LA JOLLA, California — “I saw Uriel deplane his Nefesh B’Nefesh flight, I looked at Orin, and I said, ‘Let’s make Aliyah.’ And that was it,” recalls Liora Green regarding her son’s immigration to Israel in August 2019.
Indeed, the Green family did not need any further convincing. A year later — and in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic — Liora and Orin Green as well as their children Merav, 14, and Dalia, 11, made Aliyah from La Jolla to join Uriel, 20. Another sibling, Eyal, 17, is completing his studies at Southern California Yeshiva (SCY) High and plans to make Aliyah in June 2021.
The Green family’s move on August 16 came during a year of rising interest in Aliyah against the backdrop of the pandemic. With 2020 nearing its end, Nefesh B’Nefesh reports that since March 2020, the Aliyah-focused organization has hosted a total of 95 online events (in comparison to 27 in 2019), marking a 252-percent increase year over year, and that 14,538 participants have attended its online Aliyah informational events (in comparison to 1,953 in 2019), representing a 644-percent increase.
Realizing that their children would not remain in San Diego in the long run, the Greens considered this year an opportune time “for the younger kids to get comfortable in Israel,” Liora says. Yet Aliyah had been the family’s aspiration for far longer. Liora and Orin met while they were college students in Israel, got married there, and decided to move to San Diego for two years — but stayed for 22 years, largely because of their careers.
“We always had a hope of going back to Israel,” says Liora.
Now, Orin will run his wealth management business remotely from Israel, while Liora will continue to work as his bookkeeper.
While Liora acknowledges that “it’s a little harder getting to know people” in Israel due to the pandemic, the family was fortunate to already have many friends in Israel before moving, particularly in their new home city of Modi’in.
Since its founding in 2002, Nefesh B’Nefesh, in cooperation with Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, The Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth Le’Israel, and JNF-USA, has facilitated the Aliyah of over 65,000 North Americans to Israel. Liora singles out Ellen Dekker, Western Region Aliyah Coordinator at The Jewish Agency, and Adina Bennett, her Aliyah advisor from Nefesh B’Nefesh, as two of the most helpful professionals who worked with the family during the immigration process.
Meanwhile, Uriel Green, who initially lived at Kibbutz Lavi in northern Israel last year while he was preparing for voluntary enlistment in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), is now able to spend Shabbat with his family in Modi’in. Uriel is serving in the Gadsar Nahal special forces unit of the IDF’s Nahal Brigade.
Liora says, “It’s so nice to have Uriel back home.”
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Jacob Kamaras is a freelance writer and public relations consultant based in La Jolla.