I fell in love immediately with making elder care my full-time position - visiting predominantly African American and Latina older adults across the South Side (also coordinating the NPO's food bag program for seniors in need). Their story of urban music and culture deepened and personalized the connection to jazz and blues that my father gave me. Christine Bertrand, the Intergenerational Coordinator at Little Brothers and "adoptive mother" of the Program Assistants, was a true ambassador to the world of elder care, relentlessly encouraging us newbies to stick around in the field and make a career out of it. Needless to say, I heeded that call.
The next year took me to volunteer mostly at adult day centers in Israel on OTZMA, a 10-month program bringing young North Americans to Israel. I was exposed to a model that is far more widely adapted here in Israel than in the US, which was simply magical. Older adults in need of any number of things were able to join their peers, play dominoes, sculpt with clay and do other artwork, travel the country (we went together to the Dead Sea), eat two delicious meals a day, and just celebrate life! The directors of the two centers that welcomed me (Avi Entebbe in Moshav Nehora and Sima Zini at Beit Frankforter in Jerusalem) seemed otherworldly in their commitment to their participants' wellbeing.
When I returned to the US, I settled into a great position at a spinoff of Little Brothers called H.O.M.E. - Housing Opportunities and Maintenance for the Elderly - Volunteer Coordinator and Program Assistant under the Program Director Jan Takehara. I deepened my connection to minority populations in Chicago. But one Shavuot (the Jewish holiday that is (from Aish.com) "ironically a little-known holiday, given that it commemorates the single most important event in Jewish history – the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai"), I forgot to check my calendar and had scheduled a recruiting session for new clients for our weatherization program, which helped to keep apartments and houses warm in the winter. My recruiting efforts took place at an event put together by a nun, whose Caucasian-ness just stood out so starkly in a room of over 100 African American older adults. This nun gave her life and soul to enhance the lives of her beneficiaries.
Shortly thereafter, I got stuck in Houston on the way to staffing a Jewish youth group Shabbaton (weekend event). As my plane-mates were freaking out about the inexplicable delay, I worked on various exercises from the job-search book "What Color is Your Parachute?" I ended up gaining the longly-awaited clarity I had been searching for: I was meant to pursue a career in elder care in Israel, serving my people, those who overcame unthinkable challenges in order to found our reborn national homeland.
15 years ago, July 2008, I left behind what seemed like a good stable job at H.O.M.E. and made aliyah (lit. ascended to / immigrated) to Israel. A number of months later, that position was eliminated due to the global financial crisis's impacts on their fundraising efforts.
I pursued a Master's in Gerontology at Ben-Gurion University in the Negev - offering me the basics (Hebrew vocabulary in the elder care field), as well as amazing knowledge from the coursework, and connections to classmates and faculty that would prove priceless.
My first full-time position was at Project La'ad (forever) of the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Office for Senior Citizens (which has moved around a bunch in Israel's government since). I was the South region coordinator, helping train and supervise volunteers helping with rights clarification and documenting of life stories for Holocaust survivors. I especially enjoyed my work as the client-facing lead in distributing emergency funding to survivors in great financial need, as well as learning the nooks and crannies of my enormous geographic region, from Ashdod all the way to Eilat, our southernmost city.
After a relatively brief stint of underemployment, my friend Louis Miller found a Yediot Acharonot (newspaper) ad for the position of Director of the prominent Adult Day Center in Beit Shemesh. After my experience volunteering under Avi and Sima, this opportunity to try to emulate them was no less than a dream job! My two years there were followed by five more in the same position in Mitzpe Ramon at Matav, the country's leading elder care non-profit, a very professional organization specializing in home health care, but also with a huge footprint in the field of adult day center management across the country.
I was blessed to work with amazing staff members, doing incredibly holy work to serve the centers' participants. I put my stamp on these centers' services. I always remembered that Marion Perlmutter course at Michigan - Late Life Potential - and that served as a compass for my vision of these centers. A programming highlight was my fellow Dallasite and neighbor over the last several years brewing a batch of beer and giving a seminar and tasting in Mitzpe Ramon.
After two years of managing the Mitzpe Ramon center under the COVID-19 pandemic (during which zero of our participants contracted the virus), and all of the resulting personal and family costs, it was time to find the next challenge.
A close friend and former lecturer in graduate school, Doron Sagi, is doing amazing work as we speak to try to make the Gerontologist into more of a brand name in Israel. But as my search dragged on, my networking, multiple interviews for interesting positions, self-reflection and inventory of my strengths and fields that I didn't excel in failed to lead me to the next promised land, and my degree only reliably opened one door (to be a professional worker at a home health care agency, performing home visits and doing the paperwork for new caregivers - which I tried out, meeting incredible staff and older adults at Matav Arad, but which definitely did not play to my strengths)...
I decided to move on and try out some other pastures.
My hats go off to Doron and everyone else who is fighting to make our degree a more reliable source for return on investment.
But I have a mortgage to pay. Right now. And then next month, and the month after that.
So I will soon (belatedly) update about that exciting next step.
But today I thank each and every mentor, colleague, boss, staff member, lecturer in university and many other courses, and especially all of the older adults who bequeathed me such great wisdom that they amassed over their decades roaming the earth. I wouldn't trade these two decades for the world.
