A few weeks can make a big difference when you have just made Aliyah.
In Week 6 of the vlog, Dani and Arielle are at slightly different stages of the same journey. Dani has had a little more time to settle in, while Arielle is only just beginning to build the practical foundations of her new life in Israel.
Both Dani and Arielle made aliyah this summer with the help of Nefesh B’Nefesh, in partnership with Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, The Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, and Jewish National Fund-USA.
Dani reunites with family and gets to show them around the city
For Dani, the week brings a reunion. Her family has arrived for a two-week visit, and after being the one who left home and moved to Israel, she now gets to welcome them into the place she is slowly making her own.
Their first day together is spent exploring Tel Aviv, starting at Shuk HaCarmel before moving on to Shenkin, Allenby and the arts and crafts market on Nahalat Binyamin. There is plenty of browsing, shopping and sightseeing, along with one particularly important purchase: matching necklaces for Dani and her Mom.
It is a simple day out, but for Dani it marks a subtle shift. She is still new to Israel herself, but she has been here just long enough to start showing other people around. The streets are becoming more familiar. She knows where she wants to take her family and what she wants them to see. For someone still finding her own footing, suddenly playing host is its own small milestone.
Arielle tackles the less glamorous side of Aliyah
Arielle, meanwhile, has just landed and is facing a very different kind of first week. She and her family are temporarily staying at her cousin's home while they wait to move into their new apartment. Before they can properly settle in, however, there is a list of less photogenic tasks to complete.
First up: Israeli phone plans and a bank account. "Pray for us," Arielle jokes as they set out to see whether both can be accomplished in a single day. The phones prove manageable, The bank does not. By 1 p.m., it is already closed for the day.
For Arielle, it is an early lesson in the realities of starting over in a new country. Building a life means more than finding an apartment and unpacking suitcases. It means learning how everything works, often by discovering how it does not work exactly when you expected it to.
Learning how public transportation works around the city
Tasting Israeli beer for the first time
That contrast captures much of what Week 6 is about.
Dani is only a little further along, but already far enough to experience Israel from a slightly different perspective. She is reconnecting with her family that still lives in Canada and beginning to show them the life she is creating here.
Arielle is at the stage before that, piecing together the essentials one task at a time: a place to live, a local phone number, a bank account and an understanding of when that bank might actually be open.
Neither is fully settled yet. But in different ways, both are moving beyond the moment of arrival and into the everyday reality of Aliyah, where building a home can mean anything from showing your family around the shuk to learning that 1 p.m. may already be too late for the bank.
Catch up on the journey so far: Watch Week 1, Watch Week 2 and Watch Week 3, Watch Week 4, Watch week 5.
All three are making Aliyah with the assistance of Nefesh B’Nefesh, in partnership with Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, and Jewish National Fund-USA.
In cooperation with Nefesh B’Nefesh