Bittersweet

Gate A4 at JFK was full to capacity. Standing room only for passengers waiting to board the ELAL flight to Israel on Rosh Chodesh Elul. The departure lounge included young families returning from their summer vacation in the States, scores of youngsters on their way to at least a year of study in Israel, and a few older members of the tribe, myself and my daughter Aviva, returning from a long overdue visit with family and friends whom we had not seen in years.

I remember my first return visit from Israel to the States, a young mother holding a 10- month-old in one arm, a bag of diapers and baby bottles hanging on my shoulder, clinging to the bag of Johnny Walker purchased at the duty-free shop in the small Lod airport after three years in Israel. I was the last to exit the Air France flight that landed at “Idlewild” airport in New York. (John F. Kennedy was the very live popular U.S. President in May 1963, before his assassination in November of that year, and every woman wished to appear as the First Lady, Jackie Kennedy).

As I crossed the tarmac toward the entrance to the arrivals terminal I felt the bottle of whiskey slip from the paper bag in my hand. Suddenly the bottle smashed to the ground; glass and whiskey splattered across my skirt and legs. No one was around to help, and when I finally exited the terminal where half my family waited, my tears smelled of whiskey as I sobbed my way into the arms of my mother. That visit entailed packing a lift of furnishings, appliances, and housewares unavailable in Israel, and our wedding gifts that were left behind three years earlier. As temporary residents in Israel, we had decided to settle permanently in Jerusalem.

A year and a half later I returned to attend my brother’s wedding, and after an eleven-year break I boarded a flight once again to attend my eldest niece’s wedding. Landing at the newly named JFK airport in 1976 was something of a culture shock after a meaningful, simple standard of living in Israel for 16 years.

During sixty-four-years in Israel I had countless opportunities, and enjoyed many trips and tours abroad, yet this last trip to the States was bittersweet, almost like Hershey’s dark chocolate bars that Aviva and I kept noshing as she drove the rental car from one city and state to the next, a whirlwind thirteen-day trip that was “eivel l’simcha,” from mourning to joy.

We arrived a day after my younger brother and his family got up from shiva for my nephew Simcha, a”h, a wonderful husband, father, son, and brother.  The following week my older brother was about to see his youngest grandson married. One heart-breaking family event, followed by a rousing joyful one.

We were hosted grandly at each stop, wined and dined beginning in Monsey N.Y., in homes of my brother and sister-in-law, nieces and nephews, cousins and an Israeli grandson living in the States the last few years. Our gracious hosts had separate bedrooms awaiting our arrival, delicious meals at each stop, and some homes were beyond grand. Lakewood, the New Jersey town with the largest Torah study population in the United States, serves as both a spiritual and physically materialistic community thriving side by side. The homes and mansions, particularly the one where we lodged, was wowing! Orthodox communities in America have grown beyond any expectations the original yeshiva founders ever dreamed of.

Raizel, whom I visited in Lakewood, was in a wheelchair with a full-time caregiver in attendance. Raizel could not remember who I was, she could not remember that we were roommates in my parent’s home in Williamsburg during her three student years at B.Y. High School, and Seminary.  I met my husband on the bus to Raizel’s wedding in Baltimore. My nephew and I prodded her, asking questions, until her failing memory slowly returned. And when it did, Raizel turned to me, pointing her finger at me accusingly, and she said: “But you! You weren’t blonde!” I hugged her tightly, elated that for the moment her memory was restored.

Not all the visits left me smiling. Wheelchairs, walkers, canes, and some homes with full time caregivers, and others who need them. The visit to Raizel, whom I had not seen in 65 years, started sadly, but ended with another piece of bittersweet chocolate that Aviva and I shared as we continued driving toward Baltimore to visit my 92-year-old sister, whom I had not seen in over six years.

Spending time with my beautiful eldest sister was an emotional experience. She was dressed elegantly anticipating our arrival. Thin, and frail as a feather, she lives alone, independently, a blessing for golden-agers, but sadly it does not go on forever.

There were additional family visits in Baltimore, including the final stop at the Baltimore Jewish Cemetery. Standing at the graves of Rabbi and Rebbetzin Neuberger, and their son Rav Sheftel, z”l, a strange young man suddenly appeared, almost like  some angel, seemingly out of nowhere, about to deliver a message. He told us that he lives above the cemetery and passes through daily. He had noticed us standing in front of the three imposing graves under a wide shady tree, separate from the others in the cemetery. The long Hebrew text on the graves was not familiar to him so he pasted the text into Google Translate, and learned about the Neubergers, prominent personas who served the Baltimore Jewish community as heads of Ner Israel Rabbinical College. Waving a friendly goodbye, he said, “Tell your family I pass by every day and say hello.”

A multitude of hellos, along with hugs and kisses greeted us when we returned to Monsey to attend the magnificent enormous wedding of my great nephew. Whenever there was an opportunity, I preached Aliyah. “Send the young couples, encourage them to stay, help them remain in Israel, they are your insurance policy that one day you too will get there.” I warned them, “the flight that my granddaughter-in-law (ElAl’s ultra-orthodox female pilot) will fly with Mashiach on board, will be overbooked, standing room only! It’s far wiser to be in Israel in advance, to be among the crowds at the entrance of Jerusalem to greet Mashiach.” My mantra fell mostly on deaf ears, almost like the lively wedding music that did the same for me.

We stopped in Passaic for a short visit with one of my best friends, on our way to Teaneck where we spent a delicious Shabbat with my Israeli grand-and great-grandchildren whom I tried to convince, “it is time to return home to Israel!”

Driving across the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan on our last sunny morning was as gratifying as the mouthwatering chocolate covered donuts served at breakfast. The impressive skyscrapers opposite the Hudson River, the joggers and bicycle riders on the path alongside the river, the colossal bridge behind us, all testament to a beautiful city, a city built around foreign elements, foreign faces I had never seen before in such quantity, anti-Israel protesters, many who have no idea where Israel is.  Yet the unplanned stop in Williamsburg, where I was born, raised, and educated, was the most moving.

Williamsburg was not on our itinerary. Aviva mentioned she had never been to Williamsburg, and since it was on the way to Flatbush, we drove through Manhattan, down to the East side, and drove across the Williamsburg Bridge. The monumental domed building rising at the southern entrance to the neighborhood was once The Williamsburg Savings Bank where I saved my post high school salary in 1958 for my first trip to Israel. The magnificent bank did a changeover, and turned into a wedding hall.

We parked on South 9^th Street, in front of the house where I spent the first 19 years of my life. A new building has replaced the old one, the corner house on the property that my parents owned. The new Chassidic Satmar owners of the property who invited us in stirred up loads of nostalgia. The present owners had no idea of the history of the original house that had a series of shops surrounding the building. A Jewish tailor, a kosher butcher, an Italian shoemaker, and my father’s grocery store that served the local population for decades.

Aviva snapped a picture as I stood on the steps of the first Bais Yaakov Seminary building in the United States, one block away from our house. A protected heritage site, the building that housed Rebbetzin Kaplan’s High School and Seminary may not be demolished; thus, the interior has been renovated to serve as an apartment house on the gentrified street, and neighborhood.

Munching on the last bars of dark bittersweet chocolates after spending time with my exceptional newly widowed niece in Flatbush, we reached Far Rockaway where my amazing 95-year-old Aunt Shirley prepared and served a dairy dinner. That final visit was like the silver-wrapped, milky chocolate kisses melting on our tongues, as we neared the airport.

The young woman at my side waiting to board ElAl flight 008 turned to ask me innocently, “Why are you flying to Israel?”

I recalled a recent interview with Israel’s heroic Brigadier General Dan Goldfus who was asked, “where does your family come from?”

“My parents are South African,” the General answered. Apparently, they had everything anyone could wish for in South Africa, and when the General asked his father why he left South Africa when he did, his father answered: “Home is where the heart is, and my heart was in Israel.”

Smiling broadly, I turned to the woman at my side and answered: “I am going home!”