Israel Matzav

A really nice tribute to Ariel Sharon

I am writing to tell you that I have and will always have tremendous gratitude and thanks to PM Ariel Sharon for my decision to make Aliya to Israel in January 2002. You will read in a second why I feel that the PM was my personal messenger from G-d, and the final and convincing inspiration to uproot my family from America and move to help build this great country of ours. Here is my story.

My wife and I are both from the USA and consider ourselves Dati Leumi. We lived in Teaneck, New Jersey after we were married. Life there was great. We had 3 boys and a house a great job and all our friends and family were in the US. We both studied after Yeshiva High School in Israel and although we loved Israel we never thought of ourselves as the ones to make Aliya. It was mostly a hypothetical discussion of something we would do if everything fell into place. At the same time the intifada in Israel was starting up again and every time something happened, we felt guilty that we were living a comfortable life in NJ while our brothers were risking their lives for our collective homeland. But these feeling would then pass and life went on in the wonderful USA.

Around 2001, my job had me traveling to Moscow every other week from NY integrating a company we had purchased there into the parent company. The work was definitely interesting but also taxing on the family with all the travel. I thought about looking into relocating to Israel and commuting from there to Moscow as the travel and jetlag were much easier to deal with and even approached my company in April of that year to do so. Of course, I knew it was a long shot but I felt that after 120 years I would be able to stand in front of G-d and say “I tried”.

As expected, my company turned down my request and I felt a feeling of mostly relief but also some disappointment. A few months had past and at the end of August 2001 my company came back to me and said that as they see this position extending for a long term they have reconsidered and now would like me to move if I was still interested. However, they needed an answer in the next 10 days and that we would have to move quickly thereafter.

Well, my wife and I were a bit taken aback and suddenly were faced with one of the hardest decision of our life. All our friends and the great majority of our family were in the US and we were not sure we were ready to leave it all behind to move to Israel. We were having trouble making a decision. That week I was scheduled to be in Moscow and I told my wife that we will both think this over and decide when I return from my trip.

Labels: aliya, Ariel Sharon

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:01 PM