A Visit Home-land

As a Jewish professional, I spend a lot of time keeping up with news in Israel, teaching about Israel, talking about Israel. Sometimes it seems that Israel is more an idea or abstraction than a real place where actual people live, work, play, and love. We finally took a long-awaited trip to Israel last month, and got to experience the country in all its energy and immediacy. 

Palm trees in Israel collage: JHD

I lived in Israel from 1978-82 and two of our kids were born there. Since then I've been back half a dozen times. But due to my husband's stroke several years ago, we haven't attempted a trip back since 2009. So it was very exciting to be able to visit for two weeks there this December and spend time with old friends, and Avraham's large family there (he's one of 11 siblings; 9 of whom live in Israel). We were accompanied by two of our grown kids; our eldest daughter came for one week, and our son for two. (In fact, I credit our son for arranging the trip.) 

Being away for nearly a decade from a place you have lived makes you see it again with new eyes. In this and upcoming posts, I hope to share a few moments that stood out for me. 

One moment was on our first Shabbat. There's nothing like Shabbat in Israel: it IS the day of rest or recreation for just about everyone. Many people now have Friday off, so the Israeli weekend is Thursday evening through Saturday night. The stores are busy with people shopping for Shabbat. Delicious scents of cooking pervade the neighborhood. Stores close by mid-afternoon on Friday and there is a palpable sense of Shabbat on the way, whether you live in a "religious" (Orthodox) neighborhood or not. 
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On Shabbat afternoon we had lunch at one of Avraham's brother's homes. Israel is a small country, so it's delightfully common for grown kids and grandkids to come home for Shabbat. (In fact, Israelis are fabulously social and gregarious in general, so much so that I wonder how introverts manage). In the gentle December sun, we were seated out in the garden with flowers blooming and palm trees shading overhead. The food was delicious, the conversation flowed, and the atmosphere was pleasantly Mediterranean. I felt a real sense of Shabbat Shalom, Sabbath peace.  

Then the conversation turned to one of Avraham's niece's sons, who at just 16-1/2 is about to take his first round of tests before mandatory military service. His mother confided that she is really worried. For her and her sisters, going in the army (they lived on a kibbutz) was kind of fun, she said. But for the men she knows, it's too often been a source of trauma. Her coworkers, her own husband, and her father (as he later told me) have seen and experienced things during military service that left them with PTSD or experiences too painful to discuss. She hopes that won't happen to her two sons, but she's afraid that it will. She thinks it might be good if her son gets an office job in the military, but knows that he will probably aspire to be in a combat unit because of the prestige it holds among his peers. 

I felt for our niece, raising her sons to be sensitive and caring, and then, at the age that we send our kids to college, sending them to the military (2 years, 8 months for men and 2 years, 3 months for women). In the USA, military service is voluntary, but in Israel it's required (although not fulfilled by all, including most of the ultra-Orthodox, which is a sore point). Her father and husband both served in combat units, and maybe her sons will, too. They are part of a decades long conflict with no end in sight.

This wasn't the moment to analyze the politics of the conflict; it was a moment of recognition. A recognition that this is all part of the Israeli reality: a beautiful and dynamic country, sunshine and Shabbat, family and friends, and yet along with it the constant underlying reality of national conflict and military service for one's children. When we work for or pray for peace upon Israel, it shouldn't just be an abstraction, but a real and urgent yearning for Shalom. 

View of the Old City of Jerusalem from the Haas Promenade, Julie Danan