As many olim (new immigrants) will attest, making aliyah is neither smooth nor straightforward, and you will most definitely encounter countless challenges and obstacles along the way. For many, a single moment of kindness or compassion from a stranger can make all the difference. Often those strangers don’t even realize what a difference they’ve made.
Last week, I shared stories of unexpected kindness experienced by new olim. Due to an overwhelming number of responses I received, I’ve decided to write a part two. Clearly, these small acts of compassion resonate deeply. While one could easily fill a book with such stories, here are a few more that stood out.
Rafael: “Mi casa, tu casa”
During his first few months after making aliyah, Rafael, an oleh from Argentina, was working at a supermarket. It was his first job in Israel, and he was still acclimatizing to living here. One day, a woman from Paraguay who had come to the supermarket with her husband overheard Rafael speaking Spanish and struck up a conversation with him. The couple asked him if he had any plans for Pesach. When he admitted that he didn’t, they immediately insisted that he go to them for the Chag: “Mi casa, tu casa (my home is your home),” they said “You’re coming to us.”
The kind family welcomed Rafael into their home and told him that he could come over whenever he wanted. Since spending Pesach with them, the family’s warm hospitality has blossomed into an ongoing friendship. Three years later, they remain in touch, and Rafael says their kindness has left a lasting mark on his aliyah journey.
Lucas: finding his place through art
Lucas Sylos, a Brazilian tattoo artist specializing in blackwork and fine line, arrived in Tel Aviv about a year ago. With limited Hebrew and English, he was worried about starting over and how he would be able to build a career in Israel.
But a chance conversation with a salesman at a bike shop changed everything. The salesman mentioned that a tattoo studio was opening nearby. Encouraged by his wife, Lucas approached the owner with his portfolio in hand. To his surprise, he was offered a job on the spot. This was Lucas’s first tattooing job in Israel and the start of his professional life here.
Since then, Lucas has tattooed many clients who want to honor Israel, particularly since October 7 and the outbreak of the war. The most meaningful and moving experience for him, he shared, was designing a tattoo in memory of a victim of October 7, as this made him feel profoundly connected to Israel.
Beyond tattooing, Lucas is also a visual artist with over 20 years of experience and a unique style. After much effort, he managed to secure a spot at the Nachalat Binyamin art fair in Tel Aviv, where a gallerist noticed his work one day and invited Lucas to visit his gallery. Later on, the gallerist asked Lucas to paint a live artwork at one of his gallery’s events. This exposure, said Lucas, gave him the confidence to pursue formal recognition, eventually earning certification as a professional artist through Misrad Haklita.
Looking back, Lucas is grateful for the chance encounter with a stranger that gave him the confidence he needed to get started in Israel, as well as an income and clients right from the outset.
Throughout his aliyah journey, Israelis have supported him at crucial moments, inspiring him to give back through his art by building bridges and telling stories that connect people.
Elliot: a pesach adventure with a twist
Elliot’s story sounds almost like a movie. An oleh from the United States, he was still studying in yeshiva in Israel at the time, before making aliyah. One erev Pesach about 11 years ago, Elliot set out to stay with family friends near Yokneam. The trip required three buses, so it was already going to be a long journey and he had all his luggage with him because he was switching yeshivas. But what should have been a relatively straightforward trip quickly unraveled into a cascade of missed buses and being stranded on a highway with all his luggage and not much time to spare before chag.
The whole balagan began when the first bus to Bnei Brak didn’t come as scheduled, and when it finally did it was an hour late! This meant that Elliot then missed his next bus, which essentially messed up the rest of his trip. Now in Bnei Brak, with Google Maps and Moovit giving him conflicting instructions, Elliot spent almost two hours trying to figure out where to go.
Exhausted from walking around, he finally decided to take a taxi to the bus stop. But the driver refused to take him all the way there, so Elliot had to walk the last three blocks to the stop. Luckily he managed to make the second bus, but since it also arrived late, by the time he finally made it to the third bus stop, he had just missed the last bus to his final destination. He was still a 20-minute drive away from the yishuv, Chag was coming in soon, his phone was dead, and there were no more buses.
Stranded on a highway in the middle of nowhere and with no way of contacting anyone, Elliot was stuck. So he tried - unsuccessfully - to catch a tremp (a ride), even holding out a 50-shekel note, but no one stopped. Although many cars drove past, there were no buses or taxis in sight. At one point, he noticed an older hiloni (secular) man selling ice cream on the side of the road, but the man couldn’t help him. Noticing a yishuv across the road, he asked the man if it was dati (religious). The man said “Why not?” - Elliot, realizing that he had no better options at this point, began crossing the busy road heading for the yishuv.
But just then, as luck would have it, a red SUV suddenly pulled up onto the highway, seemingly out of nowhere. A young Chabad couple rolled down the window and called out to Elliot, asking where he needed to go. Although they weren’t travelling there and were ironically actually travelling back to Bnei Brak, where Elliot had just come from, they still offered to help him. The couple was incredibly kind, he said, and they even let him charge his phone in their car so he could try to contact his hosts. But with Chag approaching soon, his hosts couldn’t pick him up, and taxis weren’t available. After about 10 minutes of trying to no avail to find a solution, the couple told Elliot: “Well either you’re coming with us or not.” So Elliot got in.
As it turned out, the family was on their way back from Tzfat. The husband had actually planned a different route but, at the last minute, decided to change course - and that’s how they ended up crossing paths with Elliot. He hadn’t even flagged them down; they simply noticed that he was clearly very lost.
Also, Elliot later recounted, it turns out that the ‘yishuv’ which he had almost gone to for chag, thinking that he had no choice, was actually an Arab village. This couple may have literally saved him!
But here’s another even crazier part of this story: only once they were on the road, about 10 to 15 minutes later, did the couple mention that they were actually on their way to the hospital after dropping off their older kids in Tzfat because the wife - visibly 9 months pregnant - was about to give birth! But somehow this didn’t stop them from hosting Elliot for chag and they even arranged meals for him with a Chassidish rebbe from Crown Heights.
The very next morning after Chag, the couple had their baby. A week later, Elliot was invited to the brit milah, where he told the guests this story. Now every Pesach, he recounts this crazy experience with fond memories, recalling how grateful he was at the time, and still is! He still has the couple’s number and plans to reach out to them at some point, perhaps when the baby, now 11 years old, has his bar mitzvah!
These stories may seem small in the grand scheme of things, but for new olim navigating the challenges of starting over, they can have a lasting impact. Whether it is a meal invitation, a professional opportunity, or a tremp (a ride), these acts of kindness have the power to shape someone’s entire aliyah experience and feelings toward Israel.