Shayna Finds a Home

When I stepped off that plane at Ben Gurion, I knew a countdown began: two weeks in an Airbnb to find a permanent home. Somewhere to stay, versus somewhere that truly is home.

In this week’s installment of The Adventures of Shayna Netanya, our heroine has two weeks in a scuzzy, cockroach-infested Airbnb and no permanent address. “This is fine, I have a roof over my head” I told myself as I stomped on the cockroach with my bare foot. The calming Mediterranean is nearby. So is the end of my booking…

Before I even landed, I had sent what felt like endless messages on Yad2, Israel’s online classifieds site. Few received replies, and panic started to build as a perpetually type A personality. “Sababa” I told myself, as I recounted how many times I had been told apartments in Israel go IMMEDIATELY, which is what I was betting on. I could imagine a whole new life here, but imagination alone an apartment will not get. Somewhere between making aliyah and making a home, there was a landlord who needed to say yes and take a chance on this crazy California girl.

Then Alder, my digital assistant, found a place in North Netanya.

Two bedrooms. A third-floor balcony with a view of the Mediterranean. As I ran my manicured fingers over the vintage 60’s patterned glass, I realized that here I could build a home. And a dedicated laundry room?

ARE YOU KIDDING??

Something I had never had in my life as a perpetual renter in the states. Apparently, this is who I am now: a woman capable of being emotionally undone by the prospect of a laundry room.

I wanted it. That was the dangerous part.

Once you allow yourself to fall in love, the uncertainty gets more personal. You are no longer waiting for just any apartment. You are waiting for this one, the one with the floor to ceiling windows and a view to the Med. Already imagining your life inside it, knowing this beautiful, imagined future could slip away.

Would I get to call it home? Would I end up homeless? The uncertainty became too much to bare as I learned how much they wanted without a Guarantor. As a new olah in Israel, I have no family to guarantee me. And my pesky American protestant work ethic makes me feel like this is my problem to solve, on my own, with no help. It makes asking for help feel like a deficiency, a weakness.

But once my friend Orr found out about how upset and frazzled I was, he stepped in as my guarantor. That is a substantial thing to do for someone starting over, much less someone you have never met. He helped turn the apartment I wanted into the apartment I could call home. This move has my name on it, but securing it was a group effort.

And the help kept coming. Yael came to the signing to help interpret and was my first guest. Yaniv took an entire day off to come with me to appliance and electronics stores, negotiating prices because my Hebrew is still shit. Strangers reached out to tell me that my story had touched them and to offer help. People who owed me absolutely nothing were making room for me in their lives while I tried to put mine together.

I am grateful in a way that sometimes overwhelms me. I am also learning how to accept it.

There is a stubborn American voice in my head that insists I should be able to manage everything myself. It’s difficult being the confused, damsel-in-distress when before I was so capable. I am learning to accept help with no self-judgement. I am brave enough to cross an ocean to start over in a country I have never visited, apparently, but accepting help requires a separate act of courage.

I keep reminding myself how good it feels to do something for someone else. Why would I deny another person that satisfaction? Why should a useful piece of furniture go to waste when I have an empty apartment? There is dignity in letting someone give, and there is dignity in receiving. I am practicing the second part and looking for ways in which I can also perform the former.

At the moment, I have a bed, my clothes, and very little else.

But look at all this room. In this emptiness, there is possibility.

The blank walls have me thinking about art. I am deciding where my office will go. There is still plenty to buy and figure out, but these are questions I can ask from inside my own home. After two weeks of wondering where I would land, even choosing where to put a desk feels luxurious.

This shabbat morning, I opened the windows, put on Madonna’s “Holiday,” and danced in my living room. From my third-floor balcony came a thoroughly enthusiastic rendition of “We need a holiDAAAAY!”

Pay no mind to the lack of furniture. I have a HOME. I am NOT homeless.

Today is Shabbat. The errands can wait. I need a day to rest, recuperate, and let myself feel what has happened. I spent so much time worrying about whether this would work that I want to give the relief some time, too.

I came here carrying the effects of galut born trauma, along with my luggage. Back in America, Palestinian flags and chants for intifada had become bound with my own experience of hostility and violence as a Jew. I wanted a life in which being Jewish could feel ordinary again. Safe. Unremarkable. Here, people have helped me do the very ordinary, very necessary work of  building a new life as I navigate that trauma simultaneously. I feel held by faith and Am Israel.

And now I am thinking about dinner parties.

I want to cook again. I want people around my table, eating something I made, staying for another glass of wine. I miss the woman who loved doing that. Becoming Israeli is giving me room to find her again.

So expect fabulous photos eventually. There will be food. There will be guests. With any luck, there will even be chairs.

If you are wondering whether Israel could be home for you, too, I can tell you this much: I needed help, and people showed up. It has not been easy. Sitting here now, I can say it has been worth it.

In this week’s installment, Shayna finds a home.

Next, she gets to invite people over.