Bayit Balev: Making a home for senior olim in Jerusalem

While most efforts in encouraging aliyah have focused on young adults and families, somewhat less attention has been devoted to the aliyah of senior adults and the particular issues and challenges they face.

Moving at an advanced age to a country whose language they may not speak, they encounter a culture that can be difficult to absorb.  It is for that reason that we are featuring the following interview – not for promotional or marketing purposes but to highlight the issue of aliyah among those in their eighties and above – and how one Jerusalem assisted living center is attempting to resolve these issues with grace and sincerity.

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“Any Jew, regardless of their age, should know that the State of Israel wants them,” affirms Aliza Siekierski, manager of the Bayit Balev assisted living center in Jerusalem. 

Since becoming manager of Bayit Balev four months ago, she has been attempting to expand its functionality to not only serve as an assisted living facility for people who have spent their adult lives living in Israel but also as a place that can welcome new immigrants moving to the Jewish state in their senior years.

What is Bayit Balev?

Bayit Balev (“a home in the heart”), located across from Sacher Park, has 92 apartments and currently houses approximately 70 retirees. Close to half of the home’s residents, says Siekierski, are English speakers. All of the signage in the home appears in Hebrew and English, and staff members are fluent in both languages. The Jerusalem branch is part of the Bayit Balev chain of assisted living facilities in Israel and is affiliated with Maccabi Healthcare Services.

Siekierski speaks admiringly of the residents. “Sometimes when you speak to our residents, you actually feel like you’re speaking to a piece of history,” she says. “You have people here over the age of 100. Some of them are Holocaust survivors with their story of what they did and where they came from.” 

Under Siekierski’s initiative, Bayit Balev recently published a book that lists the home’s residents, including an individual photo and short biography of each resident in Hebrew and English. “It was important for me as a new manager to get to know the people,” she says. “Sometimes you meet the residents at a later age, and you don’t have the privilege of knowing what they were like or what they did in their past.”

BEFORE COMING to Bayit Balev, Siekierski engaged in a variety of different fields, all of which she says provided her with valuable experience and background for her current position. She worked in the Knesset for 20 years as a parliamentary aide for Uzi Landau, a longtime Likud member of the Knesset, and gained an understanding of the workings of government. 

She then ventured into the world of private business and became a confectioner with her own line of chocolate creations. “One of the criticisms I’ve heard over the years was that people working in government never really see money.” Operating her own business enabled her to work with money in a practical sense, beyond the capabilities of many Knesset lawmakers.

Next, Siekierski switched gears and began working with retirees, first with the Reuth Association, which works in the areas of rehabilitation, housing, and welfare services for senior citizens, and later for the National Insurance Institute (Bituah Leumi) in the organization’s nursing care benefit department (gimlat siud). “Every one of these things gave me another edge to something,” she notes. 

Sikierski says that she switched careers to work with senior adults because she found the field interesting, taking the aging of the Israeli population into consideration.

Outlining her vision of utilizing Bayit Balev as a first stop for senior olim, she points out that the State of Israel understandably focuses most of its attention regarding aliyah on younger people. “In general, we mostly turn to the younger generation because they’re the productive generation,” she explains. “We’re looking for the doctors, the nurses, and the lawyers, and we want to recruit them and bring them to Israel because you look out for the professions that we don’t have enough of, and that’s a successful aliyah.”

But, she adds, some of these ideal candidates for aliyah frequently cannot take the plunge because they must care for elderly parents, who are not in a position to make aliyah independently. As a result, individuals in their prime years of aliyah eligibility who can significantly contribute to the state may end up not making aliyah because their parents cannot join them in Israel.

“That’s where I come in,” she says. “I know that it’s a win-win. Young professionals want to come because they have a future here, and now is a perfect time because if they wait a bit more, they’ll be in their mid-60s. They don’t see an option because it seems very difficult” because of their elderly parents. If she can assist the elderly in making aliyah with their children, both sides benefit.

SIEKIERSKI AND Bayit Balev recently hosted a woman from the US who was visiting her family for a month. She decided to examine the woman’s situation as a possible test case for senior aliyah to the assisted living facility. The woman, an 87-year-old widow, visited Israel in July and decided to make aliyah. She contacted Nefesh B’Nefesh and began making the arrangements. Siekierski remained in touch with the woman, attempting to help out and answer whatever questions she could. 

“Through the conversations and the questions that she asked, I’m starting to build up a platform of how I want to receive these new olim,” says Siekierski, who has met with officials from Nefesh B’Nefesh and the Aliyah and Integration Ministry on the subject. “I had a very successful meeting with Nefesh B’Nefesh, and this is something that I’d like to work out with them.”

Referring to older couples who make aliyah, she says, “Once they leave the airport, where do they go? Some could stay with their son or daughter who lives here, but not many people could host their parents for a long time. I want to be that leg – I want to be the person who people come to from the airport,” she explains. 

“I could offer a community that is English-speaking, which means that they’re going to a place where they know they’re having the social services that we have to help with getting their rights and Bituah Leumi, and everything else that, if you don’t have it, sounds so frightening.”

Siekierski says that for many elderly olim, making aliyah on their own can be difficult. After spending a few weeks staying with family members, even if they find a suitable apartment to live in, they may find living in Israel on their own to be daunting in terms of shopping, medical needs, and getting things fixed. “If you need a doctor, what do you do?” she says.

INSTEAD, SHE proposes that senior adults who make aliyah consider coming first to Bayit Balev in Jerusalem, where they can acclimate themselves before moving to their own apartment, or even consider making it their permanent home. New olim who come there will receive furnished apartments until they settle in and see what they need, she says.

Referring to the test case of the widow from Los Angeles, Siekierski reports, “She was telling me, ‘I don’t know what to do with my furniture. It’s too expensive to ship it. I’m downsizing; I don’t know what to bring.’ I said, ‘Come to me. I’m giving you a furnished apartment. As you decide to buy or not here in Israel, we’ll take out what you don’t need, and you’ll bring your new things.’ 

“This cushiony kind of landing is very important. We’re not talking about a successful aliyah, but we’re talking about a healthy aliyah,” the manager said. “Because if suddenly you find yourself in a strange neighborhood, you don’t have someone to talk to: You’re stuck. You don’t even know who to call for a plumber, which in a place like Bayit Balev you don’t need to do. You just buzz downstairs, and someone comes up [to make the repair].” 

Siekierski says that making aliyah easier for seniors by offering them the facilities of Bayit Balev in Jerusalem, either temporarily or permanently, can enable families who might otherwise not be able to leave their elderly parents behind to bring them and make aliyah. 

“I want the older ones,” she says firmly. “I want them to know that there’s a solution. It’s not a dead end. Until now, it was sort of a dead end once someone got to a certain age.”

For Siekierski, enabling older people to make aliyah is her ultimate Zionist act. “I want to turn to the people – the older ones – who don’t think that they have a future here. They could come here for a month or two and stay here. But at least their first experience in Israel would be easier. Because it’s super hard.” 

Referring to the recent attacks on Israelis in Amsterdam, she says, “When I see whatever I saw in Amsterdam, I don’t want to be a Jew in Israel who sees that and doesn’t do anything. So I’m using this platform that I have at Bayit Balev in Rehavia to help people come and make it easier for them.” 

Welcoming Jews in Diaspora, no matter what

Young people whose aliyah does not succeed, she explains, can return to their home country and start over. On the other hand, older people who experience a difficult aliyah cannot always easily return and may experience depression and loneliness if things are difficult for them in Israel. 

“That’s why the first step has to be super cushioning and comforting,” she says. 

Siekierski laments the fact that aliyah is often not considered for seniors. “No one looking at new olim is putting the time or thought into people over 80. It just seems not doable, but actually it is. If you do it properly, it’s a mitzvah.”

She has also begun to contact Jewish senior adult residences in the US to encourage residents who want to visit Israel to stay at Bayit Balev during their visit. “If someone is living in a place like that and wants to come to Israel, let them stay here.” 

Her thinking is that if someone has chosen to live in a gated and protected assisted living facility, visiting Israel would be much easier if they could stay in similar surroundings with English speakers. “We have a clinic here, and we are wheelchair-accessible. We have all the services, and it’s something that could make a visit that once might have been impossible into something doable, especially for someone who has family in Jerusalem.

“I believe in giving the Jews in the Diaspora the feeling that we will welcome them, no matter their age and the situation,” Siekierski says. “In general, people from abroad like to age in Jerusalem. There’s something nice about getting old here.”

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