by Lisa Lis
It was mid-January of 1980 when I arrived for the first time in Eretz Yisrael. With 20 other Michigan State University students, we traveled around the young 32-year-old modern State of Israel. Two weeks of our travel were based on Kibbutz Ramot Menashe, where the trajectory of my life would take a major diversion. There, sitting in the corner of a new friend’s kibbutz room, was this handsome, bearded, guitar-playing Israeli named Hannan. It was love at first sight and 40 years, four kids, 2 sons-in-laws and three grandkids later, that first visit was a fortuitous move.
Upon the birth of each of our kids, Hannan registered them as Israeli citizens, so for all of our many visits back to Israel, I was always the only one restricted to the foreign visitor’s immigration line when arriving at Ben Gurion Airport. Last month, my single American citizenship expanded to dual citizenry as I officially (and finally) made Aliyah. After the FBI cleared my fingerprints and the Rabbi declared my Jewishness, I was finally given the coveted “Teudat Zuhut” Israeli identity card, though I can’t yet rattle off the number by heart like most Israelis (it is used in every bureaucratic transaction (banking, cell phones, medical…).
With three kids and three grandkids currently living in Tel Aviv, we plan to split our time between Detroit and Israel. We hope to buy an apartment near our kids, but as the Tel Aviv housing market continues its bubble expansion with no end in sight, finding something might take a bit longer. I am thrilled to have finally made Aliyah. I love Israel, the people, the food, the landscape, the Sea and our shared collective history. I am a strong, progressive, pragmatic, Zionist and look forward to spending many more quality years in our Jewish Homeland.