March 7

VICTORY IS MINE!!!!!!

No, Israel didn’t just win the World Cup in soccer, but trust me, this is even better! My parents just called me into their room and showed me a printout of an email. And guess what it was... a plane ticket! For me! For yours truly, Binyamin A. Schwartz! (Okay, so it didn’t say A., because that’s not legally part of my name, but you get the idea.) They said that they were so proud of me for being so resilient, which I didn’t understand, but who cares? I’m going to America! (In case you’re curious, resilient means being able to deal well with changes and hard stuff in life. My parents explained it to me.) So I guess that’s the end of my journal entries. I made a goal to find 50 things that are awesome about making aliyah and living in Israel and I did it!

Signing off in an AWESOME mood and for the last time,

Binyamin A. Schwartz

P.S. I kind of feel like an evil genius right now. I somehow managed to come up with 50 things that are awesome about living in Eretz Yisrael, without even really wanting to stay here. I can be honest and say that there are lots of cool things about Israel (50 that I’ve thought of so far to be exact), but I could have enjoyed a lot of those things without having to move here. Listen, it’s a great place to visit on vacation. I’ll even admit that aliyah might be awesome for some families. I just don’t think it’s right for us. So, you may be wondering: why did I even bother to write this list if I don’t want to live here and I plan on voting against staying here at the family meeting this summer?

(Excerpted from Mishpacha Jr., Issue 791)