How to prepare children for Aliyah

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amother

Wed, Jul 08 2020, 4:16 pm

With everything going on in the USA, we are seriously considering aliyah even though we have teenagers and tweens. How can we best prepare our children to integrate into Israeli society? Is there a good way to give them hebrew immersion while we are in the US? I am even considering homeschooling them both for health safety and to focus on what is needed in Israel.
What is needed for American children to do well in Israeli high schools and on the bagrut? What should I focus on so that they can feel integrated in the army and Israeli college/workplace? What am I not even considering? All help and advice would be very appreciated.

shabbatiscoming

Wed, Jul 08 2020, 4:29 pm

HEBREW HEBREW HEBREW!!!!
That being said, teens making aliyah is very hard. Are they on board? Do they want to come? It will be socially hard to integrate. Obviously you would have to find a place with many anglo kids so that your kids can speak english with their peers (at least to start with).

If any of your kids are going in to 12th grade, I would not do it. And I would wait. To bring a child that would have to jump right in to the israeli school system to baruyot, that would be shell shocking to say the least.

But for now just focus a lot of hebrew. It will help them integrate that much quicker.

amother

Lawngreen

Wed, Jul 08 2020, 4:33 pm

How old (and what gender) are your kids?
Do they know any Hebrew? What type of community would you be moving into?

Have they spent time in Israel? I think it's important that they know what to expect. They are more likely to accept the move if they can picture what their new life will look like...

I think you are being wise thinking ahead like this. The better prepared you are, the more successful your aliyah is likely to be.

B'hatzlacha

RuralIma

Wed, Jul 08 2020, 4:38 pm

Check out italki for Hebrew lessons. There are a lot of Israelis who give lessons via Skype if there isn't an ulpan of some sort in your area.

amother

Wed, Jul 08 2020, 4:43 pm

I have both girls and boys. My oldest is a boy. Ideally, I would like him to finish high school in the US. Ideally I would like to move to Israel without Aliyah to try it and officially make aliyah once he graduated high school. I don't know if we can do that now in the time of covid.

amother

Cyan

Wed, Jul 08 2020, 4:45 pm

shabbatiscoming wrote:

If I wait until it's a good year for all of my children we will never make aliya!

Our goal is to make aliya next summer. One of my children will be going into 12th grade. That child will take the GED. So 12th grade in Israel will be just for making friends and getting acculturated.

What do you think of that plan?

Elfrida

Wed, Jul 08 2020, 5:41 pm

Everyone else in 12th grade will be very focused on bagruyot. If he's out of that, it will be hard for him to integrate into the class. The other focus will be on army units. Will he be ready for that?

This is a random idea, but maybe instead of another year of school, it might be worth looking into a mechina kdam tzvai'I (מכינה קדם צבעי). There are different options and some are more dati than others. The general idea is physical preparation for the army combined with some kind of academic preparation that will be useful both for the army and in general life. The more dati ones focus on yeshiva type learning. He would probably be able to integrate and make friends a lot better there than in twelfth grade where everyone else is focused on bagruyiot. It would also give him time to adapt to the concept of going into the army, which he won't have grown up with. I don't know if they would take him at seventeen, but I would reccomend looking into it.

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