14 weeks to aliyah – Finding a place to live was our next objective.

Although Pearl and I always planned on “eventually” making aliya, we never took actions toward that goal. A few years ago I switched jobs and although the actual work that I did was quite enjoyable in many ways and I got along very well with practically everyone at the office, I felt that something was missing and I would frequently come home from the office and say “when are we moving to Israel”. About 3 years ago Pearl finally said that we should make a pilot trip and see if it is possible and either do it or stop talking about it.

Neve Daniel

We made our first serious pilot trip in the summer of 2011, visiting numerous communities and narrowing down our list to about 5 possibilities. Over the course of the following year, we researched further, through the NBN website, other online sources, the NBN contact for housing (he was particularly helpful), real estate agents and friends. That helped us to refine our list of finalists so we returned last summer to explore those towns in earnest, eventually making our choice. We were particularly fortunate to find a house that we loved in that town and started the process of purchasing it.

Where to live was a most important factor to us. We wanted to be sure that we would fit in well and be comfortable because we hoped that this would be the last time that we would move. Although one could never be certain, we believe that we found the right place for us. This is one part of our aliya that we knew would have to be resolved before we could consider dealing with all of the other details. That might not be the case for others – some people are perfectly comfortable deciding that they can live anywhere and so they leave this factor to the end stages of their aliya planning. You must decide for yourself what works best for you.