A new home in an old home
For Part I of Darrell's arrival in Israel, click here. After sifting through the joyous celebration on the tarmac, I made my way into the terminal to begin the bureaucratic balagan [chaos]. The time spent running between immigration offices at the airport gave me my first lesson in traditional Israeli folk-dancing. Participants move swiftly, impatiently and irately between government offices looking for a non-existent person, form or stamp. The dance is performed to differing simple melodies but the customary refrain always includes 'we don't handle this type of work... we are closing in 10 minutes....come back tomorrow...(sung in Hebrew, Yiddish or Russian).' A Mossad situation
Because nobody's ever questioned me about my involvement with Israel's top-secret spy agency, the Mossad, I'm now ready and willing to talk. It all began while I was still living in Toronto and planning my escape to Israel. One day I stumbled upon an advert in a national Canadian newspaper inviting people to join the Mossad by applying via their new website. Yeah, I was also very surprised to discover the rather unclassified ad. Anyhow, I applied but hadn't heard back from them by the time I had left for Israel to make Aliyup. This, incidentally, would be my second attempt at settling successfully in Israel. My very own "Second Aliyah" if you will. Faking aliyah
When I first 'made' aliyah way back in 1992, I didn't even know what the word aliyah meant, let alone how to pronounce it (a-LEE-ya? a-LIE-ya? Eliza?) The truth is, I didn't come to Israel for any Zionist reasons - another term I was unfamiliar with, although I did hear somewhere that it's the same as racism. Funny, I thought racism was a bad thing. In fact, I was merely bent on getting the heck out of Quebec, Canada where Anglos were deemed too un-French - particularly by the province's "French Language Police" - and encouraged to leave their native land SVP ASAP. The Indians, oops, I mean 'Aboriginal' people, oops, I mean 'First People of Canada' were welcome to stay, albeit with some reservations, merci beaucoup. And what a beau coup it was. |
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