The Fink family nearly didn’t make it to the August 19 Nefesh B’Nefesh flight they had booked, the organization’s first post-October 7 chartered plane.
The holdup was caused by a snarl of red tape around their son, Eddie, who was adopted from China in 2015 when he was 14 months old. They were told that Israel required an apostille (notarized authorization) of the adoption certificate, but both the adoption agency and the US State Department advised against mailing that original document to China for notarization because they might never see it again.
“The biggest challenge in our aliyah was getting here,” said Shawn Fink, speaking from their new home in Carmei Gat as Eddie, now 10, headed out to baseball practice.
In time for school
Fink and his wife, Liz Leeson, chose the August 19 flight so that Eddie could get settled in before the new school year. As the clock ticked down, with no progress in sight despite many phone calls and emails to an assortment of authorities in three countries, they decided if the issue was not resolved by the end of July, they’d request the August 27 flight.
“Fortunately, we didn’t give away our tickets. On July 29, the Jewish Agency found someone who could help us. On July 31, I woke up at 7 a.m. and saw an email from the Jewish Agency that a solution was being worked out,” Fink recalled.
“At 7:37 a.m., as I was walking out to go to shul with my son, our landline phone rang. It was a woman at the Jewish Agency. She said, ‘I want to be the first to tell you we got the waiver for you.’ By that time, we thought it would be impossible to get ready to leave on August 19.”
But it turned out there were no available seats on the August 27 plane, so the Finks went into high gear and got themselves organized faster than they could have imagined.
“I always say that life is a series of collecting stories, and I knew this would make a great story at some point,” Fink mused philosophically.
Raised in Cleveland
He was raised in a Zionist Modern Orthodox family in Cleveland, Ohio. His father, Phil Fink, hosted a Jewish radio program there for nearly 60 years. Young Shawn got involved on the technical and production end, helping his dad become one of the first Jewish broadcasters streaming online, in 1998.
Eventually, the son followed the father as the host of Radio-J, which offered news, information, music, and interviews with newsmakers, authors, and entertainers. It still has an online presence with a steady stream of music, but the live show ended during COVID, when local advertising dollars dried up. Phil passed away in 2023.
“I hope to build it back with programming aimed at an English-speaking audience, broadcasting from Israel,” said Fink, who studied communications and does freelance broadcasting, voiceover, and podcast production.
Growing unease
The primary reason for making aliyah now was their growing unease with anti-Israel and anti-immigrant sentiment in America. Fink emphasized that nothing unpleasant happened to them in Cleveland and that the Jewish community warmly accepted Eddie. They were thinking of the future.
“We thought, if it was time to go, where would we go? We rationally looked at what countries made sense, and we kept coming back to Israel. Even with the war situation here, the positives outweighed the negatives. In Israel, Jews are the majority and have a voice, no matter if you’re Right or Left. That was not how the future looked in the United States. It was time to read the writing on the wall,” said Fink.
Knowing when it's time
His mother, Gale, was understandably sad that they would be taking her only local grandchild away – his sister and family live in Maryland – but she later reflected that perhaps people thought her grandfather was crazy when he left Europe before the war.
“She took our thought and articulated it in a very personal way,” said Fink. “The question is, how do you know when it’s time to go, and how do you make the move when it’s time to make the move? If you wait too long and it becomes too obvious, it’s too late.”
Working with the Hashmonaim-based Olim Advisors, the Finks made a pilot trip in February. Fink had last been to Israel in 1988. Liz had never been before. “A friend in Cleveland told her, ‘The minute you step off the plane, you’ll feel at home,’ and she did,” Fink recalled.
Home in Carmei Gat
They checked out four possible places to live: Tel Mond, where they had friends; Modi’in; Netanya; and Carmei Gat.
The last, a fast-growing neighborhood of Kiryat Gat, was the most affordable option, sweetened by a government subsidy for people moving to the South.
Although the adult demographics of Carmei Gat skew younger than Fink and Leeson, they have felt fully embraced by all the other recent olim there. They even discovered some old friends from Cleveland.
“Those of us over 40 joke that we need a support group,” Fink said. “But the fact that our son is 10 makes it a good landing spot for him. He’s made some wonderful friends, including our old friends’ son, who was in preschool with him in Cleveland.”
The whole family is working on their spoken Hebrew. “Thank God, we live in an age with ChatGPT and Google Translate,” said Fink.
Like many new arrivals, he noted that “the overall Israeli way of doing things is much different than in the United States.
Adjusting at Rami Levy
"You have to adjust to the fact that at Rami Levy there will be 14 elbows poking you and someone running you over with the shopping cart, meaning no harm. Those same people would stop and help you in a second. Kol Yisrael arevim zeh l’zeh [all Jews are responsible for one another] is built into the DNA.”
Fink said he’s thankful every day for “hearing Hebrew on the news even if I don’t understand all of it yet; seeing street signs with names from our history; walking into a secular store like IKEA and seeing displays for Rosh Hashanah. It’s authentic, and real, and it resonates.”
“That neshama [soul] permeates everything. Sure, there are problems, but it’s easy when you’re here to see past that, and see the Israel that is a miracle.”
SHAWN FINK, 54 FROM CLEVELAND, OHIO TO CARMEI GAT, 2025