Shlomo and Ora Yashar

New Yorker Steven changed his name to Shlomo and moved to Jerusalem.

By ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN
From New York City to Jerusalem, 2012 (photo credit: OZNAYIM HAFAKOT/EARS PRODUCTIONS)
From New York City to Jerusalem, 2012
(photo credit: OZNAYIM HAFAKOT/EARS PRODUCTIONS)
Brooklyn native Steven Sher was one of half a million young people at the Woodstock Music Festival of 1969, the iconic event of the hippie, anti-Vietnam War, free-love counterculture. Years later, when he was a college professor of English and writing, he penned a religious-themed poem about the experience.
But that all happened before he changed his name to Shlomo Yashar and moved to Jerusalem with his wife, Nancy (now Ora), a school psychologist. During 36 years of marriage, they have traveled hand-in-hand on a path that led them to greater religious observance and Zionism. The route wound through some unusual locations.
“We lived in Corvallis, Oregon, for close to 20 years, and in North Carolina and Kentucky, among other places,” says Shlomo, whose latest full-length volume of poetry, The House of Washing Hands (Pecan Grove Press), is about family and Jewish life in America’s Pacific Northwest. His 14 published books include primarily poetry as well as fiction and essays (stevensher.net).
Raised by a Vilna-born mother who came from a line of Polish rabbis, and a father whose family was active during the early labor movement in New York City, Shlomo says his Zionist feelings developed over many years.
“Once my wife and I got together and moved to Oregon, we started to become more aware of Israel and our connection with it,” he says. “Our Zionism started to grow in the ‘Pale of America,’ as it were.”
They became friendly with several Israeli families coming to Corvallis to spend a sabbatical year at Oregon State University, where he taught. “Talking to people about life in Israel, and our own deepening commitment to Jewish learning, helped our attachment grow year by year.”
The couple began to see living in Israel as a religious obligation, though they were not able even to visit until the summer of 2010, when their son, Ari, made aliya. Ari changed his family name to Yashar prior to joining the army and earning his master’s degree at Hebrew University.
“At that point we finally had the resources and the time to come, and we stepped off the plane and felt this was it,” says Ora. “We were here for two months and when we went back, we thought about how to make [aliya] happen.”
The time was right “It seemed like the time was right,” Shlomo says.
“Prophetic writings point to the many signs that we are now witnessing, and we wanted to be in the land that Hashem gave to the Jews.”
They fulfilled this dream in 2012, after Ora’s mother, the last of their elderly parents, died. Their daughter followed them a year later with her husband and young son.
Shlomo says that most of their Jewish friends in the United States support Israel – offering charitable contributions and prayers on the state’s behalf – but don’t feel a visceral connection to the homeland.
Some of them questioned the Yashars’ decision to make aliya.
“They are content to fulfill the American dream,” says Shlomo without a trace of judgment in his voice.
He, too, had many more professional opportunities in the States. “I taught for 35 years, and my publishing contacts are there. But at some point, you make a choice.”
Shlomo wrote this poem to express his feelings on the matter: We come despite the warnings we are crazy and there’s nothing to be gained by steadfast faith.
We come knowing the constant battles we must wage, confronting raging hate and lives that feed off fear.
Doubts conspire to drive us away and still we lower our shoulder, keep on going. Though the wind wavers and the rain ends, we won’t give in.
A heart can’t ever part with what it’s once possessed.
Study and family.
Originally, the Yashars planned to find jobs in their fields in Israel.
“I was working in inner-city schools in New York City, and when we first came I intended to pick up work in my area of specialty – early intervention for preschoolers with disabilities – and it could have happened, but around that time we took a look at our finances and saw we could get by without having to work,” says Ora. “We realized we wanted to hold off, especially when we realized the incredible learning opportunities here.”
At first they lived in the Nahlaot neighborhood, and recently moved to the Givat Shaul-Kiryat Moshe area.
“I am enjoying living in a Hebrew-speaking neighborhood that forces me to use my Hebrew,” says Ora, who now has the time to indulge her interests in photography and drawing.
Much to their delight, the Yashars have found that their days are filled not only with study but also with helping to care for their grandson and year-old Jerusalem-born granddaughter.
They recently welcomed yet another family member, a daughterin- law of Yemenite heritage.
Shlomo writes for a few hours each day and has led writing workshops and poetry readings in Israel. He travels to New York once a year to read and promote his books there.
The couple is passionate about politics, getting involved in groups such as the Women for Israel’s Tomorrow- Women in Green.
Shlomo has lent his writing skills to Otzma LeYisrael’s political campaign and Arieh King’s Israel Land Fund.
In their travels through the country, Shlomo and Ora have felt especially moved to tread in places of profound religious significance such as the Cave of Machpela in Hebron and Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus (Shechem). “We’re here to be in those places, and to help move things along to resettling the whole land,” Shlomo says.
Ora adds: “We always talk about Jerusalem being close to the source, and I really do feel the presence of Hashem much more here than in New York. It’s like night and day. I see it in so many ways, in our culture and tradition and in everyday life. I’m constantly thrilled to see sights such as security guards [reciting grace after meals] and men gathering for a minyan in the mall.”
If she could change one thing about Israel, Ora says, “It would be the way we step on each other and do not seem to have a unified vision of what this country is and where it’s going. This is a special place and time, and I want people to be aware of that.”