`It's just very, very different'

New immigrant Nicky Halpert was sure her family's first Rosh Hashanah in Israel was going to be "spiritual and wonderful." But reflecting on the experience this week, Halpert finds the words which more accurately sum up her first celebration of the Jewish New Year as an Israeli citizen are "very sad."

Halpert found she was unprepared for the sharp contrast between what she was used to in Canada and her initial experience here. "It's just very, very different," she said, more than once.

Halpert, her husband, Alan, and their four sons spent the holiday with relatives in Beit Shemesh rather than in Hashmonaim, the settlement they moved to three months ago after coming to Israel on the first Canadian flight arranged by the organization Nefesh B'Nefesh.

"We thought it would be better than being by ourselves," said Halpert, who is originally from South Africa. She reports that her husband was at synagogue by 6:00 A.M. for an early "hashkama" service with his brother, and had finished praying by 10:00 A.M. "I was only going at 9:30 or 10:00 because of our little kids and he was already walking home," Halpert said. "It was very different from what we are used to. We used to pray at the Aish Hatorah shul in Thornhill [in Toronto], where we formed a family minyan. But here, the kids had to be quiet and if they made a noise we had to take them out. It was very hard for us to get used to."

Halpert said she stood in the synagogue - "without familiar faces" - and thought about her family in Canada. "I missed them and felt guilty about leaving them and I burst out crying," she confessed. "I hope next year will be the wonderful and uplifting Rosh Hashanah I was hoping for this year."

Halpert is not alone in finding a gap between expectations and reality during their first High Holidays in Israel, although most of the new immigrants interviewed by Anglo File this week had positive experiences.

"Where I grew up, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were like fashion shows," said Seth Grodofsky, a home remodeler who immigrated from New Jersey two years ago. "It really turned me off. It's a much more all-encompassing holiday experience here. The notion of saying `Hag Sameah' [happy holiday] to everyone you know - even before you start a bid on a job site or buy a tool at a hardware store - is something I enjoy. It makes me feel good. No great epiphanies, but for one split moment, people smile and relax."

Grodofsky, who attended a Conservative synagogue in New Jersey and does so in his new home in Arad, admits he spent much more time in services in the U.S. but prefers the laid-back atmosphere here. "[At synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, last week] I wore a nice pair of jeans and a white shirt; when I was growing up, it was almost obligatory to wear a suit."

Goel Jasper, who immigrated through Nefesh B'Nefesh with his wife and five children in late December, described his first Rosh Hashanah as an immigrant in Israel as "less spiritual" than he expected.

"There was no moment during my time in synagogue where I felt the presence of God more than in the past. When people think about spending Rosh Hashanah in Israel, they anticipate a special boost of spirituality. I guess what I experienced was much more intellectual than heart and soul." Jasper continued: "During my prayers, I knew I had this terrific `mitzvah' [good deed] in my back pocket - that I'd made aliyah. It's the only time I'll ever face judgment at this time of year with that on my side - knowing that I decided to give up what was supposedly a good life in America to do what God really wants Jews to do, which is live in Israel, knowing that big-picture-wise, I've proven to God that being a Jew is top priority for me."

Jasper compared the style of prayer leadership in the synagogue in his new community in Kochav Yaakov, north of Jerusalem, to that in his former community in Baltimore, Maryland. "Here, [the leadership] was certainly capable but it was not focused on inspiring everybody, so [the service] had much less of a special feeling to it. People outside of Israel have more of a need for ritual. We [in Israel] don't need the latest and greatest in Sukkah technology or to come up with creative ways of feeling close to God because we're in his hometown."

Brandon Srot, 24, a graduate of the Zionist youth movement Habonim Dror, spent Rosh Hashanah holiday in a very different setting from his native Sydney. Srot and the other members of a new socialist commune in Jerusalem consisting of Habonim Dror graduates devised an evening to reflect the movement's ideological emphasis on "cultural Judaism."

The commune, in the San Simon neighborhood, hosted 21 movement graduates for a meal and to read from a booklet they had prepared with readings about "heshbon nefesh" (personal accounting or reckoning), one of the central themes of the High Holiday period. While Srot says the evening was "very special," he admitted to feeling a little homesick, too.

"It's such a family-oriented time, it's the hardest time to be with no family in Israel," he said, but then added that "the Habonim Dror community is almost like a family." For Yom Kippur, Srot and his fellow commune members are planning "mainly discussion-based, self-introspective activities."

Ophira Kover, a 23-year-old English teacher who grew up in the upstate New York town of Amsterdam, expressed her delight with the holiday feeling that she senses in Israel.

"I like it that the streets are mostly quiet here except for people walking to synagogue," said Kover, who describes herself as affiliated to the Conservative movement. "Everyone is filled with a kind of spirituality - not necessarily religious - which is kind of why I made aliyah."