My Turn for Next Year in Jerusalem
This past week I was supposed to board an El Al plane to volunteer as part of a New York City area contingency of Birthright Israel for those under 50. I was at the cusp at the ripe old age of 49, but several of my friends from my temple were going and the timing was perfect. With my kids away at sleepaway camp, I had no excuse. Israel was calling my name and the thought of visiting it and lending a hand in any way possible appealed to me.
My love for Israel was formed on a family Bat Mitzvah trip in 1988. While I didn’t have my ceremony there, my parents offered me two options to celebrate this milestone. Either a party in our outdated multi-purpose room at my synagogue in Queens or a family trip to my ancestral homeland. I jumped at the chance to go to Israel, which in my social circles was an unusual choice. Most girls loved the opportunity to put on a Gunne Sax dress and play Coke and Pepsi while a DJ spinned tunes but that didn’t speak to me. Our family never went anywhere besides the Catskills hotels which were by that time a dying breed. This was a big deal for us. And so, we affixed our Margaret Morse Tours luggage tags on our bags and headed to JFK Airport for a 10-day trip with other young families.
When I reflect now on that decision to go to Israel, I think a big part of it was my incredibly close relationship with my maternal grandmother Anna, a Holocaust survivor. While most of the survivors from my family settled in America, a few intrepid cousins decided to emigrate to Israel. I wanted to meet these people and see how they built new lives in a country that was in its infancy and turned it into the Land of Milk and Honey that I had learned about in Hebrew school.
To be honest, I don’t remember every detail about my trip. Sure, there are snippets that I recall. First was the lovely family from Transvaal, South Africa who were farmers and had kids of a similar age. The fact that there were Jewish farmers in Africa blew my mind. I still recall the girl my age asking if I was going to put my “swimming costume” on as we got ready to float in the Dead Sea. I remember getting a special close-up tour of Ammunition Hill with our cousin Menachem who lived in B’nai Brak. My dad who was a Vietnam veteran and a military history buff was in awe as we looked at the tanks and walked through the trenches. I remember visiting another cousin Rueven and swimming in the Achziv at Rosh Hanikra National Park – for a family who did nothing remotely outdoorsy this trip was remarkable. These cousins who I had never met embraced us as family, inviting us over for meals and sharing stories.
I also remember visits to the usual sites such as the Kotel and Machane Yehuda. Watching a whole city, it seemed get ready for Shabbat was a sight to see. One of the best parts for my younger sister and I was our sampling of ice cream and French fries throughout the country as my 12-year-old taste buds were less than adventurous. It proved to be a wise strategy though as we were the only ones who did not have digestive issues on our trip.
I came back to New York with a love for Eretz Y’Israel and a strong desire to return. And I did upon my high school graduation. I volunteered with Sar-El with other teens and college students on a six-week trip that was divided into three weeks of sightseeing and three weeks of volunteering at Tel Hashomer army base. Israel was helping Rwanda during their civil war then and I spent my days dressed in an IDF uniform in the company of Israelis while we packed medical supplies for victims of that war. It didn’t dawn on me until later how remarkable it was that Israel a country so far removed from Rwanda was doing this but I guess they could understand what it is like to be constantly under siege from enemies within. This was a formative experience for me as I was about to enter my freshman year of college. As an overprotected child, I felt truly free for the first time and was able to make my decisions including how I spent my weekends that we had off. As an added bonus, I chose to spend them with my Israeli boyfriend on the beach or at his apartment in Bayit Vagan.
The following summer after my freshman year I returned to Israel, this time on a project called Camp Kefiada where I ran an English-immersion camp with other American teens for kids in Ramla. It was a completely different side of Israel that I had never experienced before. Ramla was a development town that prior to 1948 was primarily Arab. After the establishment of Israel, many Jews from North Africa were settled there. My neighbors were Jews from Tukey, Yemen, Egypt and Morocco and they all affectionately joked and called me “Levani “or “whitey.” I lived with a family and the mom Miriam was of Turkish descent. She made daily fresh borekas and other wonderful dishes. It was not an easy endeavor running that camp and I often felt isolated on that trip but I looked forward to coming home and spending time with Miriam who had a real zest for life.
Fast forward almost 30 years later and I haven’t been to Israel since. It still had a strong pull on me but life got busy with work, getting married and then three kids. So, visiting with Birthright Israel this summer was the perfect opportunity. I felt indebted to Israel and this feeling only grew in the wake of the October 7th attacks which ironically occurred on my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah. But current events thwarted that opportunity for now. In the subsequent weeks, Birthright Israel trips are back on but my kids will be returning from sleepaway camp and my opportunity will be lost until next summer when I hope I can proudly affix a Birthright Israel luggage tag on my belongings as I board the plane.
