The Friendship Crisis of Olim and Israelis |
I’ve been in Israel for four years. In these four years I’ve changed friend groups more times than I’ve changed apartments, from fellow post-Soviet olim like me, to Latin American communities, to party Tel Avivians, to a religious circle built around a particular synagogue, to a Pilates-class WhatsApp group, to colleagues and volunteers. Each circle gave me something real. None of them, if I’m honest, gave me the thing I’m actually looking for: deep, strong friendships like the ones I had in the country where I was born. A tight, family-like group of Israelis and olim who could help me stop feeling like a guest in my own homeland.
Here’s what I’ve been thinking about.
Olim arrive expecting that building a life here means building a community, and on the surface, it’s easy. Israel is small, warm, and relentlessly social. What’s hard is turning that easy sociability into one deep, consistent friendship. Even people who’ve served in the army, who speak fluent Hebrew, who’ve lived here a decade, often describe the same quiet feeling of standing just outside the glass.
We are, meanwhile, extraordinary at one specific kind of connection: the crisis kind. We show up for each other in........