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An Aliyah Love Story:

How Two Best Friends

Married Two Best Friends
Odelia
Glausiusz

Bnei Akiva couple since
high school, Rena Schweitzer
and Yehuda Bessner married
Ain Israel this past June. In
Israel for the summer, I stopped by
their cozy apartment for dinner to
meet them and another couple, Michal
and Jory Dayan, to learn how Rena
and Yehuda brought Michal and Jory
together.

Born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario,
Rena studied at Sha’alvim for Women
for her gap year, and made Aliyah that
February. “Doing Sherut Leumi was
always a goal of mine,” she tells me, Left to right: Jory, Michal, Rena, Yehuda
“and you had to make Aliyah to do it.” seemingly random events – first met I said, ‘Jory, wake up, Rena’s here with
She lived with seven other girls – “now Michal. a friend, come say hi!’”
my best friends” – in a bodeda apart-
ment in Kiryat Moshe, and worked in Michal explains that she decided to Yehuda and Jory walked the girls out
a school teaching Hebrew and math to say the Nishmat prayer at the Kotel of the Rova, and that night Michal and
first graders, half of whom came from every day for forty days, as a segulah Jory set up their first date. Laughing,
at-risk backgrounds. She then worked to get married. “The whole tefillah is Yehuda admits, “I told Jory that Michal
as a madricha at Midreshet Moriah for a about instilling bitachon (trust in G-d) liked him, and I told Michal that Jory
year, where she met Michal (originally in yourself; every segulah for marriage liked her, to get them both interested.
I had no idea!” Rena takes over: “On
from the Five Towns in New York). is really all about bitachon. I sound
like a crazy person,” she laughs, but their first date, Michal was gone for
After two years at MMY, Michal chose “I even walked barefoot to the Kotel 6 hours! I started to worry that Jory
to stay in Israel, doing college online while fasting on Yom Kippur. I was had kidnapped her, but then she came
and working as a madricha. “I realized,” very into it!” back at midnight and told me it was
she explained, “that if I want to be the A year ago, she originally made plans the best date ever.”
best Jew I can be, I should do it in the to spend Shabbat Chol HaMoed of Overwhelmed with gratitude, Michal
place where I can connect to Hashem Sukkot with a friend in Ramat Beit says of Rena and Yehuda: “They’ve
the most.”
Shemesh. Realizing this would break been such supportive friends, they
Yehuda grew up in Montreal, where up her forty-day commitment to being hosted Jory’s aufruf, they’re hosting
he was a Bnei Akiva madrich and was at the Kotel, they spent Shabbat with our sheva berachot. They didn’t just set
inspired by his teachers to make Aliyah. Rena in Yerushalayim instead. us up, they’re still with us and I’m so
In his second year at Yeshivat Hako- After – of course – davening at the grateful!”
tel, he drafted into the IDF through Kotel, they stopped by Yeshivat Michal and Jory married in late
Hesder, serving as a Givati machine Hakotel so Rena could see Yehuda. As August, and, as you’d expect, are
gunner before returning to Hakotel Yehuda explains – “I saw Rena was now Rena and Yehuda’s neighbors in
in 2021. Jory, from Toronto, was by his with a friend, so I went to wake up Yerushalayim.
side the entire time; roommates and Jory, who was taking a nap in the
chavrutas in yeshivah, they also served downstairs sukkah. He was supposed
in the same unit. It was in their fourth to have gone out for lunch, but ended Odelia Glausiusz holds a degree in English
year in Hakotel when Jory – helped up staying in yeshivah with us because Literature at King’s College London and is an
along by Yehuda and a coalescence of the wind blew away his hosts’ sukkah. intern for HaMizrachi magazine.

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