One year and one day ago I invited my friends for a siyum [finishing] on mesechtes Kiddushin [Talmud] and said goodbye to them. Almost a year later, I finally took a trip back to the United States to take my daughter to summer camp, see my parents, son, friends, and business partner. Here I am, at the end of my trip, at the airport waiting to board my flight to Israel after passing through the exact same security luggage check-in for El Al on the left end of the third floor of Newark airport, only this time, in Hebrew (with the help of contextual clues) with an Israeli passport (teudat ma’avar, to be precise). My emotions are running strong and that seems like a great time to blog while in a few months, it will be a good time to groan at sharing emotions publicly.

I Didn’t Want to Leave Israel

When I booked the flight months ago, I thought I’d want to go. The hardest part about aliyah is being away from my friends and close relations. As the date arrived my desire to go became less and less. I had met my son in France not that long ago and speak to my father weekly without fail. Even if I could back out for myself, my daughter’s entire class from America, except three girls, were attending this summer camp and there was no question in her mind that she wanted to go.

So I went – with a packed schedule and amazing time. Living in Israel is like one long extended vacation. Coming back to America was like a vacation within a vacation. I even bought United States souvenirs (sort of as a gag gift).

Catching Up with Friends in the Old Country

My daughter made it to her camp bus, my dad took me to Costco, and my son and I wrote patents together. Should we go somewhere? Where? Nah – we bond by writing patents (… and went out for dinner in Manhattan followed by walking a few dozen blocks uptown).

I went out for beer with some friends – the last time they did so was with me years ago and at the same place. That’s interesting because my friends in Israel said it’d been at least 20 years since going out with just guys. We also all had the same shoes, despite not seeing each other in decades.

It seems the desire to hang out with friends isn’t so common with adult men or least not the kind I’m friends with. Probably the latter. Yes, I think the latter.

Business

Traveled 6138 miles (roughly) to sign financial documents. There are two types of documents for verification:

notary
medallion signature guarantee

The first one can be acquired online or by a human in the United States. They aren’t allowed to notarize when outside the country. The only option is to go to the U.S. Embassy / consulate early in the morning, in either Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. An online notary wasn’t accepted and the lawyer didn’t give us one of the documents the first time so it was two early morning appointments and hours of waiting in lines (four, in total) to get the stamp … and a good thing we did the first one right away so there was time to get an appointment for the second before I came to America. (My wife was in Israel and needed to get the stamp there.)

For banking institutions, you can sign in person or sign at another U.S. banking institution that gives a “medallion signature guarantee”. Searched all over Israeli for this … banks don’t do it and there’s one guy who does … for $250/stamp and it is only good up to a certain value … would my banking institution accept this stamp? Unclear. They don’t know. No one uses this stuff.

So I made an appointment, weeks ahead of time, to sign at my financial institution, in person. That morning the financial institution calls me, “you don’t need to come in – you can do it online.” No, no I can’t. You’re wrong and I’m coming. What is the big deal if I show up to do it, anyway?

“I’ll call you back in twenty minutes.” Twenty minutes later another guy calls me back and says come in. They have the documents prepared and what took too long trying to get it done in Israel, took minutes in the United States. Sometimes you have to come back for business.

Safety Video interrupts the fun on planes

Speaking of reasons to come to the United States – sorry for the interruption. The Lior Suchard safety video is playing now on the plane as we begin taxiing. The Israeli guy behind me pointed out that the card in the video is the 6 of hearts in the Hebrew version and the 8 of hearts in the English version. Never noticed that difference.

On YouTube it’s the 7 of hearts. Look at that …

Shopping in America

Where were we? Okay, reason to come to the United States – dopamine reactions from Amazon orders.

Your package will arrive today!
It’s 10 stops away!
It’s here!
Here’s a picture of the delivery!

Amazon shopping is an addiction I’d never break and for which I am so much better off in Israel. I have to take the time to find a product, go to a store (usually), and put a whole lot more thought into the purchase … or just take what’s available. The meteorism is out of control in America. People have houses half the size of a small apartment building by Israel standards and are adding entire additional floors and wings. Why? How many empty rooms do you need? How much … emptiness … in their little castles surrounded by moats.

As an oleh who travels back to the United States my recommendation is to travel to the US with just a carry-on and return also with a suitcase. There is no shortage of people who will want you to bring things back for them and it is an easy chesed (kindness) to do for people that costs you nothing extra except for piece of luggage … which you can use for your stuff too.

What I Bought in America

On my first trip back from America I returned with:

historical family photo albums;
cellular phone and case (for someone else);
cellular phone protective glass (replace my cracked glass)
clothing for myself;
clothing for others;
books;
lighting equipment for my video conferences (the lightbox was too big to bring – and you can return anything on Amazon);
cream of some kind (for someone else, clearly).

Electronics and clothing are a lot cheaper in America. Books are more readily available in English in America. I turned down a request to bring a whole bunch of vitamins and whatnot because I didn’t know if I’d have room. The person would simply have had it shipped to me in a day using Amazon.

Oh, and a United States deck of cards. I buy cards wherever I go on vacation.

Shabbos in My Old Community

After 20 years living in one place – in a community that has regular community events (e.g. going to synagogue), turns out you know a lot of people. I ran into them everywhere …

Having taught for four years in the community and having about 100 students, former students are hard not to run into. It’s funny how when they’re no longer in your class to misbehave, you get along a lot better. They had a surprise for me – Shabbos afternoon they gathered at the house where I was eating lunch and we did a good amount of reminiscing, quizzing, and hanging out. Each student has a different favorite topic and apparently some of them still quiz each other on the class callouts (go to page 3).

For example … “I’m drowning over here!” Response: “Send for the Carpathia!” Or … “That Line!” Response: “36-30!” Or … “Remember the …”. Answer: “Alamo!” Refreshing because no one cares about American history in Israel.

Then there are the times that I’m sitting in synagogue or walking on the street minding my own business and someone I know walks by me. The keep walking then … stop. Then … turn and … “Aren’t you in Israel?” Well, I guess so. This is just an aberration. Then we have a good conversation which often includes a topic of “I’d like to move to Israel…”, “is it scary living there”, or “you’re so much more calm.” Moving to Israel is like getting the courage to climb up all those stairs to the high dive and fearing the plunge into freezing cold water until you adjust.

Rather have Houti missiles or American roads?

As for being more calm – let me put it to you this way: the most anxiety I’ve felt in months was trying to turn onto a residential street to a wider residential street with cars traveling at 45 MPH and parked cars blocking my view. It’s like bowling without bumpers and if you don’t hit it right the ball goes in the gutter. Pulling on to highways isn’t much better – never had to ‘gun it’ in Israel to get on a road. Stopping in traffic to turn across the other side of the road … this is daily anxiety in America.

Houti 15kg warhead missiles are just annoyances. They don’t hurt anyone. There are multi-ton boxes of metal coming at you in America from all directions which don’t stop when you cross the road. Americans live with this anxiety and even when America tries to make roads safe, they do things like have a stretch of 3 lane highway jump to 4 lanes and drop the speed limit at the same time. A cop is often hiding behind the new 4th lane. Who needs the gimmicks and anxiety?

I used to hate speed bumps with a passion – they slow down life. Once you have the slowed down life, it’s a whole lot more enjoyable and less stressful.

Epilogue of Part 1

Finally on Shabbos I saw as many friends as possible – it was like I had never left and months of friend time was packed into the week. After thinking I’d never go back to America again, I think I’ll do it again next year.

Upon returning to Tel Aviv airport, the stewardess and travelers around me played a joke on me – no food was served on the plane, yet they got together and said I just slept through both meals. Sure … you expect me to believe that?

(I do.)

Tel Aviv airport was packed with travelers again – very nice to see that. Part 2 coming next.

The Entire Aliyah Diary

Arrival

01. Aug 19, 2024: Preparation In America
02. Aug 25, 2024: First Few Days
03. Aug 29, 2024: Moving In
62. July 17, 2025: I MADE IT

Cultural Adjustment Fun

Cultural Adjustment Difficulties

On The Roads

Shopping

11. Oct 13, 2024: Packages. (חבילות.)
34. Feb 17, 2025: Finding Obscure Things
41. Mar 23, 2025: New Shopping Habits
44. Apr 6, 2025: Pesach Shopping & Osher Ad

Government and Bureaucracy

Politics and Thought

Travel: South Israel

Travel: Central/North Israel

Travel: From Israel to …

54. June 4, 2025: Marseille and Avignon
66. Aug 11, 2025: Return to America 1