34 | JULY 1 • 2021

ERETZ

E

ach month, we’ll feature a
Metro Detroiter who has
made aliyah.

Q: Tell me about your life in
Detroit and what your connection
was to Israel.
Rachel Lichtenstein: I was
born in Israel, but I was raised
in Detroit from the age of 3. I
went to Thompson Junior High
[Southfield] and Vandenberg
Elementary [Detroit].
Although I was raised in
Detroit, I used to come back
and forth to Israel all the time.
I enlisted in the Israeli army
when I was 18, and I served for two
years. It was an amazing experience,
and that was the beginning of my
finding religion. My father had become
religious prior to that, and I had wanted
nothing to do with it. But being in the
army gave me a sense of something
bigger than myself, and when I finished
the army after two years, my first
college experience was at Tel Aviv
University.
Then, I went back to the States and
worked for National Conference of
Synagogue Youth (NCSY) and started
going to Oakland County Community
College and Wayne State. I came back
to Israel and went to seminary for a
year, then I went back to Detroit and
met my husband, Moshe. We lived in
Israel for two years and then we went
back to Detroit for 12 years before we
made aliyah.
In those 12 years that we were in
Detroit, I had six boys. All of them went
to Yeshiva Beth Yehudah. My husband
was a board member of Congregation

Beth Tefilo Emanuel Tikvah in
Southfield. We lived two blocks from
my parents and across the street from
my brother. It was a good life.

Q: What finally prompted your aliyah
and what was it like?
RL: I had always yearned to be here.
It had always been a goal of mine, and it
took 12 years of convincing my husband
to finally get him on board. I started
the process of aliyah even before my
husband agreed.
My kids were automatically Israeli
because I was born here, so I got them
all their Israeli passports, and I had
already applied for aliyah with the
consulate in Chicago. Then one day,
out of the blue, my husband said, “I’m
ready to give Israel a try.” The minute
he said he was ready, I said, “Hold
that thought.” I called the consulate
in Chicago and said, “Okay, process!”
Within nine months, we were here.
We made aliyah on the first Nefesh
B’Nefesh flight of 2002, so it will be 19
years this August.

My husband and I came with
our seven boys, and I was pregnant
with my daughter. We settled in
Ramat Beit Shemesh and rented
two different apartments until we
bought our home.
I have not once regretted that
decision. I feel we are living the life
that Hashem expected of us to live.

Q What have you been doing beside
raising your family here in Israel?
RL: I had a playgroup in my
house for a number of years.
During that time, I also went back
and took a course to become a
life coach. Because I had been an
advocate for olim and helped them with
bureaucracy, I became a life coach for
olim and for at-risk youth. At the time
that I took the course to become a life
coach, I also opened a ceramic studio
with a friend, and we were in business
for about a year.
My husband has been working for a
wills and estates company here in Israel
for more than 10 years. We have four
married kids and soon-to-be seven
grandchildren, and my parents live near
me now.

Q: What do you miss about Detroit?
RL: The people — whether it’s family
or the few close friends that I’m still in
touch with today, even though I don’t
see them. That is the only thing I really
miss.

Q: Do you have a message for the people
reading this interview?
RL: If you’re Jewish and you identify
as being Jewish, come home. And do
not let anything stand in the way.

Native Israeli brought her family to her homeland.
Rachel Lichtenstein

AVIVA ZACKS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Moshe and Rachel Lichtenstein

COURTESY OF THE LICHTENSTEINS

MEET THE OLIM