Immigration Bureaucracy

The truth is that we would not be living in Israel now if not for my brother-in-law. We would have likely given up back in May after a few frustrating calls to the ministry of absorption, internal affairs or education. Everyone was very polite and understanding but no one was able to give definite answers to our questions. As much as we tried we couldn't sign the kids to schools in advance, left with a risk that a 39 student class in the neighborhood school may be filled (to 40) and we would need to drive one of the kids to a different school. Even with a universal and free medical insurance policy in Israel we could not get any assurance that on the 7th months of pregnancy I will be eligible to medical insurance as soon as I stepped down from the plane. We were getting brief refusals (rejected the status of Returning Citizen) without any explanation. Phone calls to ElAl, which was supposed to proudly bring us back home on a discounted rate, were stuck after a few selections leading to a dead line.

Imagine doing this while still working full time, trying to sell the house, finding a place to live in Israel, managing kids' school and activities, possibly looking for a job here, planning to ship your all posessions - and you may very well give up right at that moment. Life is good enough in Boston. Why fight through such resistance? We were angry, disappointed, exhausted and we almost gave up. But it was spring - the season of high hopes and endeavor, plus we had a guarding angel with a sword.

My husband's brother has been through such immigration process with his family a few years ago returning from a dream-like Central park apartment back to Israel. He is also a lawyer by training and unlike us is very verse in understanding and interpreting the law, using his wit to get to people in high places and persuading them to help him. He has been calling us daily well aware of the fragile nature of the process and guiding us through the confusing maze of the steps. I should admit that even with his enormous help almost nothing has been accomplished before we arrived but at least we got to learn why and prepare an itemized plan of action set in place as soon as we stepped in Israel.

When we arrived my brother-in-law took a week off and patiently drove us daily to tens of various offices: social security, ministry of internal affairs, ministry of education, medical insurance agency, luggage taxation, bank where we slowly managed to put our life back in place. He taught us where and how to park (a crucial survival skill in Tel Aviv) and where to grab a bite in-between to remind ourselves why we really came to live here.

Three months into the adventure and we are almost there. We learn to know our rights, to demand and to follow up after every fax or phone conversation. We also learn to be patient because the year is really just starting now, after the long holidays. Half of our kids' teachers still have no clue that they have some alien creatures in their class for whom Hebrew is not a native tongue. But as soon as we take it upon ourselves and tell them, they hug the kids, share their home phone and promise that everything will be all right.

And while such "all right" promises made me really angry in the US - I wanted to know when exactly, how and at what price it will be all right - we learned to live with it here.  Because things do work out at the end, somehow... Not in a straight and structured way of law we used to in the US, but through the help of caring, welcoming and passionate people.