Part I
"I myself feel very good. Like I very much belong here; an
Israeli in every way. I can't change the view of whoever
thinks of me as a chutznik, a kind of `defect' which
they pin on me. But I don't mind living with it till one
hundred and twenty," laughs Dassi, a `new' immigrant, only
twenty-odd years in the country.
"When I go back There for a visit, my nice friendly, familiar
friends greet me along with warm and loving family. The
environment and mentality are so familiar and remembered by
me. Yet, despite this, I feel like I don't belong any more.
On the other hand, when I'm here, they call me
`Amerikaner.' That's how it is; I feel like a person
without an identity, without a name, not in my native land
and not in Israel."
Almost all Israelis have an acquaintance, a neighbor or a
family member who is "a new immigrant" like Dassi. The Hebrew
Bayit Ne'eman decided to explore what a chutznik like
her has to say about the absorption ropes, the emotional and
practical rungs that she had to climb. Dassi attests that her
story is one from real life. She agreed to tell it so that
the natives of the country could increase their sensitivity
to the old-new immigrant, know what she went through and
intuit what she needs from them in terms of empathy and
help.
Childhood Without Ice Cream
I was born in Pittsburgh, a large city in American terms but
a small town in Jewish ones. For the small Jewish population
there, two schools were sufficient: one run by Chabad but
very general in its curriculum and patronized by the
chareidi element, and a modern Day School. My
strongest memory as a child is connected to, of all things,
ice cream. In all my seven years there, I never tasted ice
cream. In my time, there was no cholov Yisroel ice
cream and the bit of milk we had, we obtained from the father
of a friend of mine who went to a farm every few days and
watched a cow being milked by a gentile. He supplied us and a
few other families with this personally supervised kosher
milk. His wife made white cheese from the milk, which we
bought from her -- that's how they made a living. But in all
of my years of childhood, I never had the pleasure of licking
real ice cream.
My parents were certainly missing more important things than
ice cream, but that was partly compensated for by the warm
family atmosphere that reigned among the few religious
families that lived in Pittsburg. Nevertheless, the time came
when they decided to pull up roots and move away, together
with the children who had been born there, further inland and
westward, but not to a large chareidi center. When my
brother reached bar- mitzva age and my parents sought a
yeshiva for him, it was a toss-up between a four hour plane
ride to one yeshiva or a six hour plane ride to another, in
New York. They chose a third option: to go with him to a
place of Torah. This is how we finally came to move to New
York when I was twelve, and up till the time I made aliya,
that is where I lived.
I finished four years of high school and went off to
Jerusalem where I learned for a year in a seminary for
foreign students. That was a special year, one of elation. At
the end of it, many girls declared that after their weddings,
they would live only in Eretz Yisroel, even only in
Jerusalem, and a few narrowed it down even further to -- only
Kiryat Mattersdorf.
Today, three are in Baltimore, two in Monsey, two in
Cleveland and so on down the line -- all excepting
Mattersdorf. I, myself, did not want to develop any
illusions. My father was no gvir and I couldn't
establish any facts. But there was no doubt as to what my
choice would have been, given it.
A Ben Torah -- No Matter of What Origin
At the end of the school year, we spent the last Shabbos in
Bnei Brak before going back to America. We davened in
Ponevizh and I remember that at the end of the prayers, I
stood by the mechitza directly opposite the oron
kodesh and prayed with all my heart: "Ribono Shel
Olom, You know what You have chosen for me. I only ask
that he be a real ben Torah so that I can dedicate my
life to his Torah - in any place he chooses!"
You can imagine how I felt a few months later when a
shidduch was suggested -- of my husband of today who
was studying in Yeshivas Ponevizh at the time and who was
determined to remain there to study. I felt a wonderful
closeness to Hashem, for here, my prayer had been answered!
This unknown candidate's stock went up sky-high in my
opinion, even before I ever met him.
My dream of making aliya came true six weeks after the
wedding. I was offered jobs, as well as an apartment in
Jerusalem, but my husband made it clear that for his Torah
there was only one place - Yeshivas Ponevizh in Bnei Brak. I
knew that I would follow wherever he decided to go. It wasn't
Jerusalem. The Bnei Brak of twenty years ago was primitive
compared to today. There were few stores and a poor selection
of merchandise. There were hardly any air conditioners and
even a fan on a stand was considered an extravagant
novelty.
I landed from a spiritual high of "The Holy Land" to Bnei
Brak below, but it was a soft landing. The first rule, I told
myself, was approximately this: "Listen, lady, everyone has
difficulty adapting anywhere. Don't pin your life's problems
on the country. You are faced with a challenge of the burden
of income, together with raising children and running a home.
All this is so that your husband can sit freely and study
Torah -- shivti b'veis Hashem. It's not an easy
challenge, it's true, but every woman is faced with it in
every corner of the world, and it's important that you
separate the issues from the beginning. But in order that you
remain in the right direction of `Seeing the goodness of
Yerusholayim,' you must seek the advantages of
settling in Israel. If you steer in that direction only,
you'll reach your goal, and you'll really have it good here."
It's true that it's not easy to live far from your family,
but as someone who grew up in America, I was already used to
huge distances, and you can always bridge them by telephone,
letters and infrequent visits.
Transience Reduces Stress
When we arrived, they told us that it was not a good idea to
live in Ramat Elchanan because it was too far removed from
"home base." I laughed inside. This is called distance? I
didn't see any problem. What eased the distance and my
approach to additional issues was the fact that from the
outset, we had come only for a few months -- which, in the
meantime, have turned into more than twenty years, therefore,
I didn't feel the pain of parting at any time. After all,
everything is temporary. We're going back soon. That's how I
felt for many years, and this gave me legitimacy to live the
way I wanted, to be a little different. Anyway, that's how
the locals saw me, and if this was so, I could really feel
and even act differently, all in my own good way.
I don't have to be like anyone. I am not in competition with
any group or society; I don't need to impress anyone. I am
what I am. Had I lived in Lakewood with five classmates, I
might have felt the need to be like them in my furnishings,
dress, lifestyle. But here, I'm the American, and it's no big
deal if I have no fancy sofa, if there are no chairs in the
kitchen and we sit on simple stools or my kids wear hand-me-
downs from relatives. And when there's no competition and no
societal pressure, life is much easier. And when there's no
pressure to get this item or that one as fast as possible but
to wait for the bonanza to fall from Heaven, which it
occasionally does, it turns out that there are many things
that are not necessary in the short run, and there is a
different order of priorities. I preferred, in the time
remaining after work, to do another puzzle with the kids or
read a book, and I postponed washing the floor for a couple
of hours, or a couple of days... I don't think my house was
less hygienic than the average house in Bnei Brak. I do like
to think that our home atmosphere was more casual and
relaxed.
To be continued...
