“We’re like the accidental Zionists. It was never on our radar to live in Israel. Maybe Barcelona or Holland, but Israel? Nah,” says Dr. Scott Lawrence.
“My wife calls me a chameleon because I can fit in anywhere. And she’s right. But here in Israel, I finally felt like I was home. I felt I could put my bags down.”
Lawrence and his wife, Heidi, both chiropractors, had started feeling disillusioned with life in Manhattan. Professionally and materially, things were great. They lived near the United Nations in an upscale neighborhood and even owned a private plane. But personally and spiritually, they felt unfulfilled.
In a quest to find the right place to raise their children, they traveled across the United States. Still undecided yet eager to leave Manhattan, in 1996 they rented out their townhouse and took their two preschoolers, Gideon and Sage, on a sabbatical trip abroad. After camping out in European countries for five and a half months, Israel was meant to be a short stopover on their way from Turkey to South Africa by jeep.
Completely oblivious to geopolitical realities, they figured they could drive from Turkey to Israel via Syria and Lebanon. Fortunately, they checked in with the US Embassy first and got a reality check. They backtracked to Greece, took a boat to Haifa, and booked three nights at the Laromme Hotel in Jerusalem (now the Inbal).
“After a day in Jerusalem, I said to Heidi, ‘I think we need to amend our plans a little bit. I feel like a fraud; I don’t know anything about our heritage. I want to start learning.’”
Lawrence, a second-generation chiropractor, had been raised in Long Island, with little formal Jewish education. Not understanding what in-depth Jewish learning entailed, he figured three months in Jerusalem’s Diaspora Yeshiva would be adequate.
“After three months, I had learned that I knew absolutely nothing. I wanted another six months of learning.”
Heidi had no objections. The kids were happy in gan (daycare), the family had rented an apartment in Rehavia, and so when the months stretched into years, she was fully on board. But it wasn’t easy for Lawrence’s parents.
“My mother flipped out when I said I was leaving a prince’s lifestyle in Manhattan,” Lawrence recalls. “I said, ‘The difference is that in the US culture, people live from the outside in. I didn’t want to raise my children like that. Here in Israel, for the most part we live from the inside out.’
“My father once came to Israel with my mom and said, ‘I just don’t get what you’re doing here, but I’m so proud.’ Hearing that made it much easier.”
The Lawrences sold their Manhattan property and bought a place in Katamon. “Our neighborhood is like a cholent,” he says, encompassing everyone from haredim to couples flying a rainbow flag.
“Left wing, right wing – it’s Israel; it is who we are, like it or not. I love the community here being so eclectic. I deal a lot with stressed-out people, and I say, ‘Hey, we are all family, and we don’t like all our family members, but we love them.’”
THE LAWRENCES also have a vacation home in Ashdod. This grew out of tragedy: Several years after moving to Israel, Lawrence broke his back in a car accident. Until he was able to fully recover and resume his chiropractic practice, a friend hired him to help run his company, Savyon Diagnostics, which developed the world’s first rapid and reliable test for chlamydia.
“The company is in Ashdod, and I went to the beach on a May morning and fell in love. It was nicer than Malibu. I called Heidi and said, ‘We need to get a place at the beach.’”
Officially making aliyah
The family officially made aliyah in 2002 after reading an article in The Jerusalem Post about the advent of Nefesh B’Nefesh, which greatly streamlined what had until then been a daunting paperwork process.
Lawrence, a 1980 graduate of New York Chiropractic College, had practiced for several years in Manhattan with famed diet doctor Robert Atkins, and then opened his own clinic in the same building. In Israel, there was no licensing for chiropractors until very recently, so he simply hung out a shingle.
He has built up the Jerusalem Family Wellness Center into what he calls “one of the most beautiful and modern health clinics in Israel, with American customer service.”
His patient population is eclectic. “We get people from the US State Department, foreign journalists, educated and affluent Muslims from east Jerusalem, a haredi guy from the Old City. It’s quite amazing.”
The multi-member staff includes his son Gideon, a graduate of a chiropractic school in Barcelona. His younger son, Sage, will soon complete his chiropractic residency in Barcelona and join the practice as well. Heidi maintains her own clinic in a cottage next door to the family home.
The Lawrences also have two Sabra (Israeli-born) children, Asher and Zoharya (Zoe). Asher was discharged from his military service in Golani 18 months ago, did reserve duty during the war, and then went to California to work in construction. Zoe also served in the army and is working in Tel Aviv until she enters the Holon Institute of Technology in the fall.
When the Israel-Hamas War broke out, Lawrence drove down to the Erez Crossing and set up his treatment table at a large army encampment 300 meters from the base.
“In my broken Hebrew, I said, ‘Does anybody have back or health problems?’ I was there for three weeks, on and off, treating soldiers. I’ve since been to about 16 places, mostly in the South, but I haven’t volunteered in a few months because it was emotionally intense, and I burned out,” Lawrence says.
Dr. Kate Nestingen, a chiropractor in Chicago, saw Lawrence’s photos from his makeshift treatment sessions posted online by the International Chiropractic Association. She came to Israel to help him and ended up marrying a soldier. She now works part time at the Jerusalem Family Wellness Center and just gave birth to her first child.
Lawrence reflects on his nearly 30 years in Israel, “My life is fantastic. This is prophecy fulfilled, and I feel blessed to be privileged to raise my family here.” ■
Scott Lawrence, 69: From Manhattan to Jerusalem, 1996