Baruch Hashem

Today I tried to call The Jewish Agency to ask my agent if I need to complete my file with anything or if all my submitted paperwork is ok. It took me almost a year to gather everything, the bureaucracy is crazy if you have more than one citizenship. And now that I have sent it all I am of course really impatient!

Anyway, The Jewish Agency has locations all over the world and a phone number for every region - but only a few are working. So I just called a random number from the list and got connected to a very kind voice that sounded a little familiar. I couldn’t really tell so I just said my name and asked for my agent when the woman on the phone excitedly shouted “Leora!!??? Is that you? I can’t believe it! We met last year in Israel! It’s me, Lara!” and then we both started laughing and giggling and couldn’t believe it!

When I was in Israel last year I booked a guide for a few days, because I wanted to explore a few areas I didn’t know and we had such a great time that we started hanging out after the tour, too. We stayed in touch afterwards but hadn’t been talking for a while.

As tourism has been slow in Israel since Oct 7th and the following war, she had taken a job at The Jewish Agency. But what are the odds that I should get connected to just her, when calling a random number out of like 20?

For me this is one of the wonders of Isreal, of Am Yisrael, Hashem doing the magic. I was feeling so low the past few weeks, asking myself a million times if my path is right. There are so many obstacles, questions, doubts, hopes and fears connected to making Aliyah.

But I got my answer today. Everything will be fine.

Baruch Hashem!