After lots of planning, a very successful Shabbaton was hosted by the local community in Ariel.  A number of families singles and couples from around Israel all spent the weekend of the 23rd of April in Ariel and got a chance to meet and mix with the locals.  The Packer family, Shmuel and Liora and their baby, took the Shabbaton one step further and actually moved in on Friday after visiting Ariel the week before, thus earning them the title of Ariel's newest and quickest olim.

The whole community got together on Saturday afternoon for a huge seuda shlishit. It was great to see so many new faces around and especially so many children.

The Aliyah Monologues is a high-energy, one-man standup comedy show about the modern day emotional reality of a Child returning home.

The Monologues focuses on the social and emotional aspects of Aliyah (moving to Israel) and depict an Oleh overcoming multiple obstacles as he begins a new life in a country chosen to be home. A man who was a son, friend and rabbi in America is trying to work his way up the corporate ladder in Israel (and hoping to wait tables in the near future), while trying very hard to pick up his groceries and a wife. Ideals clash with the complexities of acclimation into Israeli society. There is a week of transition for all new Olim, the week in which the immigrant finds his little Israeli within. This is what happened during that week: The development of a whole comedy routine!

The city of Ariel has its very own women's only basket ball team, and to add to that it was started of by an ola chadasha in Ariel only a few months after she arrived in Israel.

Natalie Zacks had been thinking of aliyah for years, she had also been playing basketball with her girlfriends in Detroit for years.  Once Natalie and her family had decided to make the big move she started enquiring about basketball in Israel.  From one list serve to another she kept getting a negative answer, some communities had no idea what she was on about, some had a team, but not for women and some were just not interested. All this changed once she got on to the Ariel list serve (a very small one at the time) the first to answer was a man – Josh, and after checking with his Israeli wife gave Natalie the green light she was looking for – she had found a community who doesn’t have a team and is interested in starting on (well us here in Ariel are always looking for new adventures).

Let there be no mistake, the Zacks family decision to move half way around the world straight to Ariel was not made by the idea of having a basketball team.  But this was the icing on the topping.