What if you were to pack up your life and move to a new country? The checklist quickly starts to form: job; accommodations; language; permission to settle; education.
Drs. Helen Horowitz and Joe Clayman and their twin daughters Heidi and Pearl have been diligently ticking those boxes.
For the past four years, the family has been planning their aliyah. The date was set for August, 2020. Then the coronavirus hit. While the global pandemic may have delayed their departure, the family plans are still very much in the works.
“We’re very excited to follow our dream and to make the religious Zionism ideal a reality for us,” says Horowitz in a recent interview with the Intermountain Jewish News. This has been a dream years in the making.
It started with their daughter Miriam, now 25, a DJDS graduate who planned to make aliyah after college. On her gap year in Israel, she decided she didn’t want to delay her dream of aliyah.
“It became a goal for the family,” which wasn’t surprising since she and her husband “raised them with that ideal.” Their children attended Zionist schools. They participated in Bnei Akiva, and the family’s synagogue, EDOS, is religious Zionist. “So it wasn’t any surprise that they wanted to live in Israel.
“You reap what you sow,” Horowitz chuckles.
But Horowitz and Clayman did not rush into the decision. It developed over time and was thoroughly researched. For example, they first contemplated the idea when Heidi and Pearl, now 18, were entering high school. Horowitz and Clayman, after much research, felt that the kind of education they wanted their daughters to have would be best in the US.
But the seed was officially planted. While no concrete plans were made, “we began speaking about it, planning, thinking about the timing.”
The target of aliyah following their daughters’ high school graduation started to form. The plan was for Heidi and Pearl to have their gap year in Israel, after which all four would make aliyah together.
Professional trajectories also influenced the decision. Clayman, 62, was approaching retirement. While Horowitz, 58, sped up her “semi-retirement,” they both felt their ages and career stages left them well poised for a “phase two” in their lives.
Both plan to continue working in Israel, which brings its own set of challenges for the medical professionals. Becoming credentialed in Israel is its own bureaucracy, which includes a three-month residency for doctors to familiarize themselves with the medical system there.
The couple had planned to attend an aliyah fair in March in New Jersey, where much of this paperwork could have been completed — ahead of their arrival in Israel. The coronavirus put paid to that plan — the fair was canceled — but not to Horowitz’s plan to practice psychiatry in Israel. In fact, she’s very much looking forward to exploring her field in Israel.
In preparation for aliyah, Horowitz took a step back from her practice last July.
Her lease was up and she decided that instead of re-signing, she needed the planning time. “I miss patient contact,” she says, and has already been in touch with a clinic in Jerusalem.
“I want to become part of the society,” she says, and “part of that is working there and contributing.”
For her, a stumbling block will be the language.
Her daughters Heidi and Pearl are pretty fluent she says, having studied the language in school and spent the last seven months in Hebrew-language post-high school Judaic studies programs in Israel.
Clayman’s Hebrew, according to Horowitz, “is pretty good,” whereas hers is “pretty weak.” She began studying the language a few years ago and practices daily on Duolingo, the language learning app, but “I really am looking forward to ulpan. I find it easier to learn Hebrew in Israel than in Denver.”
She doesn’t plan to take the easy way out and live in an English-speaking area. “I want to speak Hebrew. I want to become fluent,” she says.
A well-known adage goes: “If you want to make G-d laugh, make plans.” The Horowitz-Clayman family is learning that firsthand. While they’ve done everything right — extensive research, completion of paperwork — they couldn’t have planned for the coronavirus.
For now, the four have been approved for aliyah, but were just informed by Nefesh b’Nefesh, the organization facilitating their aliyah through the Jewish Agency, that Israel has put immigration visas on hold.
Still, Heidi and Pearl are each registered for a year of Judaic studies. Heidi will continue at Migdal Oz, where she spent her gap year, while also preparing for undertaking national service the following year.
Pearl will attend Hadas at Lindenbaum, a Judaic studies program that’s also a preparatory year ahead of Army service.
Both programs are scheduled to begin in August, although the family realizes this may not occur. There’s also the possibility of the twins making aliyah earlier than their parents.
This flexible approach isn’t natural for Horowitz, a self-described “real planner. It would have been in my nature to have the flight booked already.”
While Horowitz and Clayman are carefully monitoring the restrictions in Israel to plan for their arrival there, the virus is also impacting their departure. An elective surgery was canceled. Their house, while on the market, hasn’t been shown due to the closure of non-essential businesses. The overall economic situation could impact the speed with which their house sells. “Obviously,” acknowledges Horowitz, “the market has changed.”
But, she says, “that will not be something that holds us back.”
Neither will the coronavirus’ impact on their Denver social life, making it nearly impossible for them to spend time with friends ahead of their move. While she misses that socialization, Horowitz is confident the family will be able to see friends before they move.
There’s also the added benefit of having more time to tackle the gargantuan task of sorting through decades of accumulated goods and memories.
And as hard as it was not to spend the seder with friends, for example, “having another seder in Denver wouldn’t keep me here,” she says, invoking the seder’s concluding prayer: “Next year in Jerusalem.”
The snags aren’t all virus-related. Daughter Miriam, the one who kicked off aliyah for the family, and who in the meantime married and had a child, has moved back — temporarily — to the US. Her husband, Ben Yablon, is studying for his commercial pilot’s license and the young family may be out of Israel for up to two years.
“That clarified for us that we’re not making aliyah just for Miriam,” says Horowitz. She and Clayman will certainly miss their grandson, Eldad, but “in some ways it was very positive because it made us look at the decisions for ourselves, not just to follow our daughter and grandson.”
As much as the family is looking forward to this new chapter — what Horowitz calls a “reboot” — there are hardships, particularly with regard to the family members who aren’t coming along.
Clayman and Horowitz have a daughter Naomi who is settled and happy in Northern California. Horowitz dreams of the right job offer for Naomi, who is a chemist, but until that happens, acknowledges the difficulty of separating. “We’ll really miss her,” she says, “and make a big effort to see each other.”
Horowitz is also leaving behind her father, “one of the hardest things,” she says. The family tried to talk to him about moving with them, “but understandably he doesn’t want to.”
The family is planning on frequent visits and has already made note of a direct flight from Tel Aviv to Miami, where he lives. Horowitz is also open to the possibility of spending longer periods of times with him, as needed.
But these considerations aren’t enough to hold them back from their dream. “Ever since we started visiting Israel, I would never want to leave,” says Horowitz. “I would always feel a big pull.”
While they’ll be leaving family and friends behind, they’ll also be reconnecting with Denver friends who have made aliyah, as well as their “hundreds of cousins” who live in Israel.
Horwitz is also looking forward to developing new friendships, joining a new community and exploring a new culture — including Israel’s kosher culinary delights. “I’m looking at it as phase two of life,” she says.
Ultimately, though, there’s one overriding motivation for the family’s aliyah: “It’s where the Jewish people belong,” says Horowitz.
Shana Goldberg may be reached at shana@ijn.com
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