Although my Jewishness was accepted before my fiance's, he managed to get through the bureaucratic mess months before I did. Apparently I had a "complicated" file, as told to me by the Jewish Agency.
First, we had a problem with our Shaliach. In English, Shaliach means the person who works for the Jewish Agency and lives in the US and is supposed to help you with the Aliyah process by answering questions, looking at paperwork, and dealing with the Jewish Agency people in Israel. Our Shaliach never returned our phone calls, rarely returned emails, and basically was unavailable the entire time we were going through the bureaucratic nightmare. He was no help at all.
We had to call the Jewish Agency once or twice a week from August through November, and actually began to recognize some of the voices and knew who the "good" people were to talk to. Good meaning, the person knew what they were doing and could accurately answer questions and get things done. One thing the Jewish Agency people kept saying was: "Call your Shaliach!" To which we would say: "We have and he never calls back."
Second, was my "complicated" file. The Jewish Agency needed things like a birth certificate, and wanted to know if children were coming along with husbands or wives, etc. Makes sense, and I knew that since I had legally changed my name the Agency would want to see the documentation for that.
Finally, we made contact with the Shaliach's assistant and we were able to make an appointment with the Shaliach -- meaning a four hour drive to San Francisco. But it's always a pleasure to go to SF, and we planned an overnight trip so we could enjoy some of the amenities the city has to offer. We spent less than an hour with the Shaliach who looked over our paperwork, wanted to know why we were moving to Israel, and looked at our passports.
It seemed to be of vital importance that we had not lived in Israel over the past seven years. Both of us had brand new passports which could not account for our travels over the past seven years. For some inexplicable reason, I kept my old passport, but my fiance (always Mr. Efficiency) had thrown his away. Therefore, before going to the Shaliach he had to scramble around to try and find acceptable proof he was living in the USofA for the past ten years. Tax records were acceptable, except all of our stuff is in storage in another state waiting to be shipped to our permanent home, so he couldn't access those. The problem was solved by calling his tax preparer and she graciously wrote a letter saying she had been doing his taxes for the past seven years.
So far, the burden had been on my fiance. My Jewishness of choice through conversion was accepted before his Jewishness by accident through his being born of a Jewish mother. Ha! I had kept my passport and didn't need to scramble around trying to find a way to prove that I had not lived outside the US for the past seven years in particular Israel. I was almost there.
During the interview with the Shaliach, we answered his questions and he gave us a list of the additional documentation we needed to provide along with an apostille. An apostille -- not to be confused with apostle -- is basically a document that certifies a government document is actually real, or something like that. Neither our birth certificates or our passports would need an apostille, presumably because the shaliach saw the original, but everything else would need this additional document. For some reason, they wanted proof of divorce and it too would need an apostille.
Here's where the nightmare began for me. See, I was married twice and divorced twice. In between marriage 1 and marriage 2, I legally changed my name. Several years later, after divorcing husband #2, I converted.
Okay, back to the name change. Although bringing my married name back to my maiden name was an option after divorce #1, I decided better yet would be to change my entire name: first, middle and last. The reason I changed my name is that my maiden name was one of those really long last names where you could make it into a joke. What's more, my first name combined with the last name could be made into a sentence, sort of. I didn't want that kind of name, I wanted a name like everybody else had and people wouldn't start laughing when they heard it and say: "What?! You're kidding right?" Was that so much to ask?
It is important to understand that in certain cultures, like what might be found in the Middle East, people do not change their names. We investigated Israel laws, and there doesn't appear to be any court proceedings whereby one could go about legally changing their name. But, like everywhere else, people in the Middle East do go by different names.
Let's say someone has the name of Joe Blow. In certain cultures to change your name would be considered as dishonoring your parents. So instead Mr. Blow would not legally change his name, he would just start going by Sam Smith and people would accept that. Why that doesn't dishonor a parent, I'm not sure. Anyway, on legal documents he would still write Joe Blow, but everyone would call him good ol' Sam. I actually have a friend who has changed her name in this way a few times. She is from a Middle Eastern type culture, by the way.
However, in the United States, if Joe Blow went to apply for a job, he might experience some difficulty and funny looks when he said: "Call me Sam Smith." No, in the US, it is much better to legally change one's name so that all legal and semi-legal documents can be signed by the legal new name and everybody knows you by your legal name. And that's what I did, and the court document needed an apostille.
No problem. Well, one problem. We're in California and my name change, and the two divorces took place in Colorado. And although I had my birth certificate and name change handy, the divorce information had long been discarded. What could have been accomplished in a day took weeks. In order for the government employees of Colorado to give this information out, they needed identification in the form of birth certificate and currant driver's license sent to them along with money. Eventually, the requested documentation would be mailed back to us so we could have the originals...anyone who knows anything about government bureaucracy knows this takes a lot of time.
This was still in August when we thought we had a ghost of a change to be in Israel by September in time for the High Holy Days. But when the Jewish Agency took two weeks off because of budget constraints, we set a new moving date for November.
Meanwhile, the Jewish Agency wanted more information about my conversion. Although they have accepted the copy of my Certificate of Conversion from the Reform Temple where I converted -- the original was in storage in another state -- they now needed a letter from the Rabbi who performed the conversion along with evidence that I was an active member of the synagogue for a year. They also wanted to know why I converted, and they wanted to know about the conversion process.
I had converted a long time ago -- as in years ago -- as in the Rabbi who converted me is retired now. Fortunately, he is a Rabbi Emeritus and thus still available to write a letter on my behalf. Unfortunately, being retired, he isn't around so much and it took a couple of weeks to connect. Having converted so long ago, the Rabbi didn't remember me and going through the records didn't really know what to say in the letter. So, I wrote him a letter recalling the conversion process and my involvement in the temple. He kindly transferred the letter to his letterhead putting in basically what I told him and what the Agency wanted to hear.
This was around the time the Jewish Agency was closed, so it took forever to find out if the Rabbi's letter had been received and accepted. Finally the Agency reopened and we learned the letter had been received but not accepted. Apparently, the Agency investigated the Rabbi and discovered he was retired and anything he said didn't count. Huh? The Rabbi who converted and devoted his life to Judaism -- because he is now retired -- no longer mattered. Wow, how's that for gratitude?
The agency wanted something from the current Rabbi who I had never met and who didn't know me from Adam. At this point, it was the week before Yom Kippur so being in Israel in time for the High Holy Days was completely out of the question. What's more the deadline for the November aliyah flight was coming up fast.
I called the Temple and spoke to the current Rabbi's secretary -- she was absolutely wonderful -- told her the situation and emailed her a letter stating basically what the Jewish Agency needed to hear. There was nothing in the letter that the new Rabbi could not confirm through the temple records, it was mostly about him, his education, his qualifications, that he was in fact a Jew, that he was really a Rabbi, that I converted at the temple and was a member there for over a year, blah, blah, blah. All the secretary had to do was transfer it onto temple letterhead and have the Rabbi sign it. This happened between Rosh and Yom Kippur, a busy time of year for the synagogue. She couldn't promise an immediate response. I understood. Yet, the very next day, I had my letter signed by the current Rabbi! Someone had checked the records and found even more good stuff to say about me and my Jewish conversion. The people at the temple where I converted went beyond the call of duty and were so good to me, I am very proud to have been associated with that congregation.
The Agency liked and accepted the current Rabbi letter, but they also wanted the curriculum of the conversion process. All they had to do was go online and see what it was, but no, they needed a letter about that too. Well, over the years the conversion curriculum changed and naturally the institution no longer had the old curriculum. So I asked them to just give me the current curriculum because it would still be similar to what I went through. At which point, we had -- what we believed -- all the necessary documentation for aliyah acceptance. We figured we would have an answer right after Yom Kippur.
Except then came Sukkot and Simchat Torah and the Jewish Agency closed for the holiday season. Then they went on strike.
After weeks of waiting we called the Agency and were expecting to hear that I had been approved. Instead I heard they were waiting for the documentation on divorce # 2. I nearly fell through the floor. I had been so focused on the conversion information, divorce #1 and the name change documents, I totally forgot about divorce #2.
Oh, no! If we could have left in November, our plan was to fly out of New York. We were going to drive across country see family and friends en route and tell them goodbye. At this point we knew November was out of the question. In some ways it was good, because I was finishing up an online MBA program and I really wasn't sure how I was going to coordinate school and travel. My fiance, working on his doctorate, said it wouldn't be problem -- after all, he was in class too and taking statistics. With a new target date for December, my MBA program would be completed and my fiance's semester would be almost over. As far as time, December worked a lot better. Frustration-wise, not so much.
Before leaving the country for a very long time, I did want to visit my offspring, so took a little trip to Colorado. It was a wonderful trip and I enjoyed seeing family and friends, but it was too short, and much of the time was spent collecting the necessary documentation from divorce #2 and getting the apostille. That whole thing took some of the pleasure out of the trip.
However, when I spoke to the Jewish Agency, the person I spoke said something disconcerting. They were looking for the divorce from man with the same last name as my name change. I tried to explain that there would be no ex-husband by that name, and she seemed to understand. When I finally got the apostille to the Agency, I still wasn't approved. They wanted to now see a marriage certificate, I knew there was a problem.
At this point we're wondering if Israel was going to happen and if we should even bother. But we had spent quite a bit of time and money on making this happen, and there is something in both of our natures not to quit. Although we started the process to get even more documentation from Colorado, we feared rather than receiving an outright rejection, the Jewish Agency would never stop asking for more and more documentation.
My fiance insisted the problem was the Jewish Agency simply didn't understand the name change. In their minds people don't change their names, and women only convert because they are marrying a Jewish man. They were looking for my Jewish husband who didn't exist. Let me get this straight, if the only reason a woman would convert to Judaism is to please a man, aren't they in effect saying the Jewish religion has no meaning or value?
Regardless, if something isn't in someone's reality how can you make them understand? I started to despair that I would never be approved, and suggested maybe my fiance go to Israel without me. In fact, he had already been given a seat on the December flight.
Before the marriage certificate and apostille arrived, we decided to call the Agency during their morning hours and see if we couldn't get something done. This normally would have been the job of the Shaliach, but ours never lifted a finger for us. Anyway, when it's night here, it's daylight in Israel. We had been calling the Agency first thing in our morning and catching them when they were about to leave work for the day. Instead, we stayed up later than normal one evening to call the Agency so that they would be arriving at work hoping that whoever we spoke to would be able to talk immediately to the people who were deciding my status.
We spoke to someone different. She had an interesting accent: a blend of New York crass and Irish brogue, not the usual Hebrew accent we had been speaking to before. She seemed to be from the West and had a English name and -- we're presuming here -- she spoke to the people who decide and explained about name changes in most first-world countries. I don't know what actually happened. All I know is that the next morning, looking on the Nefesh B'Nefesh website, it looked like I had been approved.
Nefesh is an agency that helps English speaking people who come to Israel have a "soft landing." They help with learning the language, finding jobs, apartments, etc. They are closely tied to the Jewish Agency, so much so, my fiance thinks the two organizations should merge.
No matter, it seemed like I was now approved and the extra fees for the apostilled marriage #2 certificate were wasted.
However, one lady at the Jewish Agency wanted to see the marriage certificate said that we would have to show all of our documents to various Israeli Ministries and were simply taking precautions so that I would be accepted into the country. Was she saying I could end up -- after going through all of this -- landing in Israel, showing the paperwork to the Ministry people and they can't understand the name change, so I get sent back to the US with my tail between my legs? Uh-oh. Maybe marriage certificate #2 wasn't a waste, after all.
There was also a concern of children. I had signed a very official looking statement that said I had no minor children...twice.
My fiance wasn't making things any easier. While I go into despair, he goes into kvetching mode. He was complaining about the problem with the Jewish Agency is they're all Orthodox, maybe even Haredi, aka super-ultra-Orthodox; and in their eyes I'm a wild woman. Me? I'm kind of a nerd actually and prefer a good book over a party. However, I wickedly divorced not one but two men, changed my name, and converted because of deep personal convictions that had nothing to do with marriage -- and now I'm a wild woman.
He complained the decision makers were convinced I had many children and I was going to bring them into Israel so they could take advantage of the free education and health care. It's not quite like that -- they would also have to join the Israeli army -- nothing's really free now is it. Except, there are NO minor children in my life! And the other off-spring have absolutely no desire to go to Israel, my off-spring are perfectly content living in the USA.
To be on the safe side, I got the birth certificates of my adult off-spring, but how would I ever prove I didn't have additional children? Really, how would that even be possible to prove?
Anyway, the next day we again called the Jewish Agency to see if my acceptance on the Nefesh website was correct or at this point too good to be true. Try, too good to be true.
The person I spoke to took a very long time looking through my documentation and said in a very scary voice, "You need to talk to your Shaliach." To which I said, "But we can never get in contact with our Sh..." Click.
It sounded dire. I wasn't sure what all this meant. My fiance is still kvetching about me being a wild woman and Israel not wanting me. Thank-you honey for your encouraging support.
When we again struggled to try and reach the Shaliach who never returned phone calls or emails, it turned out he was gone and a new one was coming. One problem, the new Shaliach would not be around for another two weeks. The deadline for the December flight was fast approaching. We finally reached the Shaliach's assistant who scheduled an appointment for us, both to meet with the Shaliach and to get our visas. After about five months it was nearly official.
Once I was approved, my fiance used one of the Nefesh connections to guarantee us a temporary home once we landed in Israel. Part of the process is that the Agency wants to know where or with whom you will be living. I guess they don't want their new olim, i.e. immigrants, sleeping in hotels or on the street. So, sight unseen, he paid the deposit and we have our official -- albeit temporary address. We don't know if this place is a dump or what, but it's still a place.
At this point however, I was terrified something would go wrong, based on the tone of voice from the last Agency phone call. I'm afraid the Shaliach is going to tell me what the Jewish Agency has been afraid to say: "Sorry you're rejected for Israel." But the new Shaliach turned out to be delightful, and she has done really cool things like return phone calls when we had questions. If we had started with her, I'm sure this process wouldn't have been so terrible.
Meeting with the Shaliach was just a formality, and she wanted to know where we would be living, and filled out a recommendation letter for aliyah. We got our visas, and everything was done. Right? No, for some reason, even after seeing the Shaliach, I was still not approved for a flight. It looked like I would be going to Israel but not on the same flight with my fiance.
We thought we were done calling the Jewish agency and we were wrong. We called again in the evening to find out why my flight was not approved. My fiance got on the phone and started yelling at the poor guy who told me the news...for all the good that did. We couldn't sleep. I wondered with the Shaliach being new and all, if she didn't know to do something important. Maybe the Jewish Agency wanted a copy of that approval letter. So we called Agency back and spoke to the same guy. He remembered me, and I asked if he wanted us to fax over a copy of the letter. He said that would be nice, giving no indication whatsoever that was exactly what they were waiting for to approve the flight.
Well, guess what? The next morning I was approved for a flight. All done? Nope. We had paid both our deposits for the flight, but -- you guessed it -- my payment wasn't showing as paid. This is where my fiance is really, really good -- I mean besides being good in other ways. He made all the phone calls and emails to get that straightened out and by the end of the day, it was official: I'm on a flight to Israel and I get to go with my beloved fiance.
So barring any unforeseen disasters, we're are making aliyah. It still hasn't registered.
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