Israel

First Day of 23

/ IlanaB / 5 Comments

On February 8, 2002, I arrived in the morning. I was picked up from Ben Gurion airport by my aunt and my cousin. Before the sun set on that day, we planted an almond tree in my aunt’s yard. The tree and I have had our challenges; we’ve grown – one of us taller, one of us wider as well as emotionally, intellectually, and in spirit. And both the tree and I are still here – with thanks to my aunt who has been there for both of us.

After I wrote the previous post about The Waiting Place – and coincidentally thinking about poetry – I remembered that one of my favorite poems from high school was “Still Here” by Langston Hughes. I’m not generally a fan of poetry, but sometimes a poem says more than any 1,000-word essay. “Still Here,” I think, tells the story of me, my almond tree, and the people of Israel today and through all time.

Still Here

I been scarred and battered.
My hopes the wind done scattered.
   Snow has friz me,
   Sun has baked me,

Looks like between ’em they done
   Tried to make me

Stop laughin’, stop lovin’, stop livin’–
   But I don’t care!
   I’m still here!

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/348/still-here/

Today, February 9, 2024, is the first day of my and my tree’s 23rd year in Israel. Today is the 126th day of the Israel-Hamas war and the 126th day 136 people have been held hostage in unknown conditions. May all of us have the strength to cling to hope, embrace joy, and continue to say: “I’m still here.”

100 Days in The Waiting Place

/ IlanaB / 2 Comments

3 minutes

You can get so confused
that you’ll start to race
down long wiggled roads at break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirding wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
                   The Waiting Place . . .

. . . for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.

– Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

Posters had been put up overnight – the ones they had been tearing down in big cities. I saw them as I was walking to and from work, and I thought, “That’s important. I should write a post about that.” Before I could, the hostage release deal went through. Every day, I turned on live-streaming news on YouTube to watch the transfer. I couldn’t do anything before 4pm. And then there were delays and more delays and more delays. For days, I could do nothing else: I waited before. I waited during. I waited after for the next day. And then I waited for the extension. Or would it be the end of the pause?

I have been constantly waiting. Dr. Seuss, one of the great philosophers of the 20th century, told us when we were kids that The Waiting Place is a most useless place. And it is. And today – the 100th day of waiting – Israel still cannot turn the page. We are all just waiting.

Waiting for news.
Waiting for friends and colleagues to come back from reserve duty.
Waiting for phone calls from loved ones.
Waiting to hear the names of the fallen.
Waiting for the next siren.
Waiting for Friday or for Chanukah, but without any excitement.
(I forgot to wait for Santa – what can I say, I like the NORAD Santa Tracker. But not this year.)
Waiting for the secular year to change to 2024. (I made a herculean effort to remember to do the countdown to midnight, but it was empty and meaningless.)
Waiting for the 100th Day.


NO!
That’s not for you!

Somehow you’ll escape
all that waiting and staying.
You’ll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.

– Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

That “somehow” is a little tricky.
For now, we’re all in The Waiting Place praying for the release of the hostages and praying for peace.

To get out of this terrible, awful, no-good Waiting Place, we have to take action, so we’re always looking for that “somehow” to escape.

Street corners
Probably the most difficult images
A single stroller seemingly abandoned
This child should be in this stroller
Waiting for buses. Waiting for hostages
She has already been declared dead
“Bring them home NOW.”
Emek Refaim, Jerusalem
A bit of American politics
Heroic people like a lion
Together we will win
“One people, one heart”
“The people of Israel live!”
Thanks to Jerusalemites for their help and support to soldiers and others in need
A bit of inspiration
“There is no greater mitzvah than redeeming captives”
A bit of local politics
This week on Emek Refaim
Yellow ribbons for those we are waiting for

Notes from Jerusalem

/ IlanaB / Leave a comment

*7 minutes

This is a blog about life in Israel. Since my last post in 2021, we went through a bunch of elections (I didn’t think I could explain them in any coherent way), COVID closures now and again, and just life. Simply put, I had nothing to add to the conversation.

Now, it’s been a month since the nightmare of October 7, and only now have I been able to write anything. I think I’ve been in shock. I wouldn’t say denial, although I haven’t been able to watch any of the horrors or hear any stories of the heroes of that day. I would start crying and never stop.

This post will not be political or angry – though my constant doom scrolling might suggest that that’s what I want to write. Instead, I decided that I would share things that are not reported in the news in the West. This will not be a click-bait post about terrible things happening here. Jerusalem is a bubble, and we feel kind-of safe here, though I’m sure we’re not as safe as we think we are.

October 6

It was Friday night, and my neighborhood has continued to have Shabbat services in the park. The celebration was especially joyful with singing late into the night. It was the holiday of Simhat Torah (celebrating restarting the weekly readings of the Torah).

October 7

I was awakened at 8:15am by a strange noise. It wasn’t my alarm. It wasn’t anything electronic in my home. It took me a few seconds to understand that it was a siren. A SIREN. I grabbed my phone and tried to find out what was happening. I could hear my neighbors turning on radios and noises of moving around, but no panicking or hysteria.

My building is old and not equipped with a protected room. There are recommendations for safety in every scenario, so I knew that my bedroom was probably the safest place for me to be. The public shelter is in the park. It makes no sense to leave my home, go out into the street, walk for a minute, then enter the park to go into the shelter there. And I’m certainly not going out there in my pajamas.

There were a few more sirens that morning, but nothing after noon or so. Because it was Shabbat and a holiday, the news was slow to come out.

Normally on a Shabbat, I like to lounge around in my bathrobe, have a leisurely brunch, watch some shows, and putter around the house. Not on this day. I probably did something a little strange. After the second siren, I decided to take a shower, including washing my hair. I got dressed in clean clothes and put on tennis shoes. If anything should happen, at a minimum, I would be prepared. I’ve been wearing tennis shoes every day since then. If I have to run somewhere, at least I won’t be held back by improper shoes. My joke to myself is that these are my emotional support shoes. It’s not really funny, but they do make me feel better.

In the evening, we were notified that school had been canceled, workplaces that don’t have proper shelters will be closed, gatherings would be basically forbidden, and we should all stay home as much as possible.

My work let all of us know that if we were able to come in, we should.

October 8

(Don’t worry, this isn’t a day by day diary, I’m just trying to give a little context.)

The first text message I got in the morning was from my health fund. They wrote to let us know that services might be slowed down during this time, but a hotline was opened for anyone having any mental or emotional struggles at this time.

When I went out, I was immediately struck by how quiet it was – very little traffic, few people on the street, businesses closed. I called it COVID quiet.

On this day, we were just learning who had been called to reserve duty, whose family members had been called up, who had lost loved ones, who had families in danger. The horror stories were slowly being revealed. The number of hostages was rising. The shock of the atrocities was a cloud over all of us. It still is.

Since then

Reserves were called immediately. Some who were not called, came voluntarily. They called 300,000 reservists, 360,000 showed up.

Calls to action by every kind of Jewish organization in Israel and outside of Israel came right away – for food, for clothes, for additional protective and field gear for soldiers, for funds for more ambulances and medical personnel and supplies, for blood drives, for sheltering animals who were left in the communities or whose owners were killed, for workers to help in the agricultural areas in the south.

It’s estimated almost 50% of Israelis have done some kind of volunteer work this month.

Social media influencers went into overdrive for Israel. Among them are Christian and Muslim Arab Israelis.

Within a day or two, billboards were covered with images of the Israeli flag. Just before President Biden’s visit, there was a huge banner with his image, the US flag, and the word “Thanks!” This week, I saw kidnapped posters. The light show on the walls of the Old City was images of the kidnapped.

Couples who had plans to get married later decided to get married now. Rather than a honeymoon, the men, and sometimes the women too, went to their reserve duty.

Israeli hospitals moved their wards into underground parking garages. They have full care facilities and operating theaters set up, and patients are protected.

It’s not easy to purchase and keep a gun in Israel. But after October 7 and after people heard that the slain usually didn’t have a weapon nearby, gun permit requests went sky-high. They expedited the process so that the paperwork would be processed more quickly and rather than a face-to-face interview, it could be done over the phone. It will still take a few weeks to process each request.

There are approximately 300,000 evacuees (from southern communities, but now also from the north) in hotels. Some real estate management companies have opened up empty homes to house families from the evacuated areas. Businesses are coming up with free activities for them so they don’t feel so isolated, alone, or abandoned. For example, the Cinemateque is screening feel-good movies three times a day for free, museums are offering free entrance and in-person activities at the hotels, retailers are offering percentages of purchases going to help evacuees. Most of the time, the programs are called something like “embracing evacuees.”

Many nights have been silent. In regular times, you can hear people out and about or hear the traffic. But now, most nights are extremely quiet. You can hear the wind. You can hear low-flying planes and helicopters keeping watch in the sky.

Plant nurseries in the south had to sell all their plants as quickly as possible. I bought a bunch and started to work on my garden. I felt like I was planting hope.

The buses are equipped with audio recordings to let passengers know which stop is coming up and that if you don’t scan your card, you could face a big fine. During COVID times, the announcement reminded everyone to wear a mask. Last week, there was a new message: In regular times and in emergencies, Egged (the bus company) will be there to provide service. We are strong together, and we will get through this together.

I’ve started seeing the motto Together we will win. A few weeks ago, the country was divided and Netanyahu and his government were teetering on the edge of the abyss. But on October 7, the country said, we’ll deal with that later, right now, we need to act together to deal with this external existential threat. Rest assured there will be inquiries about the catastrophic failures of October 7 and the lack of leadership. But first we have to succeed in removing Hamas from the Gaza Strip. The only way Israel can move forward is by being together and united.

Random Observations

/ IlanaB / 2 Comments

The new world we live in is weird. Starting with the weather.

 

Traffic has been light in general, but it’s started to pick up as more places open. I rode a bus twice this week. I was on a double-length bus and there were only 6 passengers on it during “rush hour.” The next day I was on a regular bus during “rush hour” and was a little surprised to see 12 passengers. Passengers are not allowed to enter the bus through the front door or to sit in the seats near the driver.

Kids were back at school, but a  teacher tested positive for COVID-19, so they isolated the teachers and the kids and closed that school for two weeks.

An Israeli moment: A religious girl, probably about 10 years old and dressed in a school uniform of a long skirt and a long-sleeve button-down shirt, was in charge of getting her two younger sisters (twins, I think) to school by bus. The older one was wearing a mask and the younger ones, probably about 5 or 6, weren’t masked. It’s not uncommon for older siblings, even at this age, to be in charge of their younger siblings. But now it involves being responsible enough to properly wear a mask in public at such a young age.

I’d been hearing Shabbat services in the park for the past few Fridays. Now that synagogues are open again, I found that I missed hearing the singing yesterday.

Most mornings on my way to the office, I saw a group of men wearing prayer shawls walking home after holding morning services on a street corner. I’ve kind of missed seeing them lately as well.

People are out and about. They are lax about wearing masks over both their mouths and noses – the underside of people’s chins seem to be overly protected by masks though.

Friday was Jerusalem Day. Usually there’s a parade and a lot of celebrations. I heard nothing. I saw nothing. It was barely a blip this year for me.

Next week, restaurants will open for seated customers (take-away was always available), and we’ll have to see how things go. Will new cases spike or has the virus played itself out for now? Based on the virus genome structure, they found that 70% of Israel’s cases came from the US and the virus was spread by a small number people. Weirdly, that means it wasn’t from ordinary tourists, but people who come to Israel and have a lot of interaction with Israeli citizens. What does that mean for tourism (a huge industry for Jerusalem)? It’s anyone’s guess.

The strangeness of the new normal will eventually fade, and the new normal will just be normal. We’ll all wonder how we ever got along without a supply of surgical masks and disposable gloves at home. I mean, you’ve been using alcohol-based hand sanitizer for ages already, right?

Don’t Panic, Pt. 2: Keep your distance

/ IlanaB / 2 Comments

First and most importantly, I wish speedy and complete recovery to all those who are ill with COVID-19 and continued good health for those who are asymptomatic and in quarantine.

I delayed writing because the situation in Israel is changing hourly and while there will be more to come, now is a good time to catch up.

After the third election, there was still no coalition, but because of the coronavirus, elected officials understood that now is the time to act in unity to protect Israel and its people. Corruption and massive egos get pushed aside when Israel is under threat.

On Thursday, Israel closed its borders. Tourists are not allowed in the country unless they can prove they have a home (not a hotel) to self-quarantine for two weeks. Schools were officially closed until after Passover (mid-April).

Also on Thursday night, a huge storm blew across Israel with high winds and chances of flooding in the Dead Sea and Negev. Coincidence or Divine Directive to stay home?

On Friday morning, normally a busy time in Jerusalem even on rainy days, the streets were quite empty. There are images of a nearly empty Western Wall plaza, nearly empty Mahane Yehuda (the open air market), and few people on the outdoor shopping streets (Ben Yehuda and Mamilla).

As of Saturday evening (see sections of Netanyahu’s speech with simultaneous English translation), entertainment and cultural activities are closed, including cafes and malls. Gatherings of 10+ people are no longer allowed. We are asked to keep 2 meters (6 feet) away from others. Netanyahu said we are at war with an invisible enemy.

We are not in lock-down, but we’re getting there.

This is where we are now

The main article making the rounds right now is “Corona Virus: Why You Must Act Now” (available in 19 languages). It’s a pretty scary article backed by a lot of graphs, statistical models, and historical analysis of the 1918 flu pandemic. Bottom line: Social distancing, containment, early action.

I skimmed it and am quite comfortable with Israel’s policies – even if they get a lot more invasive (and they will).

Getting in touch with our humanity, virtually 

My friend in Milan is taking the lock-down philosophically. He can’t go anywhere for a month, so he thought it would be a good time for some self-reflection and life evaluation.

Facebook is filling up with quarantine support groups and offers of small group activities for children.

Asymptomatic but quarantined religious women in Israel are expecting to have more time to clean for Passover.

A Hebrew Ulpan is offering Hebrew classes online (free).

Economic safety nets are showing up using online technology. Tour guides have been hit hard by the closed borders and one company decided to try something different: virtual tours given by real guides on location to families in their homes around the world.

The main Tai Chi group in Israel is offering stress-relieving Qigong meditation classes online (for free).

Thoughts for now

Reasoned, thoughtful action is what will get the world through this mess.

Panic will only lead to irrational toilet paper and hand sanitizer hoarding. Let’s elevate ourselves above that.

 

 

 

 

Big news week. Or is it?

/ IlanaB / Leave a comment

If you read any of the insane headlines this week, it might seem as if the world is on a high-speed crazy train to WTF-ville. But we’ll keep the focus on Israel.

Two and a half “big” things happened that got a lot of people talking, but the public seems to have responded with a collective yawn.

The Peace Plan

Finally, the “deal of the century” was delivered. Since we are in the middle of our third election, both major party leaders, Netanyahu and Gantz, went to Washington to shake hands with Trump and accept it. As I’ve said in many blog posts, Israel wants peace with its neighbors, without sacrificing security. In this case, neither party has anything to lose by showing early support.

Lots of people in Israel don’t like the plan, but most are pretty sure it will never happen. It’s simply not worth getting excited about. Palestinian leadership called for a “day of rage” while the Palestinian people said “whatever.”

So: Whose election is this good for? Will this nearly impossible-to-implement plan win enough points to overlook corruption and abuse of power?

Release of Israeli in Russia

A young woman passed through the Moscow airport coming home to Israel from India. She was accused of having drugs in her bag. The charges spiraled and she was eventually sentenced to 7.5 years in a Russian prison. She maintained her innocence all along.

This week Netanyahu got her out and went to pick her up in Moscow to fly her home on his private plane. Photo ops abound. They led to a lot of cynical (but hilarious!) memes.

Because again: Whose election is this good for? What did Netanyahu offer Putin to get this deal?

Immunity? I don’t need no stinkin’ immunity!

Netanyahu gave up his bid for immunity in the Knesset and corruption charges were immediately filed against him. The trial will likely get pushed to after the election.

If he wins the election, he expects to come up with some kind of deal to keep himself out of jail.

And that’s where we are

Elections are on March 2. Do we live in a country where handshakes with Trump and Putin paired with gargantuan hubris win elections? Let’s hope not. But I’m afraid that voter apathy and maintenance of the status quo will be enough to secure a fifth term. Perhaps that will finally start a conversation about term limits.

News through an Israeli lens

/ IlanaB / 1 Comment

Like any other country, Israel looks at world news through its own lens.

UK Election: Thank God that anti-Semite party wasn’t elected! Although if the Jews no longer felt welcome in Britain, they are definitely welcome here.

US Impeachment Hearings: What’s an impeachment?

At White House Chanukah Party, Trump signs Executive Order to Punish Campuses for Allowing Anti-Semitism: Whadda guy! Although the guest list was kind-of ^eye-roll^

Shooting in New Jersey: We are watching.

The Reimann family (owners of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, among other well-known brands)  committed to righting its Nazi sympathizer past and will track down people who were forced to work for them during the Holocaust to give them compensation. They are also committing EUR 25 million annually for Holocaust education: ^Nods of approval^

Finland’s Prime Minister is a 34-year-old Woman: ^crickets^

Meanwhile, here in Israel, we have our own issues.

On the way to a third election within a year: Seriously?!?!?!?

Netanyahu will not step down: Likud is having another leadership election. Netanyahu is trying to get support for direct elections for prime minister. Netanyahu keeps using the terms “witch hunt,” “attempted coup,” and “fake news.” (I wonder where he got the idea?)

And finally, watching American TV through my own Israeli lens.

An Israeli philosopher was mentioned on Chuck Lorre’s vanity card after Young Sheldon.

chuck lorre

 

 

A Wall, a Fence, and Border Security

/ IlanaB / 5 Comments

Israel’s border security is the inspiration for the US’s southern border security solutions. Our security doesn’t involve surrounding the whole country with 35-foot-tall concrete slabs. We built smart fences with layered security. Only 5% of the security barrier in the West Bank built to stop terrorism consists of very tall concrete slabs.

Here I’ll focus on the border fence built between Egypt and Israel to stop the flow of unauthorized migration from Africa.

The February 2017 US Senate report (you can read it here) compares the efficiency and efficacy of Israel’s border security to that of the already existing southern US border solutions. Israel’s fence is better by far.

fence

  • 150 miles of fence cost US$415 million
  • Yearly maintenance cost is US$58 thousand per mile
  • It was built in 2 years and the physical structure is made of rebar, barbed wire, and concrete buried underground
  • It’s about 15 feet tall
  • There was a 10-mile section that was easier to breach so they raised that section to 25 feet

Does Israel’s fence “work”? Yes. From tens of thousands of migrants coming through the border, last year fewer than 20 came through.

But here’s what the security fence didn’t do:

  • Write a formal immigration policy for Israel (it never occurred to anyone that non-Jewish people would want to live in a Jewish state, so there are guidelines but no formal policy for people who fall outside the definition provided by the Law of Return)
  • Deal with the tens of thousands of migrants already in Israel
  • Deal with security or trafficking at airports, maritime ports, or any other points of entry not covered by the fence

If the US followed Israel’s plan, here’s what should happen:

  • The US southern border needs about 13 of Israel’s fences (all things being equal), so it should cost US$5.4 billion. This doesn’t take into account terrain differences, proper oversight, consistency, eminent domain issues, etc. Even if you round up for other factors, let’s say US$10 billion
  • It should cost $112 million dollars per year for maintenance

The US already has 650 miles of fence.

  • The lower estimate given by the Senate report says it cost $2.3 billion (though another report says over the years it has been $7 billion). At US prices, Israel’s 150-mile fence would have cost US$530 million (or up to $1.6 billion)
  • Maintenance today on the US fence is US$77,000 annually per mile (or almost US$20,000 more per mile than Israel’s)

In short, the existing US fence was more expensive to build and is more expensive to maintain. But somehow it’s not effective. If the US builds a new fence using a plan based on anything other than Israel’s fence, it will be a case of throwing good money after bad.

Israel’s fence deals with a specific issue: unauthorized African migration, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan.

The US southern border fence claims it will deal with two specific issues: immigration and crime. So I checked a few statistics.

So if the border security “works,” it will stop approximately 400,000 people from entering the US via the southern border. It will do nothing about visa overstayers, nothing about “unauthorized” immigrants already residing in the US, nothing about immigration policy, nothing against any kind of trafficking (most likely), nothing for any other border sector, airport, or maritime port, and nothing about immigration from any other region than Mexico and Central America. It will also probably be over budget and improperly and expensively maintained. In addition, those who might have come via the southern border will likely find alternate routes.

Trump’s US border wall is a Golden Calf. Some will bow down and genuflect to its glittery greatness, and it might even make some people feel better. But like a statue, no matter how much you pray to it, it won’t actually do much.

The Rule of Law

/ IlanaB / Leave a comment

One of the big headlines in Israel this week is that the Supreme Court of Israel ruled to allow a student to enter the country to attend Hebrew University in a Master’s program even though this student has a history of supporting the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement against Israel. It was among the first test cases of the anti-BDS entry law that Israel passed last year blocking entry to Israel of people who actively advocate BDS and act against Israel. (*Note: this is not the law that allows suing for damages if Israel is harmed by BDS activism. That was a different test case.)

Crash course on Israel’s governmental structure

Israel is not at all like the US system and is much more similar to the UK system. The Prime Minister is the head of the party that wins the election (thus the executive branch and legislative branch are combined). The President of Israel is a ceremonial position and is filled by a person elected by the Knesset, usually after a long career in politics. The President appoints the 15-member Supreme Court based on the recommendations of a judicial committee. Judges on the Supreme Court may serve until the age of 70 unless they resign for other reasons.

The Supreme Court in Israel serves two functions. Like the US Supreme Court, it is the final court of appeal. But unlike the US Supreme Court, the Supreme Court in Israel – operating as the High Court of Justice – may also hear petitions to rule on the legality of laws or other issues that would not normally be heard in a court of law. Since Israel doesn’t have a constitution, the Court uses the Basic Laws of Israel as its guide.

In 2017, a law was passed in the Knesset that said that a non-citizen who actively uses a public forum to call for a boycott of Israel and has a reasonable expectation of causing a boycott to occur, can be barred from entering Israel. This more-or-less applies to leaders of organizations, not someone who supports BDS on Facebook.

scales-145464_1280

It’s pretty divisive issue in Israel. The Left says that the law and its application violates freedom of speech and that Israel has nothing to hide. The Right points out that the democratically elected members of Knesset are acting on behalf of the will of the people and defending Israel at the border against enemy agents trying to destroy Israel from within.

Other BDS activists/supporters have been turned away at the airport, but the student in question here decided to take it to court.

The Court ruled that the law itself was in accordance with the Basic Laws, but that it did not apply in the student’s case. She claimed not to be involved in BDS for the last year and a half and was not planning to be a BDS activist while in Israel. So she’ll be starting at Hebrew U. next week.

Two comments

Academia the world over tends to lean to the left and it’s the case in Israel too. There are a good number of Israeli academics who support the BDS movement – even if it sometimes backfires and they themselves are uninvited to conferences or blackballed in publications. So while it seems on the face of it that the student wanting to attend Hebrew University, and who was backed in court by Hebrew U., is not supportive of BDS, I’m not so sure that it is quite so clear-cut. I guess we’ll see what this student does while she’s here.

This court case is a microcosm of the existential question of what kind of state Israel will be. Will Israel be a state of wide-ranging freedom for all or a repressive state that only allows opinions that agree with the majority?

And that’s where the Court comes in. It should not be a question of political Left or Right, but a question of what is just, not only legal. When the Court took upon itself the responsibility of protecting human rights, the Right called it an “activist court.” And when the Court allows a law to stand that the Left feels is repressive, the Left calls the Court a “rubber stamp.” The truth, of course, is somewhere in between. The Court must act to stop tyranny of the majority, but they must also allow the state to act on behalf of the safety and security of its citizens. The principle is simple, the application is complicated.

“Justice, justice shall you pursue.” – Deuteronomy 16:20

palace-of-justice-1088522_1920

Palace of Justice, Jerusalem

A Thought about Yom Kippur

/ IlanaB / 5 Comments

When I worked at the University of Washington, I asked to take Yom Kippur off.

“Will you be going to synagogue?”

“No.”

“Will you be fasting?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet.”

“Then why are you taking it off?”

**what?**

I hated that conversation. And I love the fact that I’ve never had to have that conversation in Israel.

I usually go to the Kotel (Western Wall) for Yom Kippur, but I live further away now and it’s probably going to be hot, even in the morning. I don’t know if I want to walk 2 hours round trip to have a few words with God. God is everywhere, right? So I should be able to stay home.

And that is the beauty of living in Israel. No one will question what I choose to do on Yom Kippur and no matter what I do, I don’t feel any less Jewish.

light-1670175_1920.jpg

In the US, there’s a lot of effort that goes into maintaining a connection with Judaism. You have to plan ahead to coordinate holidays; if you want a community, you have to join a synagogue or community center (often paying dues and fees); if you want to be more religious, you have to shop at certain stores, live in certain neighborhoods, reorder your life slightly out of step with the surrounding community. It’s hard.

Here in Israel, I can effortlessly connect to my Jewish heritage. The nation functions on the Jewish calendar, I can walk into any synagogue at any time or never walk into any synagogue ever, I’m in-step with everyone and everything around me. I don’t have to try so hard.

I sound lazy, I’m sure. But it feels to me like my soul is planted in the fertile soil that it needs so that I can grow in other directions.

My dad had a pin that he liked a lot. He probably got it from Chabad. It said: “We never lost it.” I asked him what it meant and he said that we never lost the answers. I was about seven, so it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Now I can see that even if you never lost a thing, sometimes it doesn’t always fit properly. But once it’s in its rightful place, everything else seems to realign itself.

I never lost my Judaism, I just didn’t have a way to make it fit properly for me in the US. Now that I’m in Israel, I feel that everything is in its rightful place no matter what I do on Yom Kippur.

***

I’m sorry if my posts offended anyone. I’m sorry that some posts got a bit too long. I’m sorry if I misrepresented something or someone my writing. I hope you can forgive me. I will try to do better next year.

Wishing everyone a Gmar Chatima Tova!
May you be written and sealed in the Book of Life!
May you have a meaningful fast (if you’re fasting)!

***

Traditional Yom Kippur posts: 2015 | 2016 | 2017