Finally, Finally Home

Someone recently asked me how long it took me to plan to make aliyah, to emigrate to Israel. "About 40 years," I replied. It was 40 years ago this coming August that I converted from my Lutheran upbringing to Judaism. At the time that seemed so simple. Boy, was I naïve!

In 2007 my mother passed away very unexpectedly. We had a complicated relationship, but in the last years we had buried the hatchet - and not in each other's backs. So while I had promised her that I wouldn't change my first name, it was after her death, going through her meticulous files, that I came across her original birth certificate. Pearl Steuerle.

Margo Steuerle never existed. Well, I guess she did, until she became Margo Stroh (another marriage I didn't hear about until I was 32 years old), who then became Margo Butcher (my father Frank was her boss at work), until she became Margo Hening (Frank died when I was seven months old), marrying the man who wooed her every day in the elevator at the Empire State Building. But I digress. Glenn and I decided to spend a portion of her inheritance on a collective dream - to go on a six-week tour of Europe, the last two weeks of it in Israel. I ended up in Israel for 12 days by myself. I always told my children that when I flew to Israel I wouldn't need a return ticket. I did come back home - but only to tell them that I was making aliyah.

Saving enough money to move myself took two and a half years. Trying to divest myself of some of my many thousands of books was another kettle of fish. But I look with pride at two accomplishments: The Book Thing, a "take what you want, donate what you want" place in Baltimore was the recipient of my copy of the Encyclopedia International. All 20 volumes. O.K., so the copyright date was 1970. It was published when I was a high school junior. And I donated three different dictionaries. Not that I don't need one. It's just that Mom left me an Oxford Unabridged Dictionary, complete with a neat chrome and maroon book stand. Makes a great shtender!

Anyway, the movers came and packed every square inch of a 20 cubic foot long shipping container, leaving some six boxes behind to be shipped later, thanks to Jacob Laderman, who is collecting people's stuff to combine into one shipment. You go to it, Jacob. He found me Saturday night when my friend Debby was talking to my other friend Shoshana and Jacob overheard that I was in the room.

And so the stuff was on its way to Israel and I had only to get to the airport with my two dachshunds in tow. What happened to my other pets is the subject of tomorrow's blog: Gone With The Dogs and Bye-Bye Miss American Hare.

(Be sure to ask in comments about any word you don't understand, like aliyah or shtender or Lutheran.)