Year in Review

With Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Years) right around the corner, now seems to be a good enough time to wrap up my last year and a little bit.  I returned to Toronto after finishing my IDF service in late June of 2011.  I was in Toronto for a little over a year before I moved to Israel and became a citizen on July 12, 2012. So I'm going to recap the last year and 3 months or so.  Last new years I spent with my family in Toronto for the first time since returning from my army service in Israel.  The previous 2 new years were spent in Israel, one of them in the army itself, and the second with relatives.  Over the year I managed to spend quality time with family and friends before making aliyah and moving to Israel. I held two different jobs, the second one providing me the opportunity to travel around some of the US and Canada.

I enjoyed the things I missed out on while living in Israel for the previous 2 years.  I played a lot of hockey and squash; both these sports are hard to come by in Israel.  I ran a half marathon (21.1 km or 13.1 miles for my friends who don't know what a meter is) for the first time with minimal training.  I crossed the finish line at a time of 2:01:30 which I think was very good considering I had never ran more than 10km in my life). I was able to follow the blue jays and maple leafs, which both had unsurprisingly disappointing seasons.  I was able to attend many games over the past year.  Some of the more noteworthy ones were Roberto Alomar's number 12 being retired by the Blue Jays, the Blue Jays hope opener, a leafs game in Buffalo, a baseball game in Houston, and the homecoming football game at Michigan State University versus Wisconsin, which was probably the best and most exciting football game I will ever witness live or on TV.

Last year I traveled to Orlando for the 98th annual AEPi convention, and remained connected to the fraternity during the year helping to build the alumni club in Toronto.

The most noteworthy thing of the last year was obviously my aliyah.  On July 11th I arrived at JFK airport in New York with over 200 other people who like me decided to leave their lives in North America and start new as Israeli citizens.  I boarded the plane with a new name, Yitzchak, and was ecstatic to start my new life.  The following day I deplaned as a full Israeli citizen!  The feeling was great, definitely a dream come true.  Since then I have been studying hebrew at ulpan with other people who are also new immigrants.  I have made tons of new friends, and I have had to opportunity to reunite with old friends and relatives that I hadn't seen since leaving Israel after my army service.

With a new start here in Israel, the next year certainly will be exciting and full of new adventures.  Make sure to keep following Kaldor's Korner!

I wish all my friends family and readers a happy and sweet new year filled with good health, happiness and success.

Bus in Israel wishing you a happy new year (shana tova)