Rivka (Slurzberg) and Mattityahu Pomerantz: Rivka and Matti are both from Philadelphia but when they got married, they lived in a community outside of Silver Spring for ten years. Neither grew up in Zionistic homes but Rivka attended Bnei Akiva when she was young, and both she and Matti, who is a ba’al teshuva, yearned to move to Israel. However, they didn’t think they could afford living in Israel, and their families were not supportive of them moving. But their oldest was ten years old, and they felt that it would already be difficult for her to leave her friends, so waiting longer didn’t make sense to them; they were at a crossroads. One Shabbat, the Pomerantzes were at a meal with another family who mentioned they were making aliyah the next summer. Rivka found herself responding, “We are, too.” Matti turned to her and said, “We are?”
That very night, after a discussion, they filled out their Nefesh b’Nefesh paperwork that night. Rivka and Matti wanted a smooth and happy transition to Israel, and it was important to them to be surrounded by greenery and space, which they didn’t feel would be the case if they moved to a small apartment in the center. As a Judaics teacher in America, Matti planned to teach English in Israel (he now works remotely in customer service) and Rivka was a nurse, so they felt they could really live anywhere. Rivka had fairly good Hebrew from her Jewish day school education, where she had really invested in learning Hebrew, and Matti had learned Hebrew on his own, in university, and had spoken to their kids in Hebrew from the time they were little. In the months before their aliyah, they set their kids up with Hebrew learning programs so their kids would be more fluent. They arrived in the community of Maalot in 2019 with their five children, and bought a cottage there a year later.
Aside from the affordability factor, living in Maalot is very different from moving to Ramat Beit Shemesh. As a government right, kids are afforded Ulpan in school, but in Maalot, that translated into nearly one-to-one olim support upon arrival, which is very different than the larger ulpan classes that some olim have in more Anglo communities. Ulpan in addition to arriving to Israel with a basic understanding of Hebrew really helped her make friends quickly. Now, at 15, she loves living in Israel, along with the independence it comes with, like taking the bus to the beach in Nahariya with her friends.
Rivka also took ulpan upon arrival in Israel – specifically, an ulpan geared toward a medical career, although she mostly works in telemedicine now as a triage nurse. There are a few English speakers in Maalot and several others in the neighboring community of Kfar Vradim, where Rivka sometimes learns with the rebbetzin, who is an English speaker. Rivka finds that Israelis are more than happy to help with anything she doesn’t know, and thank goodness for WhatsApp group chats where fellow olim help with words for school supplies, or acronyms that she doesn’t recognize. She laughs about the time she didn’t know how to change the mode on her air conditioning remote and her babysitter had to explain it to her. Or, when she needed to buy school supplies, she handed the list to someone at the store and they filled up the cart for her. Aside from that, most of their aliyah went smoothly, with less annoying bureaucratic moments that many olim experience. They credit that to the flexible nature of government offices in the North. Although, there was the time they went all the way to Haifa to get their driver’s license and were turned away because they were late (for not being able to find the entrance!) so they did “earn their olim stripes.”
The Pomerantzes love living in Maalot and encourage other olim to think about the advantages of moving to areas outside of the center! Maalot is a joint municipality with Tarshiha, which is an Arab city. In 2021, Rivka gave birth to their sabra, whom they named Tzion Ariel – in part because of their strong feelings of love of the land, and also because Tzion was born the day before Yom Yerushalayim. That year, Hamas launched rockets to Yerushalayim during the flag march and Arab riots erupted across the country, including in the Northern city of Akko, where a teacher was lynched. Rivka remembers bringing her baby for one of his first wellness check-ups, when she got lost in traffic in Tarshiha, which was unnerving at the time. But then she saw that the reason for the traffic was a demonstration for co-existence, and it made her realize that some Arabs – certainly some of their neighbors – did just want to peacefully co-exist. That’s largely been their experience with the surrounding Arabs, like when their kids take horseback riding classes in Tarshiha.
But not all neighbors are friendly, and the war has certainly brought that reality home. Living eight kilometers from Lebanon, they’ve experienced some sirens from incoming rockets, although not as much as some other areas in the north. Rivka says that at least up until now, they’ve grown accustomed to what to do when they hear a siren, and they aren’t as phased as they used to be.
We all pray that security is restored to the north and that both those who were evacuated and those living under rocket threat are able to come home soon.
