Shani and her fascinating journey

Hi! My name is Shani Harkham. I am in 11th grade and I just switched to Jewish Culture. I have always moved back and forth in my life. I was born in Jerusalem and moved to California for a year, where my sister was born. Then we went to New Jersey and then Miami where I went to preschool. We went back to Israel and I lived there for four years. I made a lot of friends there and it was really hard for me to leave again. For my dad’s work we moved back to Miami for a year where I made new friends again but then we went back to Israel for about 5 years. It has always been really hard to keep my friends from different places since I have been moving from a very young age, and didn’t have forms of communication. But in the last five years that I spent in Israel, I made really really good friends. I had a lot of fun with them, made a lot of memories, and learned a lot. I really enjoy learning. I enjoy learning math and reading and I also used to sing and dance in Israel. I would do many things outside of school which would keep me busy. I was really happy, I got used to the environment, the people, and the language. But over the summer, I went to camp in Australia, and my family met me there afterward—that's when I found out we were moving to Miami. It was a big shock to me. It's really different in Miami than Israel. I didn't get to go back to Israel to say goodbye to any of my friends. So ya, I've been staying in Miami ever since and it's really hard to make friends and everything since I'm still kinda stuck in Israel and it's really hard to get used to new environments. But in two years I am going to go back to Israel for the army. And from there I'll see what I want to do. I think that moving around and everything isn't that easy, but I've learned that it's always important to keep in touch with people, and that when I do that, it still makes me feel connected. 

Sari Levinson