“I was born in Ethiopia. We fled in 1990 before the second big aliyah (immigration of Jews in the diaspora to Israel) in 1991. I was 3 years old. From Ethiopia, we moved to Beit She’an, an orthodox community in the north next to the Dead Sea. For years, I was not familiar with other Jewish people outside of Israel. An agency came to our town when I was 15. They were collecting teenagers to bring them to other places in the world. I passed the test and went to Cleveland, OH. I fell in love with the culture; how people are so welcoming and very different and more relaxing than the Israeli people I was used to. From that moment, I decided this was going to be my home. I did everything in my power so that after I served two years in the Israeli army, I came to New York for one year just to see where I should live. I had the greatest experience. I went back to Israel for two years to work out things with my family and close out my life there, and I came to the U.S. permanently in 2011.