By Aaron Greenblatt
Most American high school seniors decide on where to go to college-Daniel Brotman made Aliyah. The 18 year old's story is replete with twists and turns, spiritual soul-searching and, above all, the ongoing formation of his Jewish identity…
We meet in Caf? Hillel located near Ben Yehuda Street. Brotman sits across the table, sucking ice coffee through a straw. His deep brown eyes beam youthful gaiety: a hope, if not a vision, for the future.
Brotman does not recount his past in America with much nostalgia. There are painful memories of frustration, feeling more like a foreigner than a member of a real community in his hometown of Lexington, Massachusetts. For that reason, we travel four years into the past to the start of this adventurer's Jewish journey.
After his Bar Mitzvah, Brotman visited South Africa on a United Jewish Communities trip. South Africa's rich, tense cultural history and pristine beaches lured him for a year, where he lived in a Jewish household in Cape Town attending a Jewish high school.
He began to study Hebrew and Jewish history; the American worked hard opening his eyes to the world. But, more importantly, he participated in Ambassadors for Tolerance, a program designed to facilitate cultural exchanges between Israeli and Diaspora communities.
For two weeks, Brotman's South African family hosted 15 Israelis from Beit Shemesh. During Pesach 2002, at the peak of the Second Intifada, the world traveler visited the development town and described the experience as "the best two weeks of my life."
"It was about interaction," Brotman says. "By the end, it didn't matter who's Israeli and who's not."
And with that, the 14 year old received his first Israeli fix, so much so that he returned that same summer to study Hebrew in Ulpan Akiva.
"We came at a time when no one else would come," he recounts. "Road blocks and suicide bombs couldn't stop us. We were committed to being in Israel."
That's when he decided to make Aliyah.
By now, the Oleh just about half-way finishes his ice drink. Looking at this skinny teen, the beginnings of a beard dotting his face, I realize how courageous Brotman is to follow his heart. Just a few months away from the army's conscription, he seems much more mature than his 18 years suggest.
When he returned to America in the summer of 2002, he received the biggest culture shock of his life: a WASP town. Horrible weather. Enough said.
To actualize a Jewish way of life from 2003-2005, Brotman participated in Prozdor, which was a 6-hour-weekly program providing him a Jewish outlet. Prozdor led to Chaviyah: a partnership between Boston and Haifa where 40 counselors planned a 2-week winter camp for Ukrainian Jews.
Chaviyah led to Chetz V'Keshet in July, 2003. Located of Kibbutz Gadna, Brotman got his first "taste of the Israeli army" in this 5-week introduction. Because he suffered through the same situations as his peers, he developed relationships he has maintained to this day.
We could talk about his experiences at Habonim Dror summer camps in South Africa and Manchester. We could talk about how these summers in leadership training offered Brotman a new sense of responsibility. Or, we could talk about March of the Living.
In April, 2004, our subject was now a junior in high school, and with 6000 other kids he went to Poland, marching from Auschwitz to Birkenau to defy one of the most horrible tragedy in the history anti-Semitism.
His tour guide was a former inmate who hadn't returned to the nightmare since the camp's liberation in 1945. The guide brought Brotman's group to a barracks, led them inside and pointed to his bunk.
The experience "made me all the more determined to make the move" to Israel, Brotman recounts.
Why is it so important to make Aliyah?
"I feel anonymous living in America," Brotman answers. "You live for yourself-not for the greater community.
"I find an intimacy in Israel, like my actions can really change the whole country."
The week after March of the Living iced the cake-a group of new-Nazis demonstrated against a Yom Ha'Shoah remembrance in Lexington. His classmates reacted with indifference.
"A lot of people thought I came to Israel because I had no direction," he continued, but, really, a life in Israel was his direction. By the time Brotman graduated high school this past May, he already had a base of friends in Israel and spoke Hebrew fluently because of the programs in which he participated. "How foreign could it be," he mused, speaking of life in Israel.
We are now just about up to date. In July, Dan made Aliyah to Israel on Nefesh B'Nefesh, in what was the largest North American Aliyah to date. As part of Garin Tzavar, he and 90 other North American-usually born of Israeli parents-are spread throughout three kibbutzim. Dan has a room on Kibbutz Ramat Ha'Shofet, located West of Afula, which is to be his permanent home during the army for the next three years.
At this point, Brotman's task at hand is a process every immigrant has to face: the problem of assimilating.
"For my absorption, instead of university, I'm going into the army." He views the army as Israel's melting pot, a literal right of passage inducting soldiers into Israel's society.
With the emotional support of his peers, Brotman looks toward the future: "I have a feeling it'll all work out. 90 percent of people who do this program stay in Israel."
In the army he hopes to acquire a non-battle position dealing with foreign relations or communications because of his skills with foreign languages. Afterward, he plans on attending university in Israel, becoming a walking resource for youth education in Israel and abroad, or the life of an Israeli emissary living in another country for a few years also appeals to him.
In the short run, Brotman must face daily hardships, though. Coming from a "polite New England," Dan finds integration into Israel's aggressive culture sometimes difficult. But, he's not alone, and as he says, "I'm here, and I'm surviving." At the moment he is persuading his mother to join him in Israel by making Aliyah. Slowly, slowly, Brotman is transplanting his roots where they can spread for generations to come.
Like a true Israeli: "I set goals for myself," and by doing so, "I get what I want."