The Love That Never Left Me

There are many ways to fall in love with Israel.

Some people discover Israel through religion. Others through history, family, politics, a first visit to Jerusalem, military service, or the simple realization that after thousands of years of exile, the Jewish people once again have sovereignty in their ancestral homeland.

My relationship with Israel began differently. It began when I was young, long before I understood politics, advocacy, antisemitism, international law, or the extraordinary amount of energy the world would one day spend arguing about this tiny country.

I simply loved Israel.

Almost an entire lifetime later, I realize how remarkable that is, because many other forms of love in my life have been considerably more complicated.

I was born with a heart that feels deeply. I notice things other people sometimes overlook. I trust, perhaps sometimes too easily. When I care about someone, I rarely do so halfway.

That has not always served me well.

I have loved people who were better at receiving love than returning it. I have been disappointed, hurt and used. Yet somehow I continued believing that the next chapter might be different.

Recently, I allowed myself to become vulnerable again.

The person was Israeli, someone I admired enormously, a man whose courage, strength and dedication represented many of the qualities I have admired in Israelis throughout my life. In my eyes, he was a hero.

Perhaps that was part of the problem.

When you have spent years defending Israel, meeting Israelis and developing enormous respect for those who dedicate their lives to protecting the country, admiration can touch something deeper. The qualities you admire in a nation can suddenly appear in a human being standing in front of you.

My heart spoke before my common sense could stop it.

I told him how I felt.

He could not return those feelings.

There is no villain in that story. Feelings cannot be negotiated, demanded or commanded. Someone can be extraordinary and still not be the person who is meant to love you. Sometimes a hero is simply a hero.

But the experience made me think about something much larger.

Why has Israel remained such a constant in my life when so many other things have changed?

Israel has never promised me anything.

It never promised me recognition. It never promised me a career. It never promised that advocacy would make my life easier. Quite the opposite.

Standing up for Israel can cost friendships. It can affect professional relationships. It exposes you to insults, accusations and sometimes genuine hatred. You learn very quickly that supporting Israel when Israel is popular is easy. Supporting Israel when the world is screaming against it is something else entirely.

And still I stayed.

That is when I understood that my love for Israel was never transactional.

I did not choose Israel because Israel could give me something. I chose to stand with Israel because somewhere along the journey its story became intertwined with my own sense of purpose.

That does not mean believing Israel is perfect.

Real love does not require blindness. Israel is a democracy filled with arguments, political divisions, imperfect leaders, social tensions and people who disagree passionately about almost everything. Anyone who genuinely knows Israel knows that Israelis themselves may be the country’s most enthusiastic critics.

But there is a difference between criticizing a country and abandoning it.

I will not abandon Israel.

Perhaps this is something the advocacy world occasionally forgets. We spend enormous amounts of time discussing facts, statistics, history, borders, terrorism, international institutions and media bias. All of those discussions matter.

But advocacy without love eventually becomes merely another political activity.

For me, Israel was never merely political.

It is the Israeli determination to rebuild after tragedy. It is families returning to ordinary life after sirens. It is soldiers protecting communities while their own families wait for them at home. It is doctors treating whoever arrives at their hospital. It is innovation created in a country that has never had the luxury of assuming tomorrow will be peaceful.

It is also the arguments in cafés, the crowded streets, the noise, the humor, the impatience and that unmistakable Israeli refusal to surrender to despair.

That is the Israel I fell in love with.

And perhaps growing older teaches us that not every love is supposed to have the same ending.

Some people enter our lives for decades. Others appear briefly and leave behind a lesson. Some awaken feelings we thought had disappeared. Some remind us that our hearts are still capable of being vulnerable.

Then there are the loves that quietly accompany us through almost an entire lifetime.

Israel has been that love for me.

Long before I wrote articles about Israel, long before social media advocacy, long before I understood how controversial defending the Jewish state could become, Israel already occupied a place in my heart.

Today I understand something I could not have understood when I was young.

Love is not measured only by what stays with us.

Sometimes it is measured by what we choose to stay with.

I have watched public opinion change. I have watched people who once proudly supported Israel become silent when support became uncomfortable. I have watched Israel judged by standards that would never be applied to other democracies while its enemies openly celebrated murder and terrorism.

My answer remains the same.

I stay.

Not because Israel needs unquestioning admirers, but because it needs people willing to stand beside it when doing so carries a price.

People may enter my life and people may leave it. There may still be disappointments, surprises and chapters I cannot predict.

But one part of my story was written a very long time ago.

From the young girl who first developed an inexplicable attachment to this extraordinary little country to the woman who today spends so much of her life defending it, the thread has never been broken.

Israel was my first great love.

It became my purpose.

And whatever chapters remain, I know this much.

I will stand with Israel until my final breath.