Join with us as we speak live with several former members of the Portland Jewish community who have made Aliyah to Israel. We will be giving them an opportunity to share their unique insights and experiences living in the Holy Land during these difficult times. After presentations have been concluded there will an opportunity for them to answer your questions. The speakers from Israel will appear virtually.

This will be a wonderful opportunity to see Israel from the perspective of friends who once lived in Portland.

Panelists: Emily Kuhnert, Chaya Rosen, Steve “Rosy” Rosenberg, and Jenny Zitimer

Emily Kuhnert grew up in Portland and attended Neveh Shalom. From a very young age, she knew that she wanted to live in Israel. She fell in love with Israel from the first time she visited on a family trip, and her desire to find a way to live there was solidified while attending a summer program in High School. After graduating high school, she opted to go on a gap year program instead of straight to college. This really solidified her desire to stay in Israel and make Aliyah in 2005. She was drafted into the Army as a lone soldier. She served as a combat soldier in Artillery and experienced war first hand as she fought during the Second Lebanese War.

After graduating college, from what is now Reichman University, she worked in various startups and Hi-Tech companies in Tel Aviv. Several years ago, she left Hi-Tech and is currently working in the non-profit sector for Torah Tech, a gap year program for Orthodox young men who spend the year in Israel learning Torah and interning at High Tech companies. I’ve built a wonderful and fulfilling life for myself living in Tel Aviv.

Chaya Rosen

Chaya Rosen moved to Portland In 1991 and attended Hallinan Elementary for 2 years, then Portland Waldorf for 7th-8th grade. She attended summer camp at Solomon Schechter and celebrated her Bat Mitzvah (as Clara Eltman) at Neveh Shalom. In the last semester of her senior year at Catlin Gabel, Chaya participated in the Alexander Muss High School in Israel as part of Neveh Shalom's initiative to keep teenagers involved in Jewish life after their Bar/ Bat Mitzvah, and she immediately fell in love with Israel.  After a freshman year at Brandeis University, she attended summer school in Haifa to work on her Hebrew. Chaya returned to Brandeis for another year of study, and then moved to Israel in the summer of 2002 intending to learn at Nishmat Seminary for one year. However, she ended up staying permanently.  She married her husband, Yakov, in 2005, and they currently live in Modiin and are the parents of four children, ages 8-17.  Chaya has worked in several sectors, including editing and high-tech marketing. For the past five years, she has enjoyed a new career as a realtor. Chaya enjoys working with people from all different parts of the world, and she has the honor of helping clients buy their first home in Israel after making Aliyah.

Rosy

Rosy grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, with limited Jewish education or involvement, especially about Israel. He moved to Portland in 1978, where he worked in real estate, investing, brokering, developing, and lending. By the age of 31 he was president of the MJCC, followed by the presidency of the Jewish Federation some 7 years later. His involvement in community leadership included approximately 25 years on the PJA board, and stints on the OJCF and Shaarie Torah boards, and numerous other formal and informal leadership positions in the Portland Jewish community.

Rosy hadn’t visited Israel until his junior year of college when his parents took him and his girlfriend (future wife!), Ellen, to Israel for two weeks. in 1997, Ellen and Rosy finished a two-year Werner Heritage Program and became excited about spending a year in Israel, which they did in 2000/2001 with their then 10- year-old twin girls. Rosy went on numerous missions during his years in leadership, but spending a year there was inspiring, especially since it coincided with the start of the second intifada. A few years later, they purchased an apartment in Jerusalem, although their permanent residence was Portland. Over the next 16 years he would spend about 4-5 months a year living in Israel. About 2019, he and Ellen formally made Aliyah. He is currently involved on four or five boards, focused on sports, culture, and even an environmental board. They include: the Israel Tennis and Education Centers, Contemporary Players (ultra-modern classical music group), Machol Shalem (modern dance platform in Jerusalem), This is My Earth (an environmental organization), and Israel Museum new collections purchase committee.
Despite wars, high prices, hot summers, a government we mostly disagree with, there is no place we would rather live in this historic time of Jewish history.

Jenny Zitimer was born in Brookline, MA. in 1949. She graduated from the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital School of Nursing in Boston in 1970 and was also married that year. She then moved to Maryland to attend the U of Maryland and work. From there she moved to Delaware in 1973, the year her daughter Michelle was born. The family
made Aliyah in 1977, first settling in Netanya and later moving to Karmiel in 1979/80. Her son, Jeffrey was born in 1978. Jenny’s work experience includes Nahariya Hospital, a brief stint at Rambam, and then a grateful move to the public health department in Safed. Both her children did military service. Michelle was in Nahal with a year of service in Kibbutz Hanaton, and then clerked on an educational unit at Kfar Yeladim. Jeffrey was a naval officer, serving in submarines and as an instructor in the naval officer training program.

In addition to working as the child development instructor for the wide territory the Safed office covered, Jenny earned an MA at Lesley College as an art therapist in 1999, while working part time in the Arab school system-special education environment. Numerous problems arose in the health department, which led her to decide to take an early retirement in 2007. She divorced in 2008 and left Israel, resettling in Beaverton with the help of an old friend from nursing school in Boston. During that time, she was actively involved in Congregation Neveh Shalom. At the end of 2018, she returned to Israel and resettled in Karmiel, and joined her old choir. Her daughter had already returned to Israel and remarried at the end of 2018. Helping her has occupied a great deal of Jenny’s time, but she also try to be useful a Kehilat HaKerem Masorti congregation and events at KESC (Karmiel English Speakers Club).

To register, go to: https://members.nevehshalom.org/event/I360Voices