Hillel’s aliyah connections

PAUL CURRAN

Last summer, I moved to Israel and became a citizen. It is thousands of miles and a world away from where my life seemed destined when I was born in Vancouver 26 years ago. Yet, I am surrounded by familiar faces and old friends.

I fell in love with Israel during my first trip there in 2008, as a participant on the Taglit-Birthright program. Being a part of Middle Eastern culture and seeing ancient traditions alive and well in a modern country opened my eyes and my mind to entirely new ways of experiencing the world.

As time passed, and I became more involved with Jewish life through Hillel at the University of British Columbia, the idea of making my life in Israel became more attractive and more realistic. At the same time, many of my closest friends were having the same idea – and there is now, in Tel Aviv, a small but vibrant cluster of young people who have transplanted from Vancouver Hillel to the Holy Land.

It is not possible to explain my transition, or those of my Hillel chaverim here, without describing the important role Hillel played in our lives. It was there I began to learn Hebrew, to study Jewish history, to become viscerally and intellectually connected to Israel, to become a committed Zionist and, most importantly, to develop many of my closest friendships.

When I finished my BA in psychology and art history, I began three years as a program director at Hillel, first at UBC, then at Simon Fraser University. During this time, several of my friends began making aliyah.

My experience as a frontline Israel advocate on campus, first as a student and then as Hillel staff, exposed me to the irrational, hateful narrative that singles out Israel, among all the nations of the world, for unique and vicious condemnation. Facing down this sort of extremism, however, only empowered my Zionism and increased my desire to move to Israel, to be part of history rather than just to read about it.

A similar passion led Samuel Heller to follow a similar path. Heller, who grew up in the Habonim-Dror youth movement, became involved in Hillel from the start of his political science studies at UBC. Heller said Hillel provided him with an avenue to express his voice on campus, and his activism eventually led him to be the co-president of the UBC Israel Awareness Club (IAC) in 2007.

“Now that I am in Israel,” Heller told me, “I appreciate the amazing role Hillel plays in keeping young Jews from being influenced by the rhetoric and propaganda pushed by those that seek to demonize and castigate the state of Israel.”

After arriving in Israel, Heller served for two years in the Nahal infantry brigade of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), an experience that he found tough, at times, but ultimately fulfilling. His advice for anyone considering aliyah is “not to be afraid of the fear of rejection from Israeli society,” as it is all part of the experience. Heller is currently living in Tel Aviv as a recently discharged soldier and working on plans for the future.

“Coming to Israel enabled me to satisfy a deep longing I had to make a difference and make a change in my life, and hopefully in the lives of others,” he said. “I don’t believe that ideology is dead, I simply believe we lost sight of what is important.”

Like Heller, Freeman Poritz also served in the IDF, in the Golani infantry brigade. Poritz and I were both members of the Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) fraternity, a Zionist Jewish fraternity, based at UBC Hillel. Poritz made aliyah at the age of 19 and finished his army service before returning to complete his degree at UBC. Poritz took on leadership roles in both AEPi and the IAC, speaking of his experiences as an Israeli soldier at multiple events on campus and speaking from experience when confronting the often ill-informed campus critics of Israel. Hillel, Poritz explained, was a “positive forum for exploring my Jewish Identity and my connection to Israel.”

What most fueled his desire to make aliyah, he added, was “a sense of adventure and pioneerism, independence, Zionism.”

He works at the United States embassy in Tel Aviv and is working on his MA in conflict resolution at Tel Aviv University, studying in Hebrew.

For Yoni Dayan, Hillel was a place to hang out with Jews and a place to begin campus involvement, through which he, too, played an important role in the IAC at UBC. Dayan now works at the Jerusalem Post, after having spent a year serving in the IDF’s strategic division. He cautions anyone thinking about making aliyah not to imagine life in Israel to be an extended Taglit trip, as there are many difficult situations adjusting to life here. Despite this, he said that there are many wonderful things in Israel that cannot be experienced in North America.

Ayelet Gabriel Weil grew up in Mexico and was a student at the University of Victoria before becoming the Hillel director there and then becoming managing director of programs for all three campuses served by the Vancouver Hillel Foundation.

“Vancouver Hillel was a powerful experience,” she told me. “It allowed me and enabled me to put into practice the ideologies I had ingrained all my life and learn more about my Jewish identity.”

Like Poritz, Weil served in the IDF for two years prior to completing her undergraduate degree. Happiness, fulfilment and a connection to the land and people are what keep Weil living in Israel. Like the rest of us, she lives in Tel Aviv, where she is completing an MA in conflict resolution at Tel Aviv University.

Dan Green was born in Toronto, but finished his BA at SFU. He was the president of the IAC at SFU and calls his experiences at Hillel a “catalyst” for his aliyah.

Currently living in Tel Aviv, Green just finished 18 months in the IDF paratroopers and, along with Dayan, served in the reserves during the recent Operation Pillar of Defence. He is studying at the Interdisciplinary Centre in Herzilya and has just launched a web design company called TLV Web Design. He calls aliyah the most meaningful thing that he has ever done in his life.

Daniel Moscovitch hails from Winnipeg but also has a Vancouver Hillel connection. He served as the UBC Hillel program director from 2008-09, a time of particular tumult on campus because it coincided with Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.

“This conflict [Cast Lead] taught me that things are much more complex [than] they seem, and it allowed me to do a lot of personal introspective thinking to discover what Israel/Zionism means to me and in general,” he said of that time. “All of these complexities only pushed me further to come live here and see what’s up firsthand.”

Eyal Lichtmann, executive director of Vancouver Hillel at the time we spent there, said he is, “ecstatic that – socially, culturally and religiously – [local] Hillel students have connected with Jewish peoplehood, and have made the choice to live in Israel, the highest Jewish calling.”

When I returned to Vancouver for a visit recently, I dropped in on my friends at Hillel and was glad to see it is still a thriving centre that continues to inspire Jewish students – a new, younger crowd, most of whom I do not recognize, but who I trust will be as inspired and empowered as I, and so many of my friends, have been. I expect we will welcome some of them to the Promised Land in the years to come, as Hillelniks who arrived before us have welcomed each of us. √

Paul Curran made aliyah in 2012, served as a Vancouver Hillel director for three years and is an avid artist and writer based in Tel Aviv.

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