Queen Village resident Kelly Abraham, 30, is making aliyah this summer. She will fly to Israel on Aug. 11.

For Abraham, it’s not a homecoming necessarily, but it is a return to her roots: Both her parents emigrated from Israel to the United States in the 1990s. They arrived here, built lives and even a business in Germantown and achieved their American dream.

Abraham is the first natural-born U.S. citizen in her family, as she’s older than her two brothers. Yet she’s going back.

She said she always felt the call, but after getting fired from her job last year and then spending a month in Israel around the time of her uncle’s yahrzeit, she knew she had to live her own Israeli dream.

“I’m definitely excited,” she said. “It’s been a long time coming.”

A registered nurse in the U.S., Abraham will pursue her certification in Israel, as well. Until then, she’ll work as a bartender, waitress and whatever other job she can find to make ends meet.

Her plan is to live in an Airbnb for a week upon arrival until her apartment is ready in Herzliya. She hopes to eventually make her way up north to live near her dad’s family.
Abraham is traveling with her cat, but other than that, she has no companions on this journey. Her parents and brothers are staying in the U.S.

“My family is from super far north, so hopefully I’ll make my way up,” she said.

Abraham’s mother was born in Israel. Her father is Romanian, but he immigrated to Israel with his family.

The parents chose to come to the U.S. because “they wanted more opportunities for the next generation,” Abraham said.

“There was definitely a boom in the ’90s, especially in the Philly area. There were a lot of Israelis emigrating here,” she added.

Abraham’s parents found the opportunity they were looking for. Her dad has worked in construction since arriving. Her mother and grandparents started a successful jewelry business.

Abraham and her brothers all attended college.

“Luckily, everything’s been good,” Abraham said.

But even while everything was good, Abraham would spend weeks in the summer in Israel with her extended family, and she always felt sad when she had to leave.

Despite that connection to the homeland, before Oct. 7, 2023, Abraham “wasn’t super in the community. I always cared about it. I always had an identity. I always felt Israeli. But I didn’t have many Jewish or Israeli friends,” she said.

That changed after the Hamas attack. Abraham began attending events in the city at Mamash Chabad, the Old City Jewish Arts Center and the Chevra. She started going regularly to Mamash Chabad for Shabbat services and a Tuesday night women’s class, and “it picked up from there.”

She began to make friends, too.

“You meet one friend in one space. You go out. You meet someone else,” Abraham said.

Last summer, Abraham lived in the city for the first time, and she built a group of 28-30 friends. She was also working what she described as “a dream job.”

Then she got fired.

“I had a lot of personal things happening that made it difficult to focus,” she said.

Her family had been going through some “health concerns,” as she described them. She had also started a Jewish events group called Schtick Together, and she was focused on that.

Over in Israel, her uncle had passed away a year earlier; her cousin had been on reserve in the Israel Defense Forces for over 600 days; and her extended family had been forced to evacuate its northern Israel home for more than a year. Northern Israel has frequently come under fire during conflicts due to its proximity to Lebanon and Hezbollah.

The night of her firing, Abraham boarded a plane to make it to Israel in time for her uncle’s first yahrzeit.

She stayed for a month.

“We’d be at the river, hanging out, enjoying ourselves all the time. I got the chance to visit a lot of family. I visited the Nova [music festival] site. I spent some time walking around the shuk. And I spent a lot of time on the beach,” she recalled.

She also inhabited the Israeli mindset.

“When you grow up in an environment like how Israel is, you gain a different appreciation and value for life. The little things that are maybe a big deal for someone in their day-to-day are something Israelis don’t dwell on,” she said. “At the same time, the little things that are special — getting to see friends, the sunset on the beach — that appreciation for life is held sacredly. That really resonates with who I am.”

Abraham returned to the U.S., but she never really came back.

The hardest part was telling her parents.

Her mother took time to come around, but her father and brothers understood right away.

Abraham also admitted she felt some guilt.

“I’m the first one, and I want to run right back in the opposite direction,” she said. “I always felt it was a little disrespectful to my family who worked so hard to make a life here. It’s also a little disrespectful because I’ve benefitted so much from living in the U.S.”

At the same time, Abraham’s paternal grandfather survived the Holocaust and then Jewish pogroms in Romania. That was why her father’s family moved to Israel in the first place.

“We know what it’s like to live without a Jewish state. We think it’s important that there is one, and to build it, and to keep it safe,” she said.

jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com