Being encouraged by your teacher to talk to your friend during class? That totally deserves to be on my list of awesome things about making aliyah!

H

ey, it’s me again. Yesterday I mentioned that I have an official translator to help me out in school. Well, today I want to tell you more about Avi, my translator, and the other ways that my school is helping to make this HUGE transition a little less terrifying. So here are some nice things about being an oleh in a school in Israel.

There’s a special teacher whose job it is to check up on the olim kids and make sure we’re adjusting well. It’s nice to know that the school is looking out for us.

My teacher and the special oleh advisor guy (see #15 above) assigned me a translator. At first, I thought that sounded super-cool — kind of like I’m an important government official from another country who walks around all day with a translator, so he can talk to other important government people. I thought that maybe I could even get an ear piece, so my translator could whisper translations in my ear in case he’s not right next to me. But no, it wasn’t quite as exciting as that. Instead, my teacher and the oleh advisor introduced me to a kid in my class named Avi. Avi lives in my neighborhood and made aliyah when he was in first grade. That means he remembers what it felt like to be the new oleh kid in school, but he’s also totally fluent in Hebrew by now. Avi can explain stuff to me when I don’t understand what’s going on… which is ALL THE TIME. Avi and the teachers told me that I’ll pick up Hebrew within a few months and that between Avi’s help and my ulpan lessons, I’ll feel like a sabra in no time! (A sabra is what they call people who are born and live in Israel. The word sabra is actually the name of a fruit that’s prickly on the outside and supposedly tasty on the inside. What a weird thing to call yourself. I’ll never understand how Israelis think.) At least Avi seems like a cool kid — just the type I would be friends with back in New York.

In order for Avi to help me with translations and stuff, my teacher assigned us to sit next to each other and told us that we’re allowed to whisper to each other in class whenever I need help. Umm, being encouraged by your teacher to talk to your friend during class? That totally deserves to be on my list of awesome things about making aliyah!

(Excerpted from Mishpacha Jr., Issue 782)