Resources

There are many resources available to you on the subject of Aliyah. Imagine that you need help and run into a friend from shul — that person will pretty much drop whatever they are doing and give a hand. That is what it seems like with all of the people out there who want to help you.

#1 place is obviously the Nefesh B’Nefesh site. There are so many pages (well maintained) of information and extremely helpful webinars. I’ve watched about 15-20 already. They cover topics from getting started, how to pack, where to live (very important in the covid restricted travel world), to driver’s licenses and even Israeli internet services. BTW, I recommend signing up for any webinar of potential interest because even if you don’t watch it, you’ll often get an email with slides or contact information.

Other online resources that you may find useful (I have not had a great deal of time to explore them):

Podcasts (hey, it is me, there is no way you’re not going to see this section!)

  • The Land of Israel Network — what can I say, been listening to this station for a couple of years at least. Inspiring on so many levels. Each podcast host comes from a unique perspective about Israel and they bring their emotions and love for the land to life in their own fashion and will appeal to you in different ways.
  • Israel National News podcast — look for Natalie’s Returning Home podcast on making aliyah. There are many hosts in this podcast, but I generally only have time to focus on her weekly program.
  • The Bring Them Home podcast by Joshua Wander. He often has on Rav Nachman Kahana, while I do not agree with all of his sentiment and some of the presentation, he offered a great sentiment in reaction to complaints about Israel (paraphrased):
    Think of a baby that needs changing, cleaning, feeding, etc. It is work, not easy, but with love and care, it grows into a beautiful person.

And I would be remiss if I did not include a really out in left field connection — the Gabrielle Allon espionage series by Daniel Silva. Not necessarily for the average reader, but I found a number of the books to be very good. In the book The Fallen Angel, the plot takes you underneath the temple mount. While Gabrielle is not depicted as a religious person by any means, when discussing that it would be a good place to die (in the area under the holiest site), his friend Uzi, however, questions Gabrielle about his not being religious. Gabrielle’s reply: Yes Uzi, but these are our stones.

Learning Hebrew

One quick DuckDuckGo search and you’ll find numerous resources. I started using the Anki Flashcard program and for the past 2 months have been studying the Hebrew from Scratch deck. I am definitely underutilizing at this point since it has so many elements on its cards. There are verb conjugations in present, past, and future tenses. Also, a variety of real sentences to use.

But if this doesn’t work for you, there is a huge list of other decks to load up.

I also signed up for the Innovative Hebrew Word of the Day (free) and the paid for lessons that you can do online and in the handy app.

To be continued…