Hativka Still Makes Me Cry 22/7/08

This has been a huge week. And it is still only Tuesday. The week started out with the fast of the 17th of Tamuz where we begin the mourning period leading up to the 9th of Av. The 17th of Tamuz mourns the processes that was set in motion and brought about the destruction of the Temple and the theft of the holy vessels. It is supposed to be a very sad day even though I unfortunately have a hard time truly connecting to it. I fasted nonetheless and spending a day not eating or drinking is enough to make anyone start thinking. And with last weeks return home of 2 of our missing soldiers, there was plenty to think about. I am very torn about how I feel about the seemingly outrageous price that we paid to get back 2 badly preserved bodies while at the same time being proud that Israel is a place that will try to get its soldiers home no matter what. Daniel Gordis has a very moving piece that looks at the prisoner swap in a very positive light.

Yesterday I went to my new apartment to check on our new paint job. It is so exciting to have a place of my own where I can do whatever I want with and really make my true home. The wedding is in 3 weeks and 2 days and it makes me so excited to be working on building our home together.

From the apartment I went to meet up with my cousins, the Metzgers, to drive all the way down to Mitzpe Ramon (most of the way down to Eilat) for Lia’s graduation from Officers School. The ceremony itself was pretty standard and no that exciting, but getting to watch almost 400 young Israelis, most of them younger than me, becoming officers was a great experience. Unfortunately this country is a place where the military is a necessity and war is always on the horizon. With the reports of increasing draft dodging, knowing that there are still hundreds of soldiers who feel it is necessary to serve our country on a higher level is reassuring. The thing that touched me the most about the tekes was how emotional I still am during the singing of Hatikva, Israel’s national anthem. It has been over a year and I still tear up if not cry full out whenever the anthem is sung. The feeling was even more powerful standing in a stadium of hundreds of new officers and thousands of proud parents, siblings, and friends who all are proud to be part of this place. Sometimes I feel a bit like a cheese-ball for being so emotional, but I keep reminding myself that the very existence of this country is a miracle and it is a miracle to be part of it.

This morning I woke up bright and early at 5:15 to head to the airport to help welcome my friend Arielle’s flight. She is moving here by herself, going to the Israeli version of the seminary program I attended, and then going into the army as part of their program. I think she is even braver than I am and feel really proud to be her friend. This was my first time to a Nefesh B Nefesh welcoming ceremony since my own and it was wonderful to be there as a ‘veteran’. They had something really neat set up for the flight: in addition to broadcasting the whole thing live on the internet for the benefit of family and friends all over the world, they had the feed up on the screens in the reception hall so we could watch everyone disembarking. Arielle was one of the first off the plane so I rushed to the entrance to be able to meet her bus. When she came out I ran and gave her a huge hug and we both started sobbing. There are few people who can truly understand what it feels like to leave everything you know and love to come to a difficult place out of love and staunch ideology. It is comforting to be able to share my life experiences with such people. There are pictures of us on the arutz 7 website (link) I am the one who is hugging someone and I’m wearing a bright yellow shirt with white polka dots. We danced with some of her other friends and then went back inside for the rest of the “fesitivities”.

The main attraction though was an 88 year old woman who was making Aliyah. She is a Holocaust survivor who attempted to move to Israel once before the Holocaust and then again on the Exodus. She didn’t make it either time and today she finally realized her dream of becoming an Israeli citizen. She was ceremoniously awarded her Immigrant Document to a standing ovation from a crowd of over 700 people. It was very moving and absolutely fantastic to get to be part of her finally realizing her dream.

When we stood to sing Hativka Arielle barely made it through the first 3 words before she started sobbing and I was crying silently beside her. Twice in two days I felt the powerful emotions that drew me here much stronger than usual. I was proud to be here and I shared in her joy and disbelief that she is finally an Israeli after so much time planning and waiting and wishing. This is not an easy place to be but I still believe that it is the only place to be.

Unfortunately, this afternoon there was yet more reason for crying. Our dream as expressed in the anthem “To be a free nation in our own land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem” was once again threatened. A copycat terrorist took a bulldozer from his place of work and went on another rampage in downtown Jerusalem, this time much closer to my home. Fortunatley no one was killed this time and only 1 person is considered to have been “seriously” injured. The terrorist, an Israeli ID carrying East Jerusalem resident, was killed. The second terror attack in 3 weeks of this kind makes me sad and upset and a little bit scared. I also feel frusteration and despair. On the one hand we want to make the Palestinians life as easy as possible, but on the other hand there are people who really do want to kill us. How do we survive with our lives and our hearts intact? Is there a solution? Will there ever be one that will work that doesn’t include a devastating war and the decimation of an entire people (please G-d that it won’t be us who is decimated once again)?

I have Tikva , hope, that one day things here will be peaceful, but for now I try my best to keep my head up high and not to loose hope.

I Live in a Beautiful Country 7/7/08

Last week I had the distinct pleasure of riding the train all the way from Jerusalem up to Haifa. As I was sitting in the train car and looking out of the window I couldn’t stop feeling overwhelmed by the breathtaking beauty. I was further overwhelmed by the drastic landscape changes that occurred approximately every 20 minutes. It is truly amazing to me that in this tiny little strip of land in the middle of a vast desert we have almost every single type of topography and climate region (obviously of the warm ones!) If you ever get a change to ride the train I highly recommend it: it offers a view of Israel unparalleled to any other I have seen and everyone can enjoy because no one has to drive! (Oh gosh I am such a commercial!!)

This past month has been pretty intense and jam-packed. I am officially finished with school and included in that is an exemption from ever taking a Hebrew Language course again. To attest to the success of my program I am currently in the middle of a popular Modern Hebrew book and I am understanding and enjoying almost as much as I would a book written in English. I am finding that my Hebrew has really made the progress that I was looking for and that overall this has been an incredibly successful year.

Wedding planning is going fantastically. I have had a few stress-induced breakdowns but for the most part things are going well. My goal is to take care of as many things as far in advance as possible so that when the wedding actually arrives I can be relaxed and just focus on being happy and excited. So far so good. I have been running around like a maniac for the last week and a half and my to-do list is rapidly shrinking!! Unfortunately it means that I am not having the super relaxing summer I was hoping for, but at least I am being productive!!

This Wednesday marks my 1 year anniversary of making Aliyah. Can you believe it? I can’t. This year I feel that I have more or less integrated myself into society (I can yell at obnoxious public workers at the post office etc. with the best of them!) and I really truly feel at home here. My Hebrew is improving all the time and now I just have to work on getting down the whole male/female concept and be able to properly integrate it into my speaking. I now have my very own Israeli drivers license and am learning to adapt my driving to this jungle of horrible horrible drivers.

David and I have officially taken possession of our apartment and will spend the next 5 weeks until we move in getting it ready for us to live in. It is a huge step to finally have a home of my own in addition to the whole getting married thing. I am getting super excited for the wedding! It is only 5 weeks away and I am already starting to go out of my mind with excitement and impatience. I just want to be married already! David is very busy in the army which is both good and bad, it shields him from a lot of the unnecessary wedding stuff and makes me more independent, but it also means he is left out of a lot of the decision making process. I guess that is what life is like when you are in the army—no matter what else you have going on in your life, some things are just more important. Fortunately he loves his unit and he loves his job. This will make the next almost 5 years easier if not absolutely pleasant.

This past year has also brought with it some less pleasant things. Two major terror attacks in Jerusalem have not been easy. I was not here during the Intefada and while “seasoned” and “hardened” veterans might react differently to the bad news I still take it to heart and very hard for a long time. I think the government is making more mistakes in dealing with our situation than should be tolerated and I pray that the government will fall soon and can be replaced with a more morally responsible and effective one. Despite it all I have no desire to leave and I have not for one minute regretted my decision to live here. Every day I feel more and more that Israel is my home. I love living here, and even after a year I still look out my window most mornings and the thought goes through my mind of “wow, I live here!”

Tomorrow a good friend of mine is going home so she can come back at the end of the month on a Nefesh B’ Nefesh aliyah flight. It is amazing seeing her and talking things over with her and reliving where I was a year ago. I have grown so much this year and feel that I have really starting truly growing into myself. I look forward to seeing where the next year will take me, but I will always know that this has been one of the best years of my life.