When Sharona Goren decided last year that she and her elderly husband, Joseph, would sell their Niagara Falls, Ont., home and return to Israel after living in Canada for more than 25 years, she knew it involved something of a leap of faith.
While many factors beyond her control are at play, and will determine when and whether she’s now able to fly to Israel in the coming weeks or months, Goren says sooner or later she and Joseph will complete a move back to Israel, where they were both born.
With their home already sold, the couple are booked on a flight from New York’s JFK airport to Tel Aviv scheduled for July 13.
“If we’re not heading over to New York on the 11th of July [for the flight on the 13th], then we’re basically homeless here… so what happens then? God only knows,” she told The CJN in a phone interview.
“And yeah, good thing I do believe in God because otherwise I think wouldn’t be conducting my life the way I do.”
A state of emergency announced by Israeli authorities is in place to June 30. Airports have been closed, grounding travellers in and out of the country since June 13, when Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear weapons program, top scientists and military leaders. Since then, both countries have exchanged missile fire, and Iranian authorities have reported at least 225 casualties, while at least 24 are reported dead in Israel. Hundreds of people in Israel have been left homeless after their apartments were damaged or destroyed by Iranian missiles.
For Goren, it adds unwelcome wrinkles to an already complicated exit plan.
Top priority is ensuring close medical care for Joseph during transit. Her 82-year-old husband needs constant monitoring and has been “in and out of the hospital a lot” of late, Goren says, explaining that he takes “biological medication he gets through blood infusion every four weeks,” at a cost of nearly $4,000 per dose.
They’re also travelling with their dog, Chiko, a baby poodle.
If the couple are unable to fly to Israel as scheduled, she says they’ll have to return to Niagara Falls, in Canada, if for no other reason than Joseph’s medical care.
She must also now decide whether to still pack a shipping container they ordered this week, to take their things to Israel. A question mark, too, comes over whether to include furniture for an apartment they’re set to live in, in Ashkelon. Her mother, who lives in Ra’anana, hasn’t been able to visit the apartment due to the state of emergency.
Chief among her worries, Goren asks: “Is everything going to be just a mess?”
Selling the house, the car, and getting Chiko, the dog, ready for travel were all major undertakings that required more than a year of planning.
“I am there, emotionally, and it took me a lot to convince my husband, who was very scared. My husband actually suffers from post-traumatic stress from childhood, from the war of 1948, from being bombed in Tel Aviv then when he was a child, and so that… influences his life, and consequently mine as well.”
She says that Joseph, a sculptor who’s sold pieces to buyers in Canada, Israel, and Denmark, finally came to terms with returning to Israel after living in Niagara Falls for the past 26 and a half years.
“Our families are there and our heart is there and my heart is there and now his too,” she said. “He had no choice in the beginning. I told him he would stay alone if, if he doesn’t come with me, but now he’s coming and our families are waiting for us.”
He now looks forward to returning home. They haven’t visited since they first arrived in Canada in October 1998.
Goren, now 53, was 27 and Joseph was 56 when they wound up settling down in Niagara Falls, after landing in Toronto and purchasing a used car on the way to (they figured at the time) be with her family in New York. The car “seemed to be vibrating too much” and the problem became urgent by the time the vehicle was halfway through the border crossing.
“We asked for directions to a mechanic, so they allowed us to turn around through the duty free and go check out the car in Niagara Falls.”
The road trip reset of a few days resulted in the couple staying put for 26-and-a-half years.
“We saw our dog was excited to be here. We realized it suits us here.”
Originally, Goren had thought to visit Israel in February to get ready and open a bank account, but she had to cancel her flight when Joseph fell ill.
At that point, Goren pivoted, deciding they would go together instead.
Then, Joseph’s brother offered the couple an apartment that he owns in Ashkelon, near Barzilai Hospital.
While they’re on board with the idea, fears remain about Joseph’s health, and the current security situation in Israel.
“It’s scary, because he’s not very mobile, so if there’s sirens, he can’t really run. He’s more likely to fall and trip.” She says that because of Joseph’s post-traumatic stress, “everything gets him hysterical.”
Still, she says, “he is looking forward to getting back to where he can communicate in his own language. He is having more trouble because of the old age communicating in English.”
And, once in Israel, “he might get stronger,” Goren says of her husband.
“The weather would be more suitable to him, and the language, and family around,” she said of the benefits that helped her husband get on board with the move home. “So I hope that that comes to pass, and he can have that.”
In the meantime, uncertainty looms over their plans, potentially requiring recalibrations.
“If flights are not safe, and [running] by July 11, we will be homeless,” she points out—hopeful, too, that community attention to her situation might help the couple find “a basement to rent until flights resume,” should they wait it out back in Ontario.
Now, with family around Israel waiting to receive her, Goren realizes she’s spent the majority of her adult life in a place where she feels a lack of shared experience with most of her local community.
Goren joined a group for women returning to Israel called Habait Lashavot LeIsrael, and says she’s become “extremely unhappy in Canada,” adding “I will not live in a country that is an enemy to mine… I feel bad for Jewish people who are kind of stuck here.”
A landscape designer, she hopes to work in horticulture or environmental fields in Israel. At her job in Niagara Falls, at Home Depot, she’s heard “all kinds of antisemitic remarks from customers.”
Store management tried “really, really trying to be very supportive… I couldn’t ask for better,” she said.
However, “they refrain, of course, from showing” any kind of public support linked to Israel—although she says a former manager, who no longer works at her store, “actually politically supported Israel and expressed [that he] identified with Israel… in every way.”
She says since that manager left, she feels there’s nobody at work who seems to be an ally.
Even those dearest to her, and closest in her life, “have been the most indifferent to Israel. And it’s a very conflicting thing.”
Of all the tedium and frustration of the intricate preparations she needed to put in place, there was one errand that brought excitement and encouraged her to keep going.
“The best day that I had all winter….was actually driving up to the Israeli consulate [in Toronto] to get my passport,” she said. It was the “most meaningful, best day of the whole year” to date.
“I want to get on the El Al flight so badly. I’ve been dreaming of this.”
