Lure of the land of milk and honey
The Age
Saturday October 24, 2009
FOR most of Australia's 150,000 Jews, Israel glitters beyond the horizon. Special in their hearts, but a long way away. Yet for about 200 people every year, the lure of the first Jewish homeland in more than 2000 years is great enough to prompt them to leave Australia and migrate to Israel.It is a right guaranteed to every Jew under the state's Law of Return, a journey referred to as "making aliyah" €” literally to ascend to the Land of Israel."It's a very personal decision," says Yuli Edelstein, Israel's Minister for Absorption, the cabinet minister responsible for managing the 20,000 Jews around the world who each year choose to migrate to Israel.Yesterday, Edelstein, the son of a Russian Orthodox priest who made aliyah from the then Soviet Union in 1987, launched the book Building a Nation, personal stories of life in Israel by members of Australia's Jewish community, published by the Zionist Council."People get angry with me because I never end my speeches by saying that everyone has to make aliyah," Edelstein told The Age this week. "But that's because it's such a risky thing to do. It's a different language, a unique culture, and for some people the shock is too much."But what I know about Australia is that the Melbourne and Sydney Jewish communities have always been very pro-Zionist, and very pro-Israel. So it has become a pretty commonplace thing to see the children of top leaders of the Zionist youth movements of Melbourne and Sydney making an impact here in Israel."Since Israel was established in 1948, more than 10,000 Australians have made aliyah, along with about 90,000 Americans, 275,000 Romanians and more than 1 million Russians, including Edelstein himself."The experience provides a unique feeling of being here in Israel, of being a part of Jewish history, of being a part of the making of the Land of Israel, whether you're a salesman or a cabinet minister, a professor, a doctor or lawyer, or a worker in a plant €” each one of these people can very accurately say that they belong to history."Zvi Ehrenberg in many ways fits the classic profile of the typical Australian "oleh" €” someone who makes aliyah.Born in 1950, Ehrenberg was the only child of parents who survived the Holocaust. "My parents were Polish," says Ehrenberg. "They had both been married before the war to different people, but then their entire families were wiped out."Refugees, Ehrenberg's parents met before the end of the war and tried to secure passage to then British Mandate Palestine."They were refused entry; they couldn't get in, so they came to Australia."Finding a niche in the market for Jewish weddings and bar mitzvahs, Ehrenberg's parents went into the catering business.After attending Melbourne's Mount Scopus College, and a local religious college, Ehrenberg studied law at Melbourne University. "I did my articles, practised for a few years, and then started undertaking serious plans to make aliyah."With no relatives in Australia apart from his parents, for Ehrenberg, 59, the decision to make aliyah felt like returning home."I moved here in 1977. People told me, 'Zvi, you might not make it here in Israel as a lawyer; be prepared to have to change careers'," he says. "But I was lucky. My Hebrew was good, and I was able to carve out an area of law to practice."Within 12 months of moving to Israel, Ehrenberg had set up his own law practice. "To me moving to Israel, it was never a 'what if?' It was always something I believed in," he says.Within a few years of moving to Israel, Ehrenberg married an American woman from Los Angeles, Sandy. They have five children."I have enormous affection for Australia," says the still ardent Collingwood fan. "I call it the Golden Country. I enjoy going back there. But I have never looked back."Sometimes people say to me, 'How could you leave Australia, such a beautiful and easygoing country?' but there is something about this place. I feel very much a part of it."In the boardroom of his law offices atop one of Jerusalem's modest-sized office blocks, Ehrenberg says he is sceptical of the chances of peace with the Palestinians and concerned at what he sees as the tide of international opinion moving against Israel. Look, for example, he says, at the Goldstone Report, arising from a UN fact-finding mission examining the war in Gaza in January and led by international jurist Richard Goldstone, which found evidence of Israeli (and Palestinian) war crimes. "Totally biased and one-sided. Yet the world seems to be accepting it."As more Israelis have got to know Australia and want to emigrate, Ehrenberg has found himself in the unusual position of having to knock back work."If I wanted to, I could advertise a specialty in Australian immigration law, helping Israelis move to Australia. It's potentially lucrative, but why would I want to do that? I want people to come to this country, not leave it."In contrast to Ehrenberg is Stanley Korman, a pediatrician at Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital in Ein Karem. A year younger than Ehrenberg, Korman grew up in a non-religious household in Brighton."We were very pro-Israel, very positive about Israel, but I never imagined actually living here."Sitting in an eatery known for its hummus in Ben Sira Street in downtown Jerusalem, enjoying a pint of the local brew Goldstar, Korman, now 58, thinks back to 1980.He was fresh out of medical school and the world of pediatrics was opening before him at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital. "I looked ahead and I could see the next 30 years before me, I could see where life was leading and I could see a very comfortable life. But at the same time I wondered if that was what I really wanted."Despite not being religious, Korman wondered how he could impart to his three children the special nature of being Jewish."'What are we going to do?' I said to [my wife] Betty. How do we convey our Jewishness? To my amazement, she said she was feeling exactly the same way. We had both decided to give it a go and move to Israel."So in 1982, Korman, then 31, and his family formally made aliyah. "It carried a real sense of excitement, of adventure, of taking a chance. Of being a part of the Jewish state."Korman remembers thinking about small things that impressed him. Seeing the policemen, and thinking "that they were Jewish. It's a country of Jews, for Jews."Nearly 30 years later, Korman has watched his children serve in the Israeli army and grow to adulthood. "The connection to Australia is still there, it is strong," he says. "But this is our home."Back to Yuli Edelstein, Israel's Minister for Absorption. For a country with nearly 6 million Jewish citizens, most of them migrants or the children of migrants, he says absorbing new waves of immigrants has not been easy."For 2000 years we have been different people, spread to the corners of the globe," he says. "So that has made its problems."It hasn't been easy for this country to take on so many people from so many different cultures. But we are all part of the Jewish religion. And that is what will always unite us."
© 2009 The Age