Roots and restlessness – young Jews redefine nomadic life

Although the “wandering Jew” may be a stereotype, there are a few around the world who have taken it to a new level by choosing to live a nomadic lifestyle.

Maayan and Ash Ashush, otherwise known as “The Jewish Nomads” on social media, started travelling the world together after they got married in Jerusalem, calling it their “never-ending honeymoon” eight years and two children later.

Although Maayan has lived in Israel for most of her life, she spent a lot of her youth travelling to South Africa as her father is South African, even spending six months in Johannesburg on shlichut with Bnei Akiva.

So, when she and Ash got married, they decided that they would start their married life by travelling the world. “We had this feeling that we wanted to start our married life differently,” she said, “and we were nomads for our first two years.”

They started in Thailand, then lived throughout southeast Asia, including India, Myanmar, and Cambodia. They then went to the United States (US), and set up shop, living in a van they bought and selling products they made in Nepal. They then continued to travel around Central and South America with their dog, often doing whatever they could for money. “It was just a random stage of our life,” she said.

After five years of nomading, Maayan and Ash welcomed their first daughter, Odeh, in the US, but it didn’t slow them down one bit. “Just a few months after Odeh was born, we travelled a little bit in El Salvador and Guatemala, and then we decided to visit Israel to figure out our next move,” she said.

They wanted to open a Jewish home where they could share their love and knowledge of training with others after realising that this was their passion after four months of being shlichut in Thailand.

They started their non-profit organisation, Bet HaLev, in 2022, a spiritual home and community centre for Israeli and Jewish travellers in Varkala, India. The family spends six months of the year in Varkala, then the next six months travelling the world.

Similarly, Noam Levy, who calls himself the “Roaming Saffa”, has been a digital nomad for the past two years. He started backpacking solo around India for six months in September 2023, and then went on to travel around southeast Asia until the middle of 2024, all while working remotely.

While sitting on a beach in Albania, he realised that he wanted the work-travel lifestyle. “I didn’t think that a boy from Glenhazel could do such a thing. And then I met these people along the way who were doing a similar thing, and I said that if I’m ever fortunate enough to be in a position where I can travel the world and work from a computer, then I’m gonna do that.”

Maayan said handling the hectic lifestyle of being a nomad and a parent is something they don’t think about as they don’t know anything different. “We became parents in our nomadic life, so we don’t know what it’s like not to be nomadic parents,” she said. “We’re balancing parenthood like everybody else. It’s not very different because this is how our life is.”

Dan Brotman, who has travelled to just about half the world, started nomading in April, an experience he never thought possible at 38. He said that after he finished his course at the London School of Economics, “I said to myself, what if I give up my student residence after my classes are done, and use that money instead just to travel and see more of the world, especially when we’re on breaks or when I can just study from anywhere. So I gave up my place in April, and I travelled.”

Brotman is now spending the summer in Toronto, living with friends as he writes his dissertation, and then is back to travelling at the end of July.

“I’m probably going to base myself in central or eastern Europe from September just until I have clarity on where I’m going next,” he said. “Ideally, I would love to be on a digital nomad visa and be based somewhere in Europe. I loved living in Europe because I could just travel on a whim to a neighbouring country, and I love that variety. I’ve been struggling a bit being in Toronto this summer because in such a large sort of isolated place, you can’t just get on a plane or get on a train in a different culture within an hour or two, and I love that about Europe.”

Canada-born Tamar Lyons started travelling around the world after she became separated from her husband at the age of 26. Speaking in Madrid, she said, “I wanted to reinvent myself. I had grown up religious, and I just wanted to see what else in my life I was doing because I was told to do it rather than what was true to who I am as a person. I kind of burned everything down in my life to rebuild myself back up. Given my life’s path and desire to reinvent myself, I figured what better way to do that than to travel the world?”

Since Lyons has a completely remote digital marketing agency, travelling around the globe is that much easier. “The beautiful thing about this lifestyle is that you can pick up and go whenever you want because you’re not tied down. You’re booking through Airbnbs and short-term stays and things like that, so if I find myself in a place I don’t like, I can just move to the next place.”

After years of digital nomading, Lyons wants to set down roots, as in her years of travelling, she has come to desire a larger sense of community. “It’s fun being a solo traveller and going places where I don’t know anybody, because you can always reinvent yourself, it’s easy. But being Jewish, it’s hard to find a community. And that’s something I missed, which is why when I came back to Toronto in April, I decided that I had had enough of this lifestyle. I wanted to settle down and plant roots, which is exactly what I’m doing.”