The obvious grief of aliyah is leaving home. What comes later is unexpected. You build a life here, then slowly realise the life you left behind has continued without you.
Your hometown changes. Friends get married, move away, have children. Family develops routines you hear about through messages. Life keeps happening in places where you no longer exist daily.
In my practice, I hear olim describe something that isn’t homesickness. They don’t necessarily want to return. They miss something they know they cannot return to.
Sometimes what they miss isn’t even the place. It’s the version of themselves who lived there. The ordinary life before immigration divided time into before and after. You can love Israel. You can feel grateful for the life you’ve built. You can know aliyah was right for you, and still mourn what disappeared along the way.
There is no betrayal in that grief. Missing something doesn’t always mean wanting it back. Sometimes it means accepting that a chapter mattered, even though you have no intention of reopening it.
This is one of immigration’s losses. You just don’t leave a country. You also eventually realise there is a whole version of your life that can only exist in memory now.
So maybe the question isn’t whether you want to go home. Maybe it’s what you grieve when you know, with certainty, that home isn’t where your life belongs anymore.
Think about it.
What part of the life you left behind do you still grieve, even though you wouldn’t choose to return to it?
