Moving to a country at war

Young Chang

After Bunnie Mauldin heard two young people speak last year about

moving from their respective countries to live in Israel, she left the

program inspired about her own job in Costa Mesa as the executive

director of the Jewish Federation of Orange County.

“And what it does is it puts a real human face on where our dollars

go,” she said.

The same program, called “New Faces of Aliyah” and put on by the

Jewish Agency for Israel, will bring two more young immigrants to Costa

Mesa on Monday to talk about why they moved to Israel and how that move

has turned out.

Donors to the Costa Mesa-based Jewish Federation and other guests will

flock to the group’s campus to listen to Ethiopian immigrant Elias Inbram

and Ukrainian transport Alexandra Veil.

“This is our way of saying thank you to the people who support our

federation,” said federation spokesperson Alison Mayersohn. “Our annual

campaign services people in Orange County, Israel and elsewhere in the

world and it’s a way of seeing where your money goes.”

“Aliyah” means the journey of leaving a country and immigrating to

Israel.

“One of the biggest reasons for making Aliyah to Israel is to have a

start at a brand new life and what I think is extraordinary about some of

these people who have made Aliyah recently is they know they are going to

a country that is at war,” Mauldin said. “They go because they have a

dream to live a better life among the Jewish people.”

The immigrants are often people who practiced Judaism outside of

Israel but were persecuted for doing so. They are people who know how

anti-Semitism feels and what it’s like to worship secretly.

Inbram, a 28-year-old, will talk next week about walking across

Ethiopia with his family to get to Sudan and then be airlifted to Israel.

His talk will chronicle how he adapted to Israeli life and how he grew in

his Jewish faith.

“They had to learn Hebrew and adapt to learning in Israel and the

Israelis had to adapt to them too,” said Jacquee Lipson, a donor to the

federation and a member of the Women’s Division board.

Veil will talk about immigrating to Israel by herself from the

Ukraine. Her maternal grandfather was born Jewish but nobody else in her

family practiced Judaism. Veil converted, because the religion is carried

through the mother in the faith.

“She had to go through the whole process of becoming Jewish,” Lipson

said. “She is now studying at a Hebrew university and working toward a

degree in psychobiology.”

The current warring climate in the Middle East renders such immigrant

stories all the more powerful.

“The relevance, I think, is in their desire to be a part of Israel, no

matter what,” Lipson said.

FYI

* What: “New Faces of Aliyah”

* When: 7 p.m. Monday

* Where: Jewish Federation Campus, 250 E. Baker St., Costa Mesa

* Cost: Free

* Call: (714) 755-5555, Ext. 224