My American Passport is No Longer My Security Blanket

For years,  my US passport was my security blanket. If things were to go seriously awry,  I had a way out.  That made me a fair-weather Israeli,  my aliya conditioned on my personal safety, but I was okay with that.  “Your life is first.” Chayecha Kodmim– even the Torah concurred.

I wanted my kids to be safe too, so as soon as they were born, almost directly from the labor room, I shlepped them to the US consulate, located during the pre-Trump era in a Judenrein section of East Jerusalem.

The long hours waiting in the dingy sitting room with a cranky newborn were well worth the prize—the precious blue booklet pronouncing them citizens of the most powerful country in the world. Now, they, too, were safe.

My feelings ran counter to a Zionist dogma, which posited that our country, with our army, our navy, and airforce, even a nuclear bomb in Dimona, was the Jewish people’s safe haven.  I never really believed in that. I still dont.

In this war,  our precious soldiers are hamstrung in their fighting capacity and even endangered and killed because our decision-makers accede to the American big brother’s demands for “proportionality,” humanitarian aid. and a “day after” plan for establishing a Palestinian State. That last one, if enacted, will render the current fighting with all of its terrible human cost an exercise in futility, but what can one do?  He who pays the piper calls the tune, right?

Are we safe here? Not really.. Even after eight months of war, missile attacks are a daily occurrence in the north, which is no longer livable,, and to a lesser degree in the south and even in central Israel.

But is this the time to flee?

Last week, I renewed my American passport, this time at the Talpiot embassy,  Donald Trump’s flashy monument to American-Israeli friendship.. No, I’m not planning to make a  run for it. I went  out of habit and the convenience of a shorter line at the US airport immigration counter than anything else. The US is different now dangerous.  Look at the upheaval on campuses and the widespread support for Hamas, even among Jews.

Jihad as our foes tell us, is global.

Just yesterday,, a Pakistani driver tried to mow down two conspicuously Jewish young men in Brooklyn–an attempted car ramming in the US.

So where is a Jew to go?

Only  to Hashem

To Him I commend my spirit,
in the time of sleep and awakening,
even if my spirit leaves,
G-d is with me, I shall not fear.