Large Family - Available For The Taking

A couple of nights ago an opportunity presented itself for me to undo one of my biggest regrets, that I have not established relationships with the many distant relatives that I have in Israel.

We didn't even know about the entire Israeli branch of family until about 30 years ago. How's this for a small-world-all-the-cosmic-forces-coming-together story? (By the way, in the interest of not printing any names of relatives without their permission, I am requesting in advance your forbearance for a lot of initials which be used instead).

I have an older cousin on my mother's side; I'll call her "CB", who is a real "Auntie Mame" type of character – she lives life to the fullest, she has a great time "doing her thing", and she has no qualms about speaking whatever is on her mind whenever it's on her mind. CB used to come to Israel on a regular basis with a program allowing retirees to volunteer on army bases. One year her group was taking a one-day trip to a city she had previously seen, so CB went to the city of Rishon LeTzion on her own since she had never been there.

While strolling through the city, CB saw a man who looked very familiar. Being the "Auntie Mame" that she is, she approached him, and said that there is no way she could possibly know him, but he looked too familiar for this to be coincidence, and asked who he was. It turns out that he was the oldest of five siblings who were orphaned in the Holocaust. They all came to Israel in 1947 (which was called Palestine at the time) with a group of 720 orphans known as the "Tehran Children" who were brought to Palestine from Europe via Siberia and Tehran (hence the name of the group). This gentleman (we'll refer to him as "YR"), was the son of my mother's father's brother, and he looked so much like my maternal grandfather, which is why CB approached him in the first place. When CB went to meet YR's four siblings, she almost fainted when she first saw his sister LN – she could have been my maternal grandmother's twin.

The most incredible aspect of this was that YR did not live in Rishon LeTzion (where he met CB) - he just happened to be there that day for work - on the very day that CB just happened to be there because it was the free day she had while her group was somewhere else, and she had decided not to join them that day.

Seriously - what are the odds?

So, all of the sudden, we had a whole branch of family in Israel, and when I came in 1988 I became close to YR, his wife and their only son (JH), who was in high school at the time. I also became friendly with LN and her husband, but their children were all grown, married and out of the house by that time, so I never got to know them.

Over the years YR and his wife passed away, but I was still in regular contact with JH, I attended his wedding as well as the bris for his first-born son. But, other than LN and her husband, I had almost no contact with anybody else in this extended branch of the family. At one gathering I met one of LN's daughters but that was it. CB has been in regular contact with LN, and they are very close, and my mother has also become very friendly with LN, in spite of the fact that they don't have a common language (whenever Mom is here, they get together with either me or Sharon translating for them).

A couple of months ago, LN's daughter – RJ, called my mother from Israel to invite her to her son's wedding. While Mom had only met this woman a handful of times, the invitation was very warm, very genuine and very sweet. And since any excuse to visit Israel to see us and the grandchildren is a good one, Mom decided to come. RJ also called me to invite us to the wedding, and like with Mom, while I had met her only once, and that was about 15 years ago, I felt that she truly wanted us to join her family for this joyous occasion.

This past Sunday we went to the wedding. We only knew a handful of people there – LN and her husband, and JH, who I had not seen in about 9 years since before he and his family went to South Africa for a 4-year stint, and we had not been in touch since then or since they returned. When I approached JH, he gave me a hug and an invitation to his son's Bar Mitzvah which will be a weekend-long event at a hotel in two weeks. He brought the invitation since he had been told that we would be at the wedding, and he made it very clear that he really hoped that we could come to the Bar Mitzvah.

In spite of knowing next to nobody there, we had an absolutely fantastic time. We were seated at a table with CB, who is now in her late 80's and her newlywed 95-year old husband, with LN and her husband, and her son (who I had never met) with his wife and two sons. We also met the groom and bride (who said that they had heard about us and were very happy that we were able to come) and the groom's sister.

The mother of the groom, RJ, who had taken the initiative to personally invite us to the wedding, told me basically what I needed to hear – that the "ball is now in my court."

Of course, she's right. She made the first move and called us to invite us to the wedding. This was her way of reaching out to establish a connection between her "branch" of the family and us. Now it really is up to me to demonstrate that it is important to me as well.

And I really hope to keep up my end of things. I was able to briefly meet two of RJ's three children, as well as her brother and family sitting at our table. They all seem genuinely happy for us to start knowing one another, and as somebody with no immediately family in Israel other than one of my wife's sisters, for me this is huge.

I have no regrets about the fact that I have chosen Israel as the place to build my life and raise my family. As I have mentioned in other blogs, one of the biggest difficulties in this is the fact that my family is still in America. I am very grateful to my family for all of their love and their support on my decision to live in Israel, but I also miss them terribly and I feel the hole in my life for not having them on the same side of the world as I am.

Even more, this is hard on my children. They have a large number of cousins, aunts and uncles in America, but only one aunt and uncle and four cousins living here. They have a wonderful relationship with the cousins here, but it is not the same as it would be if they had the entire extended family living in Israel.

And this is why RJ putting the ball into my court is so important. I owe it to my girls (and to myself) to enjoy having family, and to developing a relationship with people with whom we by all rights should have a natural connection.

The extended family here is very different than Sharon and I are – they are all native born Israelis, we are immigrants. All but one of the families are secular, whereas we are religiously observant. Yet for all of the differences, they have shown us only warmth and welcome, and a true hope to share family events and celebrations with us.

How can I deny my children what I have been foolish enough to deny myself up until now?

So the hard part now begins. I say hard, but I have no doubt that it will be worth every bit of effort that I put into it. And my girls may then grow up like most other Israeli children – with a large and loving family throughout the country.

The Second Door Opens

In late November, I parted ways with my last job working in Incoming Tourism. While there was a certain level of disappointment at the time, I was also very optimistic about what I saw as a change in direction (if you are interested, I shared my feelings at the time in the blog “Doors Close and Doors Open”). Last month, I decided to take advantage of the fact that I am no longer stuck in an office every day, and I went back to school in pursuit of my never-ending-Bachelor’s-degree-from hell, and I blogged about it in “Opening The First Door”.

So, now a Second Door has opened, and I can barely contain myself for the excitement. As mentioned in “Opening The First Door,” I have been participating in a course to be a guide at Neot Kedumim – Israel’s biblical botanical nature reserve, which is just a few minutes outside of Modi’in. When I interviewed for the course, I mentioned my background in sales and marketing as well as my love of writing, and asked them to consider me if anything came up. A couple of weeks ago, I received a call from Neot Kedumim letting me know that they are looking for a person to write and edit their newsletter on a freelance basis, and could I come in to discuss it with the Director. I did so, and then waited while they met other potential candidates for the position.

Earlier this week I received a call from the site’s Marketing Director further discussing the position, as well as an additional project of English content writing for the new website which they are in the process of building. Afterwards, she sent me a couple of documents to translate (the position will involve writing, editing and translating articles from Hebrew to English). Besides providing a fairly straight translation of what was a very interesting article about a particular plant, I also sent a suggested revised copy of the same article after editing it. Yesterday I received an email asking if I could join the Marketing Director and three other staff members for a meeting in Tel Aviv with the company that is building their website. This morning, I asked if this means that we are “moving forward” and that they will also be using me for the newsletter, and the answer was yes. To make sure that I wasn’t missing any obscure messages of indecision, I also asked if that means that I can tell my wife that I have found a job. Again – the answer was in the affirmative, thus putting to rest any doubts that I may have had rooted in my personal insecurities.

I don’t yet know exactly what the conditions and terms will be – I am meeting with the Marketing Director on Sunday to work that out, but it is looking like this work will be fairly long-term between the web site and the newsletter as well as other projects (one of which was already brought up today by the Director of Incoming Tourism for the organization.

So, as I keep telling myself to remind me that it’s real – I have a job. Even better, it’s a job doing work that I absolutely love doing, and with an organization for which I have tremendous respect. Even better than that, it will be working very flexible hours, mostly from home, which will allow me to continue spending a lot of quality afternoon and evening time with my family – something that was sorely lacking in my life throughout the years that I was a full-time employee sitting in an office. I took a chance in not looking too hard in the field where I have worked for the past 7 years, preferring to follow my heart and do what would make me truly happy, and it feels as though that chance has come back with wonderful dividends.

Of course, now a lot of the “real” work begins. I need to work out with Neot Kedumim the conditions which will be good for me while also fitting into their needs and resources. I need to open a file officially declaring myself as “self-employed”, but before doing that I need to sit with an accountant and explore as much as possible the various options open to me and the pros and cons of each one (when it comes to some areas of knowledge, I am a complete Neanderthal, and everything involved in accountancy, self-employment, etc. is of course one of those areas).

Then of course, I need to start working, and finding the balance with school work and Neot Kedumim work, but after going through all of the bureaucratic and accountancy stuff, that should be a breeze.

Sharon has often quoted her parents in saying that a if a person follows their heart, the money will then follow.

I love that idea and here I am, really following my heart. Considering that I’m middle-aged, overweight and out of shape – if my in-laws are right and the money is following, I hope it doesn't take too long to catch me…