Since I wrote my first piece about leaving Montreal and making Aliyah, something strange has been happening.

People keep congratulating me.

And then, very often, something else follows. They lower their voice a little and tell me that they understand. That they have been thinking about Israel too. That things here do not feel quite the way they used to. That this is something a lot of us are struggling with right now.

So I have started asking a very simple question.

That is usually when it gets quiet.

I am not an Aliyah shaliach. I am not working for anybody. I am a seventy-year-old Montrealer who finally made a decision that I had spent a lifetime finding reasons not to make.

Apparently, saying it out loud does something to other people.

Today I was at a garage sale at a friend’s house, talking with two sisters I have known for years. Both are Israeli. Both have spent most of their adult lives in Canada. They built lives here. Family, children, grandchildren, community. Montreal became home.

One of the sisters is caring for her husband. He is mentally very much himself, but physically he has serious mobility problems. His body is failing him in ways his mind has not.

We started talking about healthcare.

That subject matters to me. I have lived with Type 1 diabetes since 1967, so when I think about moving countries at seventy, healthcare is not an item somewhere near the bottom of my checklist. It is one of the first questions I ask.

She told me about the frustration she has been having here. The medical message, as she experiences it, has increasingly become that there is not much more to do for her husband. She does not accept that easily. A physiotherapist believes work can still be done with him,........

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