Florida woman comes to Israel so often she ends up making aliyah

“Not many Jews, but a very nice place to live,” is how Jordan Weil describes her hometown of Fort Myers, Florida.

Judaism, however, was very important to her family. She was raised as a “super Zionist” by her American-born mother and Argentina-born father whose parents’ decision to leave Europe at the dawn of World War II saved them all. 

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“My dad’s father went to Argentina from Germany when his parents saw a writing exercise from his school that said ‘The Jews are our disgrace.’ His [future] stepfather went to Bolivia from Vienna when he was eight, after he was kicked out of school following Kristallnacht,” Weil says. 

“On his mom’s side, his grandmother was the first female journalist in Vienna. She knew what was going to happen, and went to Argentina to meet a man she was writing letters to,” Weil relates. 

“There was an international Jewish prostitution ring active in Buenos Aires at the time, so she married the man on the docks of the port to gain entry. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have let her in because of the suspicion she was involved in the prostitution ring.”

As a child, Weil asked her father why he didn’t go to Israel after leaving Argentina at about age 30. He jokingly answered that he had to meet her mother in the United States.

“I felt that since he didn’t come to Israel then, it was my part of the story to finish. It felt really natural to me,” says Weil. “I always felt it was a responsibility to at least try to live in Israel.”

She muses that perhaps the timing was meant to be. “I’ve been able to make a very comfortable life for myself in Israel, and maybe it took generations for that to be able to happen, for me to build a realistic life here.” 

Journeys to Israel

Weil visited Israel twice during high school – once on a summer program with Tzofim Israel Scouts, and once when her step-grandfather on her father’s side took everyone on a sort of family “Birthright” tour when he turned 80.

“Every time I left Israel, I always felt I would come back. After high school, I thought about doing the army but it didn’t work out. I went to the University of Miami like my mom, and like everyone in my family I studied business,” says Weil. 

“I had a mentor, a marketing professor who was Orthodox, and he turned me on to Jewish learning. He’d also spent time in Israel, so that was another strong influence.”

She was living and working in Boston after college when the corona pandemic hit, and she realized she could go back to Florida and work remotely. Then things started to unravel. She was no longer happy with her job, and she was involved in an unproductive relationship. Worst of all, her parents’ house was destroyed in a hurricane. 

“After a few weeks of helping them put their lives back together, I thought it was time to put my life together, too.”

She boarded a plane to Israel, intending to stay for six months. On the advice of a good friend in Israel who hosted her when she arrived, she decided to adopt a mindset that she was here to stay. With the help of Nefesh B’Nefesh, she eventually completed her aliyah paperwork and made it official. 

Though she interviewed for jobs in Israel, her family’s business lending company needed her, and she was “very fortunate I was able to fall into that; I didn’t plan on it.”

Nor did she plan on a war. But once it started, she threw herself into what she calls “a frenzy of volunteering.” She sorted donations and food, traveled to army bases with musicians, visited the wounded in hospitals, tied tzitziot for soldiers, and did a lot of cooking. 

“If you’re in enough WhatsApp groups, you’ll find ways to volunteer,” she says. 

One of the groups with which she got involved is JLIC Tel Aviv, led by Rabbi Joe Wolfson and his wife, Corinne Shmuel. “His network was looking for people to serve food to the reservists at the Kirya [military headquarters in Tel Aviv]. I thought it was so cool to check that out, and I was there at least once a week,” she says.

Another project Weil joined is Adopt-A-Safta, which cares for Holocaust survivors mainly in the Tel Aviv area. Two days after the war began, she and other Adopt-A-Safta volunteers brought food and cheer to hospitals and communities of the South.

“There was so much energy in these volunteer projects, and it was a really cool way to meet people,” she says.

In fact, she met her boyfriend at the first Hostages and Missing Families Forum vigil on Kaplan Street. “He was facilitating it and later moved it to the square outside the museum, and it really took off.”

Her boyfriend doesn’t speak English, which gives her an opportunity to perfect her Hebrew skills. 

“I wasn’t sure my Hebrew would be up for it, but I love it,” she says. “My grandparents are immigrants, and my grandfather always said that when you live in a place, that’s your place. I don’t want to hold on to my Americanism. I’m fascinated by his Israeliness, and I embrace it.”

Weil has since had to cut back on volunteering and go back to work, “but as opportunities arise and are accessible, I am keen to seize them,” she says. 

Once a week, she and her boyfriend go to the shuk in Netanya. “That’s really fun and totally different for me; but kind of comically, I miss the awesome shopping experience of Target. Mostly, I miss my family and would like to see them more often,” she admits.

However, she adds, “I love living in Israel. I love living in a place where Jewish is the default, where even the news anchors are wearing a Magen David. There’s a sense of family here and a common baseline, as opposed to the US where it’s such a big place and what do you have in common? The familiarity here is amazing.” 

Jordan Weil, 29 From Florida to Tel Aviv, 2022

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