’t go without necessities). “It’s one of the qualities that makes Israel so special,” says Shapiro. At 44, Yehoshua Zepeda is a media producer, photographer, sculptor and writer. And, as of last week, he’s also an Israeli. During his 12 years in New York City, “on the busy Manhattan treadmill running my own video-production business, I realized I’d lost touch with my spiritual center,” he says. He had just returned from a two-month stay in Israel. “And I got back to New York and felt like it was no longer my home, like I’d left the core of me back in Jerusalem.” Last winter, after completing graduate studies in documentary filmmaking in California, Zepeda began making arrangements for his move. He never expected, however, to arrive at the same time that the coronavirus was sweeping across the globe. “But even when I heard about it, I figured I’d much rather be quarantined in Jerusalem than in Los Angeles. It’s a small price to pay.” Nefesh B’Nefesh, which facilitates the aliyah process for those from North America and the United Kingdom, is opening a hotline (1-866-4-ALIYAH in the United States) for arriving olim to help them navigate their somewhat restricted early aliyah process. “These new olim, more than ever, represent the strong future of the State of Israel,” says co-founder and executive director Rabbi Yehoshua Fass. “They are determined to fulfill their dreams of helping to build the Jewish nation.”
