We are very proud of our Alum who recently made aliyah and was featured on Jerusalemvillage.org
Shayna Driscoll, originally from Brooklyn and now in ulpan & living in Jerusalem, attended Mayanot in 2012 and made aliyah in 2016.
Israel
was not on Shayna’s radar until she began college at Binghamton University,
where her friend convinced her to go to Chabad for some free food before
heading to the bars. There, she learned about Judaism and about Israel. She
signed up for Birthright not long after and began to learn more about Hasbara,
Judaism from a cultural and spiritual perspective, and eventually, from a
religious perspective. After her Birthright program, she left Israel “kicking
and screaming at Ben Gurion Airport,” not wanting to leave. “The madricha told
me that she knew my type and knew I’d be back.” The madricha was right– Shayna
came back to Israel nearly every summer following on free trips, “obsessed”
with Israel. After she graduated from college, she came back to study at
Mayanot’s Women's Learning Program. She hoped to do the army and get a masters, but decided
against it because she felt it wasn’t was she “should do”– she chose, perhaps
for the last time, to “fit the mold” by getting a job and paying off her
student loans. When she got a prestigious job with the Jewish Federation’s Wall
Street Division, she found meaning in her position and gracefully took on hefty
responsibilities, including managing a Wall Street dinner where $28 million was
fundraised, with a whopping 1,700 guests who she seated and managed. At her
job, Shayna was working with millionaires and billionaires and was following
the path that her UJA mentors took to reach their coveted positions. But Shayna
couldn’t ignore the fact that she felt something was missing.
At a Birthright
fellowship conference in Chicago, her feelings came to a head–she found herself
emotional after hearing from Israeli speakers. “I want to be these Israelis,” she recollected. “I want to be the one working
for a Jewish organization, flying to America and teaching others about Israel,
not vice versa.” When Shayna called her mom, who wanted to keep her only child
nearby, she protested, “Shayna, you have your aliyah voice on again!” But this
voice only intensified a few months later when the פיגועים began almost exactly one year ago. “It was a turning point for
me when Ezra Schwartz died. I felt like, what the heck am I doing here [in the
U.S.]? Israel is really important to me! Where do I want to be if I die
tomorrow? Do I want to be in a cubicle on Park Avenue?” In a last ditch effort
to follow the “normal path,” she applied to NYU and left to staff Birthright on
the same day, but within
24 hours of
being back in Israel, she made up her mind. “I even began telling people on the
bus. I wrote a letter to myself then to make sure I wouldn’t go back on my
choice.”
Unlike for many olim chadashim, for
Shayna, the hardest part of her aliyah process didn’t happen in Israel– rather,
it was telling her parents that she was moving. As an only child, it was
“horrible” telling her parents. In January, she told her mom. In April, she
told her dad. In July, she made the move. “My dad didn’t call me for four
months after I told him. It was the worst time of my life,” said Shayna. Her
dad began to understand once terrorism around the world increased. “I think it
put it in perspective for him that I wanna be where I wanna be,” and Israel
isn’t necessarily more dangerous than any other place. In fact, Shayna feels
the most safe in Israel where “safety is not scary or intimidating, but there
is a subtle feeling of security.” And anyway, physical danger isn’t as scary to
Shayna as other dangers. While she spoke about ulpan friends from Turkey and
France who couldn’t wear kippot in the
street or had to sneak in Kosher meat from the butcher, Shayna said her
motivations for aliyah include an escape of ideological and emotional nature
more so than an escape for safety reasons. “Americans are fleeing from a sense
of complacency and apathy towards Judaism. To me, that is scarier than ISIS,
because you can’t bomb apathy.” The result, for her, means she doesn’t have to
struggle to identify Jewishly when living in the Jewish State. “Here, you can
be who you are. You can wear pants and cover your hair if you want. You can really
be whatever you want.”
Even with the hardship of
skeptical parents, Shayna feels she made the right decision. She loves ulpan,
where she has found “the most incredible friends” in what she calls a “very
soft landing.” Shayna loves walking around, looking at old street signs,
finding new restaurants, being outdoors, and exploring nature. To her,
Jerusalem is the “heart of Israel” and says she “needs to be in the heart,”
even though most of her friends live in Tel Aviv. “I love history and I am a
spiritual person so I love the energy here in Jerusalem. Sometimes if I’m
bored, I’ll just go to the kotel,” she said, laughing. Her Hebrew learning is also coming along.
Even though it’s easy to speak English outside of Ulpan, she has found ways to
practice, such as “learning all the names for the vegetables from the guy at
Jachnun Bar in the shuk- I go there all the time,” she tells. “After all, I
didn’t move to Israel to live in the upper west side!
In terms of struggles,
there are many, as always. She cites the language as the biggest challenge and
resulting in funny mistakes like when she answered “שתויות רק” instead of “שתיות רק””
when asking if she wanted anything else at Aroma. There are also those not so
funny mistakes, like paying for 20 24-hour bus tickets instead of 20 tickets on
her Rav Kav because she asked for “פעמים עשרים” instead of “נסיעות עשרים.”
While she is “very much a New Yorker” and “doesn’t let Israelis walk all over
her,” her strategy for getting by in Hebrew speaking environments is to just
say, “okay, okay.”
Now is another critical
time for Shayna, who is beginning to think about what is next for her:
nonprofit work or starting something completely new. But one thing is certain–
like many olim have
proven before her, with a mix of her American positive outlook and Israeli
don’t-take-no-for-an-answer grit, Shayna’s future is bright in Jerusalem.
As seen on Jerusalemvillage.org
We wish you much success and nachas here in Jerusalem, Shayna, and hope you will come back and visit us from time to time!