Special program for physicians:

North American families build new lives in Israel

beit shemesh, israel |  A week after the Benuck family made aliyah from New Jersey, lunchtime at their house is cheese sandwiches, fruit and yogurt on a wobbly card table in an empty living room.

The room’s only decoration is a poster explaining the administrative steps for immigrating to the Jewish state.

But there is good news, Mitchell Benuck reports: Despite a strike by Israeli port workers, the shipment of the family’s possessions has arrived in Ashdod. By next week they hope to be able to replace the card table, air mattresses and hot plate with their own furniture and appliances.

After all, this is his family’s home now, says Benuck, 34, a pediatrician from Passaic.

“I feel my life will be most fulfilled practicing medicine in this country and raising my kids in this country,” he says. “I would hate to miss out on this opportunity.

“For thousands of years people have risked their lives to get here. All I had to do was get on a plane.”

Benuck is one of 15 North American physicians who have immigrated to Israel with their families as an Applebaum Fellow.

The program is in memory of Dr. David Applebaum, a Chicago-born Israeli doctor who served as head of emergency services at Jerusalem’s Sha’arei Zedek Hospital until he and his daughter, Nava, were killed in a suicide bombing at a Jerusalem cafe in 2003, on the eve of her wedding.

As Applebaum Fellows of Nefesh B’Nefesh — a North American organization funded by private, philanthropic sources — and the Jewish Agency for Israel, which helps provide financial and logistical support for olim, each family receives up to $18,000 toward making a new life in Israel.

“Israel has a strong, equality-based health care system, a system of which we are proud,” Health Minister Danny Naveh told the newcomers. “We look forward to integrating you into our hospitals, clinics and health care facilities available around the country.”

Meanwhile, far from the festive welcomes and speeches, the Benucks are organizing their new lives in Beit Shemesh, a rapidly growing city of almost 60,000 people in the foothills of Jerusalem.

Eli, the Benucks’ son, said he is happy to be in Israel. The Hebrew classes, bus rides, hot weather — it’s all good, he says.

Even the air mattress he sleeps on in a room he shares with his brother, Yonatan, 3, isn’t so bad. “It’s a chavaya,’ an experience, he says, using the first Hebrew word his parents taught him.