In the Beginning

In shortly over two months, my little family and I will pack up and move overseas for five years so that my husband can pursue a doctorate in Yiddish Literature. After making Haifa, Israel my home for the last ten years, I will be relocating to the land of my birth, to the island Manhattan. As it happens, A. will be studying at the same university where I earned my undergraduate degree, so we will be returning to familiar turf. As a bonus, my parents now live in the neighborhood too. They are eager to have their new granddaughter close by and have promised to provide frequent babysitting services.
I am fortunate to count many friends and relatives living in NYC who are also awaiting our arrival with excited anticipation and open arms.
My husband was accepted to his dream program and I am utterly thrilled for him.
I too am excited at the idea of being in New York. I can rattle off the attractions:

• Close to parents at this critical time in my baby's life.
• Close to supportive friends and family
• Countless job opportunities
• Serious sushi (at least when I stop breastfeeding)
• Art, good art

And yet, I am anxious thinking about the downsides:

• Expensive, very expensive
• Weather that varies between too hot and too cold
• Sensory overload
• The prospect of living in a cramped, roach-filled, apartment on an air shaft

In short, leaving behind all the comforts of my Haifa home.

New York friends assure me that it will be OK. Israeli friends wonder why we insist that we will ever return. And so, my new blog is born. Here I hope to expose my anxieties about this transition and in so doing, cut them down a little. I want to explore the strangeness of the experience of returning "home" to a culture that is familiar (alt, old), and yet utterly changed (neu, new) from the one I left.

Questions for Exploration

What will it be like to leave THE Promised Land for the land the rest of the world considers to be the promised land? Why does my mother-in-law knowingly exclaim, "Oh, America!" when my hungry baby finally latches on to my breast? What is America? Satisfaction? Frustration? My breast?

Can we manage to keep consumerism at bay in the world's capital of capitalism? How exactly does one pay the rent (even in graduate student housing!) plus have money left over for luxuries such as health insurance, day care, and the occasional bite of food?

Why is it that while people here still dream of a streets paved with gold we are in fact anticipating a significant drop in our standard of living?

What's in a Name?

I've not yet read Herzl's Zionistic utopian novel, Altneuland. In fact, until I looked it up on wikipedia a few minutes ago, I didn't even know it was a novel. But I liked the name, and it fit my idea of going back to my old country which is really the new country... though in fact, my current country of Israel is both older and younger. Anyway, another blogger took the altneuland name (and hasn't done a thing with it, grr!) so I flipped the name.

Also, as I discovered when blogging cookingcholent, it can be nice to have a book theme to come back to and reflect on. So I'm going to read Herzl's book. Maybe it will enlighten me. You can read it online.