Great "Golden Age" Activities Here in Shiloh

Bringing my father on aliyah to Israel

Some of you may remember that we had my father living with us here in Shiloh for almost a year five plus years ago. The plan had been to also get my mother to Israel and set them up with suitable help in a place near a good senior citizens center or in one of those residential places suitable for a combination of "independent and assisted living." But in the end my mother wanted to be near my sister, though was sorry that she was so far from most of her grandchildren and all of the great-grandchildren.

During that year my father was with us, I hosted a weekly "movie night," (actually late afternoon,) for English speakers. Most of the participants were between my age and his. It was very popular.

A couple of years after he left, a new "middle-aged plus" couple moved to Shiloh, and she was looking for a project, so our "social/activity" coordinator suggested that she develop a program for Shiloh's elderly, a growing population. There's quite a challenge considering that few of the elderly are fully comfortable in Hebrew, so there must be translation into English and Russian. And now there's a couple from France that moved in with their daughter. They try to translate into French for each other.

One of the weekly activities is an ulpan to help improve their Hebrew. And another is an exercise class by a professional yoga/aerobics teacher. They also bring in lecturers, show films and have lots of other programs. They meet twice a week. I'm sometimes asked to help with translating to and from English. I do it when I can.

Not all the participants are elderly, and not all the participants are immigrants. Too bad we didn't have these activities when my father was living with us. He would have loved to go, and it's an easy walk from our house.

And to be honest, I did get quite a workout at the exercise class. Maybe I should go more often!