O pinion
Lessons Learned Along the Road to Aliyah
to Judaism until I connected
with Israelis and their culture.

At the time, I was certain I’d
return to Israel, but I just didn’t
know exactly when.

Finally, that moment
arrived, following
my immigration to Israel with
Nefesh B’Nefesh on July 21.

From starting a business to
navigating a pandemic, the
road to aliyah was paved with
pivotal life events — and at each
BY ELI COHEN
juncture, I gleaned lessons that
FOR MORE THAN 20 years, I believe can help inform the
I never had any inclination to journey for prospective olim
visit Israel. Yet during a Shabbat (immigrants to Israel).

dinner at Temple University,
the Chabad emissary on Understand that Israel is
campus asked me, “Why don’t different
Before visiting Israel, I
you give it a shot?”
Rabbi Baruch Kantor’s didn’t identify culturally or
suggestion activated an idea religiously as a Jewish person
that was already in the back in the United States. I never
of my mind from conversa- had exposure to people who
tions with family and friends were Jewishly observant but
as well as others during my were also culturally ingrained
childhood. I went on to sign in their broader community.

Israel is different — it’s not
up for a Birthright Israel trip
America. It’s important to be
before graduating college and,
eight days after completing my open-minded and accepting
last exam in August 2019, I about Israeli society if you’re
going to make the move, and
embarked on the tour.

Being in Israel for the first then you need to take respon-
time helped me understand sibility for your own life once
who I am on a much deeper you land.

While growing up, I had
level. I hadn’t felt a connection
exposure to the observant
Jewish community in the U.S.,
but not much exposure to Israeli
culture. My Birthright trip
opened my eyes to that culture
and helped me understand
its differences with American
society, and that knowledge is
making my aliyah experience
more comfortable today.

Identify your value
Some olim say they moved
without a plan, and then
lament how it didn’t work out.

This pitfall can be averted by
first identifying the value that
you want to bring to Israel.

I co-founded my e-com-
merce business, Ageless Natural
Beauty LLC, after graduating
from business school at Temple.

We work with Israeli companies
(web advertising platforms like
Taboola and Outbrain) and use
Israeli advertising technology
to effectively target and reach
more potential customers over
the internet. I made aliyah
knowing exactly how I wanted
to contribute to Israel and its
economy: scaling my company
by eventually hiring Israeli
employees and building a team
here. This made aliyah a match
made in heaven. Not only is
Israel a hotspot for my profes-
sional specialty of internet
marketing, but the Jewish
state’s existing workforce is
also a fertile ground for exactly
the type of talent that’ll help
me scale the business. This
is a win-win scenario for my
business and for Israel, as I
arrived with a built-in way to
contribute to the economy.

No entrepreneur grows a
venture alone. There’s an entire
team of people behind any
successful brand. I moved to
Israel knowing that it was the
ideal place where I could share
and spread opportunity and
have other people succeed with
me. Let go of the notion of perfect
timing After my trip to Israel was
canceled in the summer of 2020
due to the pandemic, I decided
to double down and just focus
on growing the company. I
started the aliyah process in
the fall of 2020 and now, in the
summer of 2021, I’m here and
the company is growing. At the
moment, we don’t have Israeli
employees (yet), but over time
we’ll grow the team here.

With no clear end in sight
to the pandemic, the choice
surrounding aliyah was clear:
now or never. I believe my decision
resembles the story behind the
state of Israel’s creation: If you’re
going to do something, you do
it now. You dive in headfirst and
don’t look back.

There’s never a perfect time to
move halfway around the world,
but if you want something, you
seize it. There are elements to
life that’ll always be outside your
control; don’t fixate on altering
those circumstances. The
pandemic is precisely the time
to ask yourself: What can I do to
get closer to who I am and what
I want to do?
Aliyah makes complete
sense for where I’m at in
life right now. I’m bringing
opportunity to Israel, but also
benefiting from the various
opportunities that this country,
its economy and its culture
have to offer. These are oppor-
tunities that I wouldn’t have
anywhere else. I’m choosing
to live life in the driver’s seat.

I decided to make aliyah, and
there was no looking back. l
Eli Cohen, a native of Philadelphia
and a graduate of Temple
University’s Fox School of Business,
made aliyah from Las Vegas on
July 21.

Remembering Ilan Naibryf, Jewish Surfside Victim
BY JOSH SATOK
I’M WRITING THIS from
Miami, 10 minutes from the
beach. There are many reasons
to be here — the beach, the
sun, the culture. And there are
many reasons not to be here.

As my grandma keeps
calling to tell me, COVID rates
are skyrocketing in Florida,
and maybe it’s not the best
place to be right now. But none
of these considerations really
mattered to me. I came for a
reason nobody should have to
come for: to be at the shiva
of a former student of mine,
14 AUGUST 12, 2021
Ilan Naibryf, who was one
of the victims of the Surfside
building collapse.

I came to see his sister
Tali, another former student
of mine, to be able to give
her a hug, and to show up to
synagogue as his sisters and
parents said the Kaddish, the
mourner’s prayer, for Ilan. I
came to remember Ilan, to
provide some tiny modicum
of comfort to his family, and
ultimately, to remember what’s
really important.

From 2014-2015, I spent
a year working at a Jewish
boarding school in Greensboro,
North Carolina, the American
Hebrew Academy. The school
no longer exists, but for a year,
I lived on the campus, doing
a little bit of everything as a
“fellow.” I’ve worked with lots of
Jewish teenagers in my life,
but there’s something special
about the bonds you create in
spending an entire year living
on campus with students.

Ilan was, simply put, a good
kid. Even as a freshman, he was
a star soccer player and a laser-
fast runner. His smile lit up the
room, and he was kind, curious
and had boundless energy.

JEWISH EXPONENT
After the year we both spent at
AHA, Ilan finished high school
in Hawaii and then went to the
University of Chicago, where
he was the student president
of Chabad and would have
entered his senior year this fall.

Ilan was in the Surfside
building with his girlfriend
Deborah, in her family’s apart-
ment, to go to the funeral
of someone they knew from
their time at Camp Judaea in
North Carolina. He was the
kind of kid that anyone who
works with teens is lucky to
get to meet, to teach, to spend
time with. And so is his sister
Tali, who was the madricha
(senior who lived in a house
with younger students) for the
house of 11th grade girls right
next to my 10th/11th grade
boys house. My heart breaks
that he’s gone at only 21, way
too early.

From the moment I heard
he was missing, I felt a compul-
sion that if the worst came
to pass, if I could make it
work, it felt like I needed to
go down to Surfside. If there’s
one important lesson I’ve
learned in my 30 years of life,
it’s that when you can, if you
can, always try and show up
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM