The Plan

It was a simple plan: let’s move to Israel. It sounds a bit overwhelming; after all, just moving to a new house across town can be a major operation and moving to Israel is obviously more complicated than that.  But is it really significantly more complicated than, let’s say, moving to another region of the US?  After all, once you’re moving more than a few hundred miles, does the distance really matter?

The distance probably doesn’t matter once you’re talking about more than a thousand miles, but there are plenty of other complications that do matter.  However, as long as we focus day-to-day on the issues at hand, and don’t think or dwell on everything at once, then it seems doable.

It was relatively easy to get accepted by the Jewish Agency as a new immigrant.  Israel has the “Law of Return” which provides a streamlined process to citizenship for Jews.  I guess that was probably the easiest part.

It was difficult telling our parents.  This great country (the United States) is so large that our families are already spread out across thousands of miles. Yet, the distance does not seem so great because we are all living in just one country. As a result, it was difficult explaining our desire to live on a different continent. Thankfully, everyone has been supportive (although many are concerned or worried.)

Selling the house was also a major pain.  We placed the house on the market last October with the intent to move to Baltimore. Why Baltimore? Well, why not? We currently live in Columbia, Maryland, which was rated recently by some big-shot survey as the #2 best place to live in the country. Guess what? I believe it! This is a great place to live — as long as you’re not us.

My children attend private day school…in Baltimore. The majority of our friends live…in Baltimore. The restaurants that we are willing to use are… in Baltimore. The kosher shopping is done… in Baltimore. The children’s friends live… in Baltimore.  So, although Columbia is a great place to live, it is not so great for us.

Anyway, it took so long to sell the house that we eventually realized that neither of us really like the city of Baltimore.  It would be convenient and we would be near our friends, but why move to a city that you don’t like when you can travel to some remote land where they speak a different language and constantly fight with neighboring countries.  Seems like a no-brainer. If nothing else, it should be exciting.

Quitting my job was difficult, primarily because it was a great job, with great people, and with a great mission.  The fact that the work was stable, profitable, not transferable, and really the only business that I know added to the difficulty. Having said that, now that I’m unemployed, I have a completely new perspective. I think I am enjoying life more without all those pesky work responsibilities. I guess I can see the appeal of living on welfare.

We sold the house at the perfect time (although, not at the perfect price). The timing really could not have been better. Instead of renting storage or having to move our goods into a temporary home, we were basically able to store everything in a great, big crate floating in the Atlantic Ocean. Sweet.

I think that we have basically completed the easy parts of the plan (although I still need to dissolve my corporation, which should also be relatively easy.)  Thankfully, the hardest part of the plan should also be the best part: learning Hebrew, starting a new career, and adapting to a different culture. At least that is what I want to believe. So for now, that’s the plan, and I’m sticking to it.