Originally appeared in Jerusalem Post Magazine, January 2, 2026
A 12-year-old’s love for Israel inspired her entire family to leave Paraguay and start a new life in Ra’anana
Had Esther Levin, now 21, not fallen in love with Israel on a trip to the Holy Land when she was 12 years old and decided on the spot that she was making aliyah, her parents and three siblings might still be living in Paraguay. Now they live in Ra’anana, a city with a population of approximately 84,000 Jews – a big step up from the reported mere 1,100 Jews in Paraguay.
Levin owes that first trip to the ANU Museum of the Jewish People, the museum’s My Family Story project, and the project she created that won her a free trip to Israel, which she took with her father, Ariel.
She describes her shorashim (“roots,” or family tree) project, which she called “A Never Ending Story.” “It had a circle with steps and a mirror on the bottom…”
Nine years later, Levin is enthusiastic as she describes the project, the competition, and her first trip to her ancestral land.
“I fell in love with Israel! In Paraguay, there is not a big Jewish community. We have no kosher restaurants, it is hard to eat kosher, and no one knows about Shabbat or the Jewish people. In Israel, I felt free. I felt a sense of belonging.
In Paraguay, I never felt I belonged. In Israel, I felt I belonged – there were shuls everywhere, the smell of flowers on Fridays, and they were selling challah. In Paraguay, we had to make our own. I felt this is where I belonged, and I told my Dad, ‘I am making aliyah – I want and need to come!’”
To Levin’s surprise, her father confided, “I also want to make aliyah. We have to come up with a plan to convince your mother!” Levin laughs as she recounts the plan they hatched. “We were going to tell her every day, ‘We want to make aliyah’ until she got tired of hearing it.”
Her mother, Sandra Zarecki, wasn’t buying it: “Israel is scary. We don’t have wars in Paraguay!”
‘In Israel, it was the safest I ever felt’
Levin countered, “You just hear the news. In Israel, it was the safest I ever felt.” She began exploring options for boarding schools. Ultimately, though, she and her parents agreed that it made the most sense for her to complete high school first. She graduated in December 2022 and made aliyah on her own in January 2023, at age 18.
“My goal was to join the army – I really wanted to join,” Levin says, recalling seeing IDF soldiers when she was 12. “It was really exciting. They were my heroes. They were close to my heart. For us, it was the most special thing.”
She spent five months at Kibbutz Ma’agan Michael, studying Hebrew four hours a day and working another four hours in the garden, zoo, or kitchen. She followed that with a month’s employment in a Tel Aviv hotel, which provided accommodation before she returned to the kibbutz for another round of ulpan.
Levin’s second stint on kibbutz coincided with Oct. 7. “It was really scary. For us, it was our first war.”
To her delight, however, her parents and siblings made aliyah while she was on ulpan. She left ulpan in December 2023 and spent one Shabbat at her family’s new home in Ra’anana ahead of being drafted into the Israel Air Force (IAF) on January 1, 2024.
Levin considers that she was at a disadvantage in navigating the army system. Peers who grew up in Israel were much more familiar with the process, options, and various units. “I didn’t know what to do. I had no family in the army. I didn’t get much help.”
While she had combat soldier aspirations, things didn’t work out that way. Levin has been serving as an Air Force airplane technician and will complete her service in a few months. She maintains what seems like an always positive attitude, though she concedes that it has been tough.
“At the end of the day, I came to give,” she declared. Her mother points out, “Her service has been all during the war – they work 24 hours.”
Sandra Zarecki and Ariel Levin are proud of their daughter for leading the way for the family to make aliyah. They openly share their sometimes complicated aliyah process, along with both the challenges and the pleasures they experienced upon arrival.
How did Zarecki eventually come around to deciding to make aliyah? “When Esther said, ‘I want to make aliyah, we thought, ‘We are a family and don’t want to be apart,’” she recounts. She also knew how much Ariel wanted to make aliyah.
She suggests that there were additional signs directing the family toward aliyah. Both sons – Uriel (18) and Yaakov (15) had won the same ANU “My Family Story” competition as their sister and earned a free trip to Israel. Uriel got to go, but Yaakov’s trip had been postponed due to COVID. Currently, their youngest has her sights set on the competition.
Deep down, Levin’s parents always knew there was no future for Jews in Paraguay and that Israel was the only option. They point to very high intermarriage rates. “We couldn’t continue in Paraguay,” Ariel says.
While he grew up in Paraguay, his wife lived in Argentina with a father and two grandparents who had been in the Vilna Ghetto and fought as partisans.
THEIR ROAD to Israel was not simple. “We don’t have Nefesh B’Nefesh or even a Jewish Agency in Paraguay,” says Ariel.
They worked with the Jewish Agency in Uruguay and Argentina, and a staff member even went to Paraguay for their in-person interview.
Thirteen days before their aliyah date, Zarecki’s mother, who was to make aliyah with them, broke her hip. Ariel and the children traveled ahead of her to Israel, and Zarecki stayed behind for two months to help her mother. Eventually, she asked her husband to come back to Paraguay to help finalize the move. He flew back, and then Oct. 7 happened.
With a great deal of persistence and advocacy, Zarecki, her mother, and Ariel were able to fly from Asuncion, Paraguay, to Sao Paolo, Brazil, to Paris, France, where they boarded an El Al flight to Israel. Unlike most new immigrants, who are greeted with great fanfare, they report, “We were alone in the airport.” Sadly, Zarecki’s mother passed away three months later.
DESPITE THESE initial difficulties, the family continues to adjust to life in Ra’anana and Israel. They have a number of relatives living in Ra’anana and other places in the country, which is helpful. Levin’s parents work as architects, though Zarecki is currently on a leave of absence in order to continue with ulpan and improve her Hebrew. Their eldest son, Uriel, also attended ulpan, in anticipation of drafting to the IDF. The other children – Yaakov (15) and Tali (12) – as expected, have been acclimating to a new language, culture, and social scene – all during wartime.
The family continues to smile and remain upbeat. Their advice to new olim and those considering aliyah is to get a jump on Hebrew. They note that learning Hebrew is useful, though Zarecki notes that it is “not enough – it is a bridge.”
Levin’s dad offers this: “Don’t wait for everything to be 100% before coming on aliyah. If you do, then two years will pass, and then 20 or 30. It is okay to come, even if not everything is perfect!”
