Frum Faces Of Aliyah: The Savery Family – From London To Ramat Beit Shemesh

Pnina (Nathan) grew up in London in a traditional and Zionist home, attending Jewish school and spending vacations in Israel. When she became religious as a teenager, her love for Israel only grew and she decided to make aliyah as soon as she was done with school. She spent her gap year at Midreshet Rachel, returned to England for her undergraduate degree and as soon as she was finished, made aliyah at age 22. In Israel, she immersed herself in the language and culture, enrolling in two Ulpan courses, earning a master’s degree at Hebrew University and spending time in an Israeli seminary, where she lived with Israelis in dorms. She also spent two years learning at Matan, all in Hebrew.

Joey Savery was raised in a modern-Orthodox home in London and also knew he wanted to live in Israel. He and Pnina met in Israel when he was learning at Shapells but after their marriage, they agreed to go back to England for a few years. In England, Pnina taught English and served as a mechanechet at her school but also participated in the UK Chief Rabbi’s Maayan program for women scholars, where she ran educational programs for women, learned about women’s health from professors and about Taharat haMishpacha from dayanim at the London Beit Din. This program also opened the doors for giving lectures across the country, which she really enjoyed.

As much as they had a rich life in England, the Saverys didn’t give up on their dream of aliyah (even though eight years later, no one believed they would actually make it!). In 2022, when their oldest daughter was set to enter first grade, the family made aliyah to Ramat Beit Shemesh as a soft landing until they could find their permanent home.

Their kids adjusted to Israel very quickly and some even prefer to play in Hebrew leading to Pnina having a strict rule about speaking only English inside the home. She expects this rule might get even harder to enforce with time. Joey works in Tel Aviv and Pnina continues to educate; teaching English, History and Navi at Ulpanat Orly, guiding at Yad Vashem and inspiring students at Midreshet Tehilla.

“Even small things require adjustment,” says Pnina, “From registering for a Teudat Zehut, through sorting out the electricity bill to the way Israelis communicate with teachers. In England, parents would email me, while here, they WhatsApp me at all hours. It also feels weird to me, as a parent, to call my children’s teachers during evening hours.

“Then there are the stressful moments which come with being a new immigrant, which I now look back and laugh at. Shortly after our aliyah, my car broke down inside the tunnel highway heading to Jerusalem. I was alone with my kids and realized I had no idea who to call for help! Baruch Hashem, there are apparently cameras in those tunnels and someone came to help me right away and our car has been great since then! Then there was the first time we went to Osher Ad. My husband and I went together and we decided to try the self-scanning machine to avoid lines but the total weight of our trolley did not match what we had scanned into our scanner! It was taking so long to figure it out that my husband left to collect our youngest daughter from Gan, while I stayed at the store to sort out the confusion. The Osher Ad staff finally figured out that we had forgotten to scan the potatoes and let me go through to pay. However my husband had taken his credit card, which was the only one of our two cards that we knew the pin for! In the end, I called the credit card company from Osher Ad and got the pin for my card, finally paying for our shopping! It was all rather stressful but we learned our lesson and are diligent about scanning every item before getting to the self-checkout now!

“We’ve also found that one of the big challenges is finding the right community. While our pilot trip was useful, spending a few hours in a place cannot really tell you what it’s like to settle there and likewise, we spent hours on the phone before we arrived asking about communities but only once arriving, we realized that we didn’t know to ask some questions that were important to us. Eventually, you just have to take the plunge and try it, keeping in the back of your mind that you can always move communities as needed.

“On our first Yom Ha’atzmaut here, we watched the Israeli Air Force fly over from Tel Beit Shemesh, the site of biblical Beit Shemesh. Filled with pride, we cheered on the modern miracle of the Israeli army, while standing on the ruins of an ancient Jewish settlement. I teach Tanach and it is very much focused on the importance of the land of Israel. When I taught this in London, I always felt a bit hypocritical – why wasn’t I living in Israel? Now when I teach Tanach I am filled with joy that I am finally here.

“Since October 7 it has not been easy, but we would not want to have been anywhere else. The unity has been incredible, and it has been special to be a part of it. Even the eggs have ‘together we will win’ stamped on them! We cooked for evacuated families who found themselves in Beit Shemesh and raised money from family and friends in London to pay towards the costs. It was good to be able to contribute in a small way to the war efforts, as I know that in London, we would have felt powerless to do anything. Having visited London briefly since the start of the war here, it reinforced that feeling of how much Israel is my home. Nothing beats stepping off the plane in Israel and knowing that you are truly home once more.

“Giving birth to our first sabra here was such a highlight. Navigating the healthcare system while pregnant may have been difficult at times, but it felt like such a zechut to give birth here in Israel. I ended up giving birth on Shabbat HaGadol and we were greeted with cries of mazal tov. We didn’t have to explain why we couldn’t sign any paperwork, people made kiddush and havdala for us in the corridors, there were Israeli flags decorating the hallways and my husband was able to eat a Shabbat meal in the dining room of the hospital! Ten days post-birth I wasn’t feeling well and went to Terem. Someone offered to hold my newborn baby so that I could have a brief respite and then she went to the triage nurse and insisted that I be seen first due to me being so soon post-birth, even ahead of her own young daughter who she was there with!

“Israel truly is a family.”