Meet a Village Family

Q&A with Ehud & Shlomit, Parents of Cool Canary Aya, Sparkly Diamond Indie and Future Villager Evi

Where were you each born? Where did you each grow up?
We were both born and raised in Israel. Ehud grew up in Tel Aviv, and Shlomit in Bat Yam. Both cities are right by the sea.

When did your family move to the United States? To California?
We moved to the US on September, 2006, straight to California, San Jose.

Why did you move?
Ehud for a job offer in the US (he is a Systems Engineer) and he wanted Shlomit to come too, so she packed her career, we got married, and moved.

We both wanted to experience living outside of our birthplace, to see what that’s like. And we like it. A lot :)

What are some of the major differences in living here versus your original home?
In California, people act and drive much calmer than in Israel. Weather is similar (only hotter and more humid in Israel).

California has a lot of open nature outside the cities, where Israel is built denser.

In Israel, the sea is warmer and sandier, so it attracts more people, and the hummus is also better in Israel.

What do you like about living here?
For Ehud it’s to do with politics, religious fanaticism and the general demeanor of people. For Shlomit it’s that life is definitely calmer here, and since the weekends are longer (in Israel we only have Saturday off) we have more family time and there are a lot more places to travel.

We have a lot of good friends and they have become our family. We love spending time with them. For Shlomit, she loves her job here (she is a Developmental Specialist). We feel that teachers in this area go above and beyond to help kids.
Oh, Shlomit also loves donuts. Donuts in Israel are different.

What do you miss?
We really really really miss our families. We also miss our friends, the food (high variety and very yummy), the nightlife, the informalness, the sea. We miss Tel Aviv.

How do you keep traditions and culture from home a part of life for your children?
We speak Hebrew, translate as many terms as we can, celebrate Jewish holidays (where we eat traditional food and try to have usually a big celebration with friends) and sometimes speak about events in Israel. Our cooking brings that too. We try to go to the synagogue every major holiday, but are not very successful. We visit Israel every two years and have lots of family visit us.

We love it that the teachers at Village allow us to come in and share our culture with our kids’ friends.

How did you pick Village?
When Aya was in preschool, Shlomit started looking for schools. One of our friends told us about Christa McAuliffe Elementary School in the Cupertino Union School District. And that got Shlomit excited about parent participation schools but McAuliffe was too far.

Then we realized that Village was closer. Shlomit went to one of the open houses, and when Principal David talked, she felt like she’d found home. This was the place we wanted our kids to go and learn and grow (Shlomit was also very pregnant :)

What is the school system like in your hometown?
School in Israel starts at 1st grade. The ratio is different (30+ kids:1 teacher). In a way we feel that the lessons in Israel are a bit more structured. In Israel we have Bible studies, English as a 2nd language, arts, science etc. every week.

There, Shlomit always worked in special ed schools, and as here, we find the teachers are very devoted to the kids.

What else would you like our community to know or understand about the culture of your childhood and the transition you’ve made?
The Israeli culture is much more informal, and people will often tell you what they think, in your face, rather than beat around the bush and be courteous about it. In Israel politics is the national sport, and just like sports are for Americans — this is what we talk and argue about in hallway conversations. The pace in Tel Aviv is closer to the pace in New York, but the country has very a different lifestyle, together in a very small piece of land, which makes life very interesting.

Where we grew up people are warm, helpful and very very friendly but they also think they can have an opinion about everything and everyone and they are not shy about it :)