My name is Daniel Zacks. I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. I made Aliyah at age ten, on July 6, 2006. I am the oldest sibling in my family, and the oldest cousin on both sides. My family moved straight to Modiin, where I’ve lived ever since. I am currently a senior at Yeshivat Lapid Modiin.
From the time I was three years old, I had gone to Akiva Hebrew Day School. We were taught about the importance of Israel from a very young age, and were given hebrew lessons daily. Whenever I heard the mention of Israel I associated it with my mother’s cousins who I had met a couple times. I also heard all about the bus bombings and terror attacks, which scared me. All of the “importance of Israel” talk made me think “good for them, but that stuff has nothing to do with me”. I was a normal Jewish American boy,. I played little league baseball from a young age, played street hockey almost every day, and lived right next to a 7-11. We had a Jerusalem Pizza, JCC, and a nice community. I thought my life was perfect, and couldn’t even imagine living anywhere else. In 2004, my dad’s second oldest brother Sim and his family informed us all that they were planning on making Aliyah. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. Why would they want to ruin such a great thing we have going? What is there in Israel that we didn’t have here? At that point my grandparents and their 7 kids (most were grown up with wife+kids) all lived a few blocks from each other in Detroit. A tearful good bye party later, and they flew out of my life as I knew it then. We had visited Israel a few times before, but I wasn’t even thinking about moving at that point. We flew to Israel for my uncle David’s wedding. He was my Dad’s third sibling to make Aliyah. He spent some time in Maale Adumim Yeshiva, and then got drafted into Golani. We spent a few weeks in Israel, doing tiyulim and attractions, and enjoyed every second of it. Still, I thought of Israel as a “nice place to visit but never to live”. I remember my parents having a lot of hushed conversations for the few weeks after our return to Detroit. Soon enough, I found out what those were about. One shabbat morning I overheard my parents talking to a shaliach in Detroit about next year, and how excited he was. I pulled my dad to the side and asked what the discussion was about. He informed me that he and my mother had decided that we would move to Israel the following summer. You can imagine my feeling when I was informed that I was going to be stripped of all relatives living in Detroit, friends, school, and of course, Tigers games. I was completely distraught. I didn’t say another word the entire way home from shul. I told my parents that I wasn’t coming with them, that I would stay with a friend in Detroit. They said that my idea wasn’t happening, and that we would be making Aliyah as a family the following summer. At that point, I went in to my room and slammed the door, not even coming down for lunch. I was in my room crying and thinking my own thoughts for about 5 hours. That is a long time to be depressed at 8 years old. I wanted to know why, how, what. I wanted to know what wasn’t good enough about Detroit, and what was so special about Israel. Eventually, my dad knocked on my door, and asked if I wanted to come to Mincha. I said yes, and we had our first meaningful conversation that I can remember. This was in March, a couple weeks after my first Super Bowl that I cared about. My dad compared Israel to the Super Bowl, in such a smart way, that I was able to begin to understand. He said “You just watched the Super Bowl on TV. Would you rather have gone to the game? (It was in Detroit that year). Or would you rather sit back and watch it at home on TV?”. I loved going to sports games, so I replied “Of course I would rather have gone to the actual game”. “Well,” my dad said. “imagine that Israel is the Super Bowl. You can either learn it, or actually live it. You are getting the oppurtunity to live it. If you could have gotten a ticket to the Super Bowl, wouldn’t you rather have gone?”. That message completely changed my view on the move. Already at that point I was able to understand how hypocritical it was to daven about Israel every day, learn about Israel in school, but live in my comfortable home in America. I was feeling more upbeat, but it was still hard to break to my friends that I would be leaving them in a year and a half. I was worried they would say “Well then what’s the point in being friends with you for the next year if you’re going to leave anyway?” Luckily, that’s not how people work. Till the very end I was still having play dates, sleepovers, and birthday parties with my friends. We had 14 good bye events in honor of our family. We weren’t running away, we were coming by choice. When my mom’s cousin got married, we stayed an additional two weeks for a pilot trip. We visited many communities including Yad Binyamin, Zichron Yaakov, Tel Mond, and Modiin. We ended up picking Modiin. One reason was because we knew the rabbi of the community from his shlichut in Detroit. Another was that my parents wanted a soft landing for us with a nice amount of Americans just like us, and that we’d be able to play baseball just like back home. I started reading books that were translated into hebrew, such as Harry Potter. I’ll skip through the packing up because that was boring for me then too. We lived in my grandparents house for those few weeks after sending our lift. My mom, brother Ephraim, and sister Nava flew to New Jersey, while my dad and I waited back one more day. We wanted to go to our last Tiger game together, which they ended up winning 5-0. I felt that that had been a perfect way for the Tigers to send us off. My dad and I then said our last good byes to Jerusalem Pizza, and to our family. Sad, but excited good byes, anticipating what was coming next. We spent the next 5 days with my Passaic grandparents. I remember that on our last full day in America, July 4, (ironic right?) we went to a Mets game, and stood on the balcony watching the fireworks. The next day, we packed up and drove to the airport. Even sadder good byes, because everyone around us was doing the same with their loved ones. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone, like there were other crazy people that had made the same decision as we did. We were on a Nefesh B’nefesh charter flight, meaning when we landed in Ben Gurion there was a huge party waiting for us. There were signs, hugs, food, music,emotions, you name it. We reconnected with my mother’s cousins, and the family that had left Detroit before us. From the moment we landed I was convinced that we had made the right choice. After the party, however, we had to get started with “real life”. My parents sent us to Camp Achdut, a place with a large population of Modiin kids. That helped me gain a few friends before school started, and I recommend that idea for everyone making Aliyah with kids. We couldn’t get our lift right away because the Second Lebanon War had just begun, so we were camped at my my Mom’s aunt’s house for a few weeks. Finally, one day we came home from camp and saw people bringing things into our house. We were ready to begin life in Israel.
Once that first school year (fifth grade) started, it became obvious how much of a culture change it had been. It’s one thing to go to camp in Israel with a lot of Olim, and its an entirely different story to walk into school the first day, knowing no one, and barely speaking the language that everyone spoke. I didn’t want to go to Ulpan. I felt I would learn more hebrew by being in a regular classroom with Israelis, and hanging out at recess with them, than sitting with a bunch of english speakers and learning what words mean. I even started my own hebrew-english dictionary, full of words that were important for a kid my age to know. Anyway, I walked in to that classroom and sat next to a kid in the front row. I figured he would be disappointed that the kid he was next to would not even be able to communicate with him. To my surprise, we quickly became best friends. He helped me with whatever I needed, and even introduced me to the other kids in the class. He started having what’s called a “bayit cham” every couple weeks (where some guys go to one’s house and watch a movie/play games, and have dinner), and always made sure I was on the invite list. By then I had begun to intigrate into Israeli society, and I am forever grateful to him for doing that for me. At recess, I was told that if the kids can see that you’re athletic, you’ll make new friends in no time. Sure enough, recess after recess, I went to the soccer field. At first I got excited every time I touched the ball, then when I had a nice shot, and finally, when I scored my first goal. At that point, I was still counting how many friends I had accumulated. That day, I got 6 invitations to boy’s houses to hang out. While this was all going on, I of course had made friends with the americans in my school. This included playing little league baseball, football, and talking in my mother toungue. I was more comfortable with them, but realized it was much more important for my development in the Israeli society to be hanging out with Israelis. Whenever I had clashing events (besides for baseball), I chose to hang out with the Israelis. I had a baseball teammate, who had flown the summer before to Prague to represent Israel on the Israel National Baseball Team. When I first heard that, I thought that was the coolest thing ever. I decided to go to tryouts, and see what happened from there. You can imagine my reaction and feelings when I got the email telling me I had been accepted to play on the team. Here I was, a boy from Detroit who loved playing baseball, had moved to Israel just a few months ago, and was selected to represent the whole country with a baseball. I pretty much only wore our practice shirts with “Israel” written across it as a symbol of “I guess I belong here”. My parents wanted me to try out Bnei Akiva, but I politely refused. After much persuading and convincing, I went for my first Peula. I really didn’t enjoy it, so Shabbat afternoons remained my hang out with Americans day. School was still hard language-wise, but now I had a ton of friends helping me out when I needed. At some point, I decided that I wasn’t learning anything important in science or geography, so I brought hebrew novels to to read during those classes. After what felt like a week, the school year was over. It was time to start getting ready for the tournament in Czech Republic. Here’s something I learned. There is nothing in the world like singing Hatikva in a foreign country, wearing the blue and white Team Israel uniform, and representing the country in Europe against countries that 70 years before, had tried to make sure you wouldn’t be there to see it. That was the first moment I was proud of the country, and that I was 100% certain we had made the right choice. We were a young team, and didn’t do very well in that first tournament, but we acquired experience that would prove to be useful the next year in Italy.
I look at myself from the side and consider myself an “Aliyah Success” story. I played on the National team for six years, eling the Czech republic, Italy, and America. I ended up joining Bnei Akiva, and was a madrich for two years. I am in twelfth grade now, and am planning on going to the Hesder Yeshiva in Kiryat Shmona. I wake up for baseball games at 3 AM often, and I coach the Modiin Baseball Team for middle school. I have many more Israeli friends than American friends, and as a result, speak almost perfect hebrew. My Dad is the oldest of 7 siblings, and 6 of them are here with thir families. When each one came, there was huge celbrations in Ben Gurion, and I remember feeling like “Finally, they’re home”. Just 2 years ago My grandparents made aliyah. A couple months later, in a true form of patriotism, my other grandparents made aliyah on Yom Haatzmaut itself!
I love the amount of freedom that kids have in this country. School of course was a little harder here, but school is hard everrywhere. I love that wherever you look there are soldiers in the green with guns who are there to protect you. I love that young boys look at these soldiers with jealousy, awaiting the day that they too can protect the country. I love Naftali Bennett, and the fact that when I met him he started a conversation with me like I was his best friend. I love the rikud dgalim, the flag march on Yom Yerushalayim, where they shut down Jerusalem for tens of thousands of teenagers to march with Israeli flags to the Kotel. I love that I can go to a mall and it has a Kosher food court. I love that I can just go visit the Kotel-something Jews wished they could do for the last 2000 years. I love that I can learn a book in anach and go to a tiyul (hike) in their footsteps. I love that after my baseball games on a random kibbutz theres always people trying to gather a maariv minyan. I love that public busses say Chag Sameach on holidays. I love how purim parties start a month before purim. I love that the most common form of graffiti in Israel is “Am Yisrael Chai”. I love that I feel like I belong here. I love that I can go to a basketball game, and hear Hatikva as opposed to the Star Spangled Banner. I’ve been to Poland with my school where I learned about the importance of the Jews having their own home state. No,it’s not perfect, but together we can make it a better place. I look forward to proudly serving my country, the ONLY Jewish country, in the army in a couple years. I’ve seen both sides, and recognize the arguments for each, but I can honestly tell you that the right thing to do is to live in Israel.
