But first...
Immigrating to Israel
So, I decided to take the plunge! Many of you know I'd been debating making aliyah for the last few years, and I decided to go for it. Basically, I feel more alive here, I feel like I can better relate to society as a whole and am more on board with the national project here than elsewhere. I really identify with the land historically and spiritually, and I connect with people in a really different way here, and I feel like I could really contribute and build something here. I also feel that if I'm going to do it, now's the time, when this past year was a "soft landing" of sorts, and I'm finally starting to grasp the language and know my way around and the ins-and-outs. And if you're wondering, I do retain my American citizenship. I'm a dual citizen. Anyway, if you're reading this blog, you've probably caught on for a while that I really thrive in Israel, so it's exciting to dive in!
If you have at least one Jewish grandparent, immigrating to Israel is really easy. I had to spend a few hours filling out and scanning paperwork, then I had to go to the Jewish Agency office in Jerusalem for an interview, which basically consisted of a friendly but sardonic dude asking me what I was thinking and then rubber stamping me. Israel gives a lot of assistance to new (Jewish) immigrants, financially and in terms of support and opportunities, so that's really going to help. I also got a job! At least, temporarily. I'll be teaching a summer course in public speaking at a fabulous small college in Jerusalem, which I am so excited about.
I went to the TEDx conference in Jerusalem! It was great to see so many innovators in Israel.
Matat took me to see The Apples, whom I now love. It was so fun to let loose and dance, it'd been a while since I'd seen live music, and I'd forgotten how much I love it.
I went to a wedding with Roy! It was so fun. Weddings are much more relaxed here than in the states, you can wear much more comfortable clothing and there's a lot more intoxication and in my opinion, more people dance. Also the food is great.
There were also these peacocks wandering around the wedding site, and of course we all took pictures.
Peacock!
They gave us fun photo props!
After the wedding, we were all pretty tipsy so we couldn't immediately drive back to Tel Aviv. We went out to the beach to take a 4 hour nap, and when we went over the hill we saw this gorgeous sunset over the sea, and at the same time we all cried out "WaaaahhhhHHHWoooooaaaaa!" It was really breath taking in person, a photo can't capture it.
Sunset and Me!
We went on a tour of the settlements in the West Bank! This is a view from one of the settlements. Ah beautiful, contested land!
Rivka, Me, Sam
A settler family telling us about their lives and why they choose to live in a settlement. Mostly people cited our Biblical claim to the land, protecting Israel proper from security threats, and how beautiful and peaceful it is.
We visited Aish Kodesh ("Holy Fire") an 'illegal' settlement. It was beautiful and they people were really friendly.
Blurry photo, but I wanted to show that many of them are also armed. Aish Kodesh has frequently been the target of violence and farm vandalism, so some residents choose to arm themselves. There's also an IDF presence. The weapon is registered - I asked, of course :).
Here are some notes from our speakers that day:
-The distance from Ben Gurion Airport to the West Bank is shorter than the distance from JFK to Laguardia. What that means for security is that if we evacuate the West Bank, anyone with ill intentions towards Israel could easily stand on top of a hill in the West Bank and fire rockets down at the airport with even your garden-variety launcher.
From Dani Dayan:
-"The Palestinians will have to accept that they tried to take the entire area by force and that came with a price tag. It has a price tag. And yes, they will realize less of their national aspirations than they had hoped, and that is a result of their own decisions. And when they recognize that, then maybe we can work towards a fruitful solution."
-"As long as (The Palestinians) see Israel as a successful colonial project and not a legitimate nation with a right to exist, there is no hope."
-"Since we are not colonists, but we are seen by the other side as such... this is the conflict in a nutshell and this is why it cannot be solved. Because it is an asymmetrical one."
-"If I have to define a Jewish State, in the way I am not willing to give up under any circumstances, it would b exemplified in the Solomon Operation. I am not willing to give that up, or to have to negotiate with an ethnic minority about if it is okay to do something like that at a moment's notice."
From Eugene Kontorovich:
-The Armistice Agreement Line (the edge of the West Bank) is based on the Israeli and Jordanian colonels stating where their troops were at the end of the war. The "Green Line" (Another name for the Armistice Agreement Line) was as far as the Arab troops got into Israel before an agreement was reached. If you believe in this line, then you have to believe what the line actually says: it is not a border. It was never a border. It was merely the positioning of troops at the end of the battle.
-"Why do people protest in Israel and not in Morocco? Or Armenia? Because here, activists are invited! Protected! Celebrated! And there you'd be dead! And people prefer to be prize-winning activists than dead!"
-The settlements in the West Bank are not actually against international law at all.
(There's a fascinating explanation for this, but it's to complicated for me to write here. I'll be home in the US this summer if you want to get coffee and hear about his perspective! Or you can google his talks.)
Our Bus Driver Randomly Said:
"Only one thing today is true... a kind word with a gun goes a lot farther than a kind word alone."
Friends Being Silly!
Gorgeous blooms in Tel Aviv
More gorgeous flowers!!
Tel Aviv Pride Parade! It was so fun. Packed with people for miles. Music, dancing, and people throwing lots of water from rooftops.
Pride!
Meretz, the far left party, advertised at the parade.
Sam and me at pride!
And of course, the city was alive and packed as the Middle Eastern gay community gathered in Tel Aviv for such events as "Tel-A-Beef"
Yeah! Now let's give all genders civil rights! How about it? :D
The same week, there was a birthright megaevent in TLV, in which tons of birthright busses gathered in one spot and did whatever it is they do together. It was so fun to see all the baby birthrighters in Israel for the first time! Ah, memories.
I like hanging around music shops with Roy. I mean, who wouldn't? <3
My roomies Ido and Yahli and I went on a road trip to surprise Batsheva, who was in the south on a birthright trip. We stopped at this odd road-side extravaganza. It had this oil well.
And this really cute goat
And this really pretty horse. And chickens. And an inflatable bouncy castle.
And jahnun!
And then we went to this place called "The Hill of Tom and Tomer" which is a memorial primarily to these two guys who died in a crazy helicopter accident. This pole has a dove for every person who died.
A headline with all the victims
This stump played various patriotic music on demand
My soldier roomies automatically saluted when they heard
We also stopped for gas at this place...? Which is in Abu Gosh... which is an Arab town outside of Jerusalem. Why??
Who really cares why?
Yahli, Ido, and I had one last dinner together. I don't know where the year went. Ido said, "A lot of people live in Tel Aviv, but not a lot of people really have a home here. We're lucky." And he's so right. I could not have dreamed up better roomies this year, or a better place to live. I love you guys! Thank you for being my home and family in Israel!! <3 <3
I like this
I tend to live in places that proudly celebrate robbing and overthrowing the British :D
I helped a startup film a kickstarter video. It was really fun! I can't wait to see it.
And Roy and I starred in the homework assignment of his friend Guy, a film student. It's cute and fun!
The school year ended, so I had to say goodbye to the girls I teach every week at the elementary school. They were the BEST and I adore them and I think they're going to go far. This is Najwa, Sara, and Janat is being saucy as always. She's the least shy person in the world, but apparently you take out a camera and she hides.
They have a really small library and this is one of their books. Hm.
I also like this, because it's true.
Jerusalem continues to be totally gorgeous and magical
The mountains near the Dead Sea!
OoooooooooOOoooh
But alas, the Dead Sea is shrinking really fast. This is where the shore was in 1984. You can't see here but the shore is now... I don't know, 100 yards away from here? 200?
Samaria also continues to be beautiful! I went to Rivka's house for shavuot lunch
And Matat's for Shavuot dinner! I felt so loved! Thanks ladies <3
Matat, her Grandma the pioneer, and Me
In all cases, there was tons of amazing cheese. Shavuot is the holiday of cheese. (And the holiday of when we received the Torah.) And it's the holiday of little orthodox children having watergun fights, because "water is essential to life, like the Torah."
And Dorotnikim went to Klil, this interesting wealthy hippy town in the north that is home to many artists and journalists and turns all its lights off at night and composts a lot.
And there was sacred singing in a teepee! It was beautiful, actually.
Roy's band had their very first performance at Shenkar College! It was GREAT. They are so talented. I'm so excited to see what they do.
And he let me play with his pedal board after :D
I have a map of Israel on my wall with little hearts for all the places I want to go, and stars for places I've been.
All year, the heart I most wanted to check off was Tel Chai. It was also maybe the hardest to check off because it's kind of tough to get there and my Israeli friends aren't super enthused about going to the faaaarthest north place in the country. But Roy and I took a weekend up north and we went!
Tel Chai is mostly known for a 1920 skirmish against raiding Arabs which resulted in the death of several kibbutz members and military leader Josef Trumpeldor. It's a bit of a symbol of endurance against odds, which is the theme of the central Jewish national story, really.
But aside from Zionist glory stories (which, let's face it, would get me to show up anyway), I really wanted to go because in Tel Chai's beautiful cemetary is a statue carved by a relative of mine, Avraham Melnikov.
I can't remember exactly the link... he was either my Grandmother's cousin, or her uncle. Something like that.
Anyway, he was born in Bessarabia and studied in the US and moved to Israel, where he helped found an art foundation and sculpted a lot. The rest of his story goes way downhill, but FIRST, he made a pretty famous statue to the battle of Tel Chai:
It says "It's good to die for our country", supposedly Trumpeldor's last words, and the names of those who died.
For me, it's amazing to be related to someone connected with the Israeli landscape and with Zionist history, because obviously I'm a big obsessed with these things. It was really moving for me to get to see the monument in person.
Three Israeli Lions!
And as it turns out, Avraham and his wife are buried right behind the lion!
In Jewish tradition (those of you who read ETHER might remember) you leave a stone on graves you visit, so that people who come after you see someone else feels the same pain and remember the same person and it makes them feel less alone. Well, the little stone is mine... but who put the big one?!?! It's a mystery. I do feel less alone :)
Amazing view from Avraham's grave. If you have to die for your country, this is a pretty "good" place to do it.
Roy and his Mom, holding water. Before we left for our little road trip, she followed us out the door and poured water at our feet, as per Libyan tradition. She said her mother would do that to her before all her big trips, because it symbolizes the waves, which go out and then always come back in, like travelers should do.
I wanted to put this last because I'm typing this in the Frankfurt airport, on my way to the states for about a month before I immigrate to Israel in July. Am I going out or coming back in? It feels like both at the same time, going out from Israel, coming back to the States. And in July, I know I'll feel like I'm going out from the States, but coming back in to Israel. I think, for now, I'm pretty satisfied with that. How lucky to have two homes. I'm always coming home. I feel like that's been a huge theme for me this year, finding home, building home, being homesick while still being at home.
It's hard to believe this year is over. I feel like I've come so far from last August. There are measurable differences... my language skills are so much better, I built a social circle for myself, I went to a hundred new places and tried a hundred new foods and learned so much about my heritage and traditions and the modern state built on top of and beside those things.
But I think the bigger things are far less quantifiable. I'm so much more self reliant. I'm so much more at peace with who I am. I'm so much more flexible, more willing to wait and see, more comfortable with the unknown and the uncontrollable and unpredictable. I just have this sensation that my bones and my muscles and my mind and my emotions are bonded together in a way they weren't before, and are operating cooperatively with each other. Which seems like it should be a baseline of living, but I see now that I was somehow living without.
I'm grateful for Dorot for supporting me in this amazing year of adventures. I promise I'm going to do something amazing someday and you'll think it was a good decision!
Thank you to everyone I love in Israel, my home, for being with me through everything this year, and sharing this extraordinary country with me, and welcoming me, and making me feel like I belong, too.
And thank you to everyone I love in the States, my home, for making me feel close to you always, as far away as I am, and all the skype sessions, and all the blubbering and elated phone calls. Being a Jew in the Jewish state is amazing. And being a misfit in the American States is amazing too, thanks to you.
I'm going home/I'm coming home/I'm coming back home!
Always coming back home.
