From Nation's Capital to Nation's Capital: The Azza Street Spy

The Yeridah Party That Wasn't Mine
On Saturday night I attended a friend's good-bye party, or what could more accurately be called a Yeridah Party (i.e., moving from Israel). A same-age peer, after 8.5 years she decided that the greener pastures are in America.

More precisely, she is leaving because she is feeling stunted professionally. She is figuring that in America she can get a job in her area of study (MBA) and get paid what others with her levels of experience and training are earning. Apparently, she was being lowballed by her Israeli offers, perhaps the result of Israeli xenophobia and discrimination against olim. The plan is for her to work in the US for two or so years and return to Israel as a more competitive, qualified job applicant. Nonetheless, nothing is a guarantee. Transatlantic moves are always hard and there is a distinct possibility that she will choose to settle there.

While having a goodbye party is not a particularly novel idea, and pre-olim are known to have dozens of pre-aliyah parties, the Yeridah Party is pretty rare. More typically, the yored (i.e., person) slips out the back door in the middle of the night. No one makes aliyah with the intention of it being a temporary sojourn. Therefore, whatever the reasons for leaving, moving back represents some form of failure. Instead of celebrating with friends, most choose to vanish.

However, there was something more significant than the rarity of this kind of party. The party was touching a raw nerve in her friends, guests, and other random olim who heard about it. How stable is my aliyah? How fragile is my progress in Israel? Is making aliyah the big step, or is the big step really sticking it out after my arrival?

During the time that I was at the party, all guests but one were olim. (Although some guests had made aliyah as children with their families.) If 30 people are in the room, the guest of honor is not the only one who is moving back. The gathering was too large and the Yeridah rate among Americans is too high, another person in that room is definitely going to move back, too. But, which person?

The majority of the guests were single, as was the hostess. I'm inferring that job satisfaction and career advancement is particularly important to single olim. If one is a member of a family unit living in Israel, leaving is much more complicated. For example, this friend might have chosen to accept the job offers for which she was overqualified because they were not going to move a family and they would need her second income. However, a single person is more mobile and flexible. And, more importantly, they are not without family. It's that their family is far away. Things need to be going relatively well in order to continue justifying the many time zones and vast distance from family. If a single person feels professionally frustrated, she or he may be less likely to tolerate the circumstances than a married person and be more open to the possiblity of moving back to America. (Alternatively, supporting a family is more expensive than a single person. The single can last much longer on subsistence wages while the family may feel more pressure to move back if income is tight.)

When my parents were visiting me last month my mother commented, "Whenever you feel like you are done roughing it, you can always move back." (Note: this was not merely a general comment. My mother was referencing the lack of adequate heat in my apartment. While most of the US is undoubtedly colder than all of Israel, heating here is generally expensive and inadequate. Therefore, here it *feels* colder.)

Such comments and parties provoke the thinking that is easier to dismiss: Why exactly am I roughing it? Will I ever make it past the "roughing it" point? If not, will it wear me out?

In simplest terms, I moved to Israel because I thought it was a Good Idea. Will I change my mind at a certain point and decide that it is no longer a Good Idea?

Sometimes I have the feeling that I'm fighting with everyone. On Friday I fought with a sales representative from an internet company that mysteriously started charging me even though I get no service from them.

Lady Jerk: Every person knows that you have to double-cancel your internet subscription and you didn't. Apparently, you only single-canceled.

Me: Excuse me. If every person and I didn't, then I am clearly not a person. If we can accept the premise that I am not a person, then it was your responsibility to instruct me to double-cancel. You were extremely offensive and I'm not paying this bill.

Or, the international calling service I use has this annoying habit of charging my bank account without sending me a bill.

Me: Why can't you guys send me bills regularly? Why do I have to place a call to you each month after I see that you deducted money from my account?

Customer Service: I can hear that you are an immigrant. Where are you from?

Me: America, the Land where they don't try to cheat you all the time.

CS: What about Enron? They all got cheated.

Me: Good point. Feel free to not send me any bills and just take my money b.c you identified some American crooks who were sent to trial and sentenced.

These foolish anecdotes are not enough to inspire my yeridah. My aliyah is more stable than that. However, I do have a mental list of royal jerks who should accept responsibility for my moving back to America if it ever does happen. They are my driving instructor, the pair from the Ministry of Health who told me that I was a quack instead of a psychologist, and one of my four Kindergarten teachers who I just fired. But, she also fired me. So, she still works in her Kindergarten, I no longer work with her, and she does not get a replacement psychologist. The first two have at least one blog entry and I will say no more about the K teacher b.c I don't blog about work stuff.

In summary, how much abuse is legitimate, and not that different from other parts of the world, and how much is enough to send someone packing? I don't think I'm moving back to America. But this party made me realize, just like we're not really certain she's coming back, we're not really certain that we are staying either.

I guess the trick is to set yourself up with the conditions that increase your likelihood of staying, and during the really rough patches to be convinced that there is still unrealized potential. The stress is less blinding and burdensome when it simultaneously points to a more hopeful outcome.

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