Old/New World Discourse: A bat bayit's aliyah, part II

I remember once witnessing one friend give another mussar. The first woman had complained about other Jews with differing religious habits. The second woman had responded by pointing, from the Kotel Courtyard, where all of us were standing, to the Temple Mount and to the alien structure that she hoped, very soon, will disappear from there. "Achdut, not assessment," that wiser other had whispered. That sagacious Ima had cooed in Hebrew, a second language for all of us, yet her words were as honeyed as is the land which we are settling. Simply, Hebrew is not only holy, but because it is holy, Hebrew is also powerful.
 
As stated in "A Bat Bayit's Aliyah: Part I," it was with much gratitude that my family welcomed our Bat Bayit to Israel. As not stated, however, oddly, though Jews to a one, we welcomed her in English.

At her Ben Gurion Airport welcome ceremony, English was everywhere. English was the language of most of the speeches, English was the language printed on at least half of the signs, and English was the lingua chosen by most of the guests.

Even though most of the greeters seemed a click or two different from most of the new arrivals, Israeliness having seeped, somehow, into the greeters’ stances, proxemics, and dress, those more established dwellers in the Holy Land, nonetheless, spoke the language of their birth nations. In fact, not only did those more established Israelis speak English, but they also: adjusted their personal space according to North American norms, rather than according to Middle Eastern ones; gestured like individuals from South Africa and from Australia, rather than like individuals from Yemen or from Egypt; punctuated their talk with pitch and pace more closely resembling that of Brits than of indigent Israelis; and interspersed their speech with snips of French, Yiddish, and Russian, rather than of Hebrew.

Those sounds and gesticulations were odd to me, a resident of a predominantly Israeli neighborhood, where the main language remains Hebrew. I felt comfortable with my ability to comprehend the Anglo talk swirling around me, but out of sorts with the lack of local language. Most of the newbies knew Ivrit, so in some ways the use of so much English made no sense.  Maybe there was a comfort factor involved.

When my family lived in the States and visited immigrants from Russia, we heard Russian at the Shabbot table. When we had Shabbot with people from Switzerland, German was spoken intermittent with English, and so on. I postulate that the deficit of Hebrew in the reception was due to a combination of fatigue, joy, and habit.

I believe, though, that regardless of what they spoke when they landed and what they will speak in the future, that the vast majority of those olim, especially given the helpful agencies available to them, beginning with Nefesh Bnefesh who chartered their flight, through the Klita offices in major cities, and more, will quickly and easily find their "Israeliness." The Internet has made cultural fluency easy. From online language lessons, to articles about living in Israel, to Judaic chat rooms, and more, olim today can begin their acculturation long before they arrive. Baruch Hashem!

Meanwhile, fade to focus, at the airport, our Bat Bayit was being treated like a queen. She had had a reporter and a cameraman follow her around from the time she was processing her papers in New York, through her hours on the flight over, and continuing during her arrival experience at Ben Gurion.  In addition, a friend of our Bat Bayit, whose first year aliyah anniversary coincided with our Bat Bayit’s flight, decked our loved one in a tinsel lei the color of the Israeli flag. Plus, the members of our family who could not join us at the airport called to greet our Bat Bayit.

Missy Oldest called from Tzfat, where Missy Oldest's class was performing chesed. Computer Cowboy called en route to a business meeting in Haifa. Boy-Getting-Taller and Boy-Who-Needs-Books mumbled greetings from Jerusalem.

Two days later, during Shabbot in our home, the celebration continued. Our children, who had known this special young lady for years in the States, had no trouble returning her to her role as adopted older sibling. Missy Oldest called again, before Shabbot, to wish our not so long lost daughter "a welcome home." Bat Bayit and Missy Youngest, along with Murphy-the-Kitten shared a room. Bat Bayit and Boy-Who-Needs-Books exchanged a missed year's worth of taunts and jests (our Bat Bayit 'needing' to be reminded that she was new here and our older son 'needing' someone else to point out that he had grown taller and had lost his little boy voice). In addition, Boy-Who-Needs-Books introduced our Bat Bayit as an Olah Chodesha to our other Shabbot guests and helped me talk, in Hebrew, to a rabbi in our minyon, whom, in turn addressed our minyon's gabai, who announced, after services, but before everyone had dispersed, that our kehila had a chance to welcome a freshly  minted Israeli.

After the second meal of Shabbot, a close family friend, who had met Bat Bayit during Bat Bayit's pilot year here, came over to share a hug. Later that afternoon, before and after my favorite Shabbot shiur, the shiur's regular attendees focused their motherly and grandmotherly attention on Bat Bayit. After Shabbot, Computer Cowboy took Bat Bayit to a local tzedeket for a brucha.

Motzi Shabbot, reinforced with extra blankets and with phone numbers of mutual friends, Bat Bayit made her way into her new Israeli life. We filled her with love. We filled her with joy. We hope we filled her with an appreciation for things Israeli. Anyway, we’re glad she’s here!
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Little Smile:

Usually, Computer Cowboy walks Boy-Who-Needs-Books to Boy's hasaha stop. Recently, I walked our child. Given the injury I was recovering from, my kidlet and I left our home VERY early (children under ten strain to be keepers of family time. No exception, that morning, our small one told me just how many minutes off schedule I was).

As we paraded (okay, he skipped, hopped and otherwise vibrated while I shuffled and hobbled), we were privy to a montage constituted by the visually appreciable goings on of our street. Those sights were rich and variegated.

In one case, the son of a neighbor marched, all spiffy and noble, in his newly acquired (just had a Bar Mitzvah) hat, to the place where he would be picked up by his yeshiva's minivan. In another case, a gaggle of local girls, all long skirts and knee socks, talked softly to each other, while waiting on an adjacent patch of sidewalk, about the sun, about the moon and about their upcoming Halacha test.

In yet another instance, little boys, the same ones with whom our little son spends all of his not-at-home-or-at-school-hours, their tzitzis flying behind them, raced to the hasaha stop they share with Boy-Who-Needs-Books. It's amazing how different those children look on school days then when I see them on Shabbot. On that bright morning, those little boys were all colorful shirts and autumnal-hued pants; on Shabbot, they wear regulation black and white.

Following those elementary-aged children came lanky teens, their kippot pinned to their heads, their faces still stuffed with the gossamer of their previous night's dreams, and their empty bellies anticipating their postshacharit yeshiva breakfasts. Those teens essentially sleep-walked to where their bus would meet them.

Past the children trotted tzniut women, mostly middle-agers, performing their morning cardio-vascular drills from beneath somber snoods. Along with those matrons, women in shorts, busied with cellphones, too, took space on the sidewalk.

A few dog owners ambled by, as well, scooping as they moved. Several dumpster cats and an occasional worker, too, walked past us. I would have been curious to see who else would appear on the street, but in no time at all, Boy-Who-Needs-Books' hasaha came.

Whereas I didn't mind returning to my work, I did enjoy those moments spent with my smallest son. Not only was I able to collect extra hugs from him, but I was able to observe the variety of humanity that issues forth from our single block during a schoolday morning.