Dena Block, 35, made aliyah to Raanana in August of 2021, with her husband Avi, 36, and their four children: Zvi, Ayala, Nava and Yonah. She says that her alma maters Moriah and Ma’ayanot instilled the feeling that Israel should be an important priority in her life. While she misses her colleagues and her family, she knows that Israel is the place for her family.

Aviva: Did you come to Israel for the year after high school?

Dena: I learned at Migdal Oz. I wasn’t necessarily looking for a very Israeli place, and I didn’t choose it because of that. I liked the learning, the hashkafa
and the chevra. Looking back, my Hebrew is really good from that immersive experience.

It was also eye-opening in terms of seeing life and culture here from the inside. I had gone on Mach Hach for the summer in high school and they really emphasize aliyah, but you only see Israel as a tourist. I think that my experience at Migdal Oz was eye-opening in terms of a more realistic perspective.

When you went home after seminary, did you immediately want to make aliyah?

I wanted to go to college in America, but I also knew that I wanted to come back to Israel eventually. When I started dating my husband, he didn’t have a fixed one- or five- or 10-year plan, as he was also interested in pursuing the rabbinate in the U.S. After we got married, we spent our first summer here and I realized that he wanted to live in Israel a lot more than I did, and was much more emotionally connected to the land than I was.

When did the aliyah discussion get serious?

We were living a very happy life in America. We lived in Washington Heights, then in Queens, where my husband was an assistant rabbi, and then moved to Stamford, Connecticut. We had just bought a house there, and I remember coming home from the closing feeling in my gut that it wasn’t the right move and that we really should be going to Israel.

I can’t pinpoint exactly how Corona made me think about aliyah differently, but it definitely shook everything up. It made me realize we can live without certain things. I think Corona made us more open to aliyah.

What do you do for a living?

In America, I was the director of admissions at Ma’ayanot and also taught Gemara, Halacha and U.S. history there. I am also a yoetzet halacha, and now I work as a Media and Marketing Consultant for American Friends of Nishmat, creating content and managing the English social media Yoatzot accounts.

What do you love about living in Israel?

I love living in the Jewish country where our culture and religion are the foundation of life here for everybody—religious or secular. There are billboards on the highways with quotes from the Torah. On Yom Kippur, no one drives. Even the secular people are acknowledging that this day is different.

What do you miss about living in America?

I miss my family and Sundays. Sunday was the day to spend with extended family and it’s hard to do that on Fridays in the same way. Then, there are the small things like Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee.

Do you have any aliyah advice for anyone who’s reading this article?

I have found that the thing that has made aliyah smooth for us is having a support system here. We have a sibling here and a bunch of close friends, and I have two very good friends who live where we moved who helped us even before we got here—setting everything up for us—who have been my go-to people to ask all my questions. I can’t imagine having gone to a place where I didn’t know anybody or didn’t have any friends who took care of me.

Like every new experience, there are ups and downs, and there are better days and harder days. Just take it one day at a time.

By Aviva Zacks