BS”D
As the feminine half of this team, I always reserve the right to change my mind. And I did.
Even with the wonderful times in America (wonderful mostly because we could once again enjoy the company of our parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins etc.) stuff has happened to us; we have found ourselves suffering many of the same exact battles we’d endured in Israel. Funny, huh.
We understand you now...
After a respectable start to our new life in America, we bought a house. Not 6 months later, devastating financial setbacks threw themselves at us, making our troubles in Israel seem positively pedestrian by comparison – job insecurity and job losses, serious financial dishonesty and cheating from bosses and customers resulting in debt we simply could not repay without going on a zero calorie diet, a plummeting credit rating — which then created more unemployment issues (I have come to call this connection between one’s credit rating and job prospects a modern day debtor’s prison, and it makes about as much sense). Even worse than all the financial woes that stuck to us like Brer Rabbit’s’ tar baby was the overwhelming lack of purposefulness, and always a longing, an aching for the Land.
But do you get me?
During our entire time back in America, even before the financial troubles set in and metastasized, our conversations continually drifted back to our time in Israel, the fun times and the hard times. After some silence, something would jog my memory or Elya’s and then we’d be off on Reminiscing Lane, “Remember when…?”. We’d travel that lane so often, our family must have had to internalize an awful lot of eye rolling. Our hilarious goats came up a lot.
We slowly realized that we had not only been in the Land. The Land was now in us as well. Now we knew with certainty, exile from Eretz Israel is not a vacation. It’s not a chance to gather a little nest egg. It is punishment. We felt that punishment as a sharp spiritual pain, so sharp it became physical. Perhaps it takes being in E”Y for a Jew to know what is missing?
Not Dvorah Chanah or Elya Yenkel
Besides the finances which refused to right themselves no matter what we tried, I seemed unable to make myself fit into the American suburban scene. Our nice, friendly American neighbors, dwelling next to us in simulated peace, failed to appreciate my weird and varied composting projects and late night building adventures. One exception was my other homeschooling neighbor. She got a total kick out of my zany ideas.
One sympathetic, even deeply interested neighbor does not make a consensus. And a consensus actually matters — I discovered.
My honeybees in the back yard didn’t endear me to the nice folks adjacent to our back fence, ehm, the ones with the pool. It seems the mere smell of a large body of water (relative to a bee) drew the little fuzzballs to the delicious cool water which promised them refreshment, yet only delivered them to the pools’ filtration system, clogging it. One tiny lap of water, caused by the smallest breeze is like a tidal wave to an itty bitty bee. Those cute little bees also found the neighbor’s hummingbird feeder. Fistfulls of buzzing bees dispossessed the hummingbirds.
What my neighbors thought they saw....
The same distressed — and sometimes amused – neighbors could not fathom the logic behind my organic, dandelion appreciating, clover planting suburban yard care (honeybee food). I imagine they silently (or not) worried about their plummeting property values since the homeschooling ”mother earth lady” had moved in with her bevy of six, then seven…then eight (will they never stop?!?) children who were at home all day long, thirteen months a year. Nor did they appreciate the chicken coop aroma wafting up to offend their poolside guest’s olfactories, as they unsuccessfully endeavored to relax while keeping one cautious eye on the honeybees trying to quench their thirst without drowning. The quiet hypocrisy of my polite yet anxious neighbors unnerved me. I longed for the open confrontations I’d had with my Israeli neighbors over — no, not the goats, ducks, chickens and geese in our yard, those were fine — the 120 pound, hairy sheepdog. It seems North African Jews don’t really like dogs.
Neighbors struggling to be polite despite descending property values notwithstanding, the worst part of suburban paradise for me was the fact that there were no goats anywhere in sight. I considered, then rejected the idea of dwarf goats. Urban Israel might put up with it…never suburban America.
America's tragic awakening
Besides these various agricultural adventures and misadventures, nipping at my conscience lurked the foreboding sense of having cast my dear husband adrift by insisting we leave Israel. He just didn’t have the same sparkle in his eyes or bounce to his step. Was life just about working, shopping, paying bills, mowing the lawn, ignoring the glare of neighbors, and then going back to work again? Then a call from a cousin one morning brought us all running to the kitchen television. We gasped as the second plane hit the South Tower, and then watched both Twin Towers collapse before our eyes in horrified awe. All airplanes were grounded in the whole country for a week. It reminded me of the strange quietness which overcame Israel during what Israelis call “The Gulf War” and what Americans call “Desert Storm”. During the Gulf War, almost all foreigners left Israel and we were alone…just us Israelis and a few hardcore visitors who would not be intimidated. One doesn’t realize how strange it is to not have planes flying overhead until there are no planes flying overhead. One doesn’t realize how odd life is without tourists until there are none.
In the months that followed, as we all learned the true nature of America’s enemies, I understood what Israel had been facing all these years, really since the beginning of Israel’s regathering, when political Zionism took hold of much of the collective Jewish soul (dissenters were many, yes this I know) thus increasing aliyah back to the land, an effort we had never stopped throughout this long, dark exile, despite almost insurmountable obstacles place before us by various occupying regimes.
Modern day aliyah, overcoming the obstacles
I understood, finally, what exactly had repelled me, made me want to leave my own Land, promised to me by my Abba in Shamaim – my Eretz Israel. Radical Islam. But Israel was not the only nation which had to re-gather up her communal courage and face down this formidable foe; courage that had been slipping somewhat in the face of pressure from the world beginning with the Madrid Conference and then the Olso Accords. America had been running from this battle for at least 30 years, and could no longer run. Now it was visiting American soil. I learned why it followed me relentlessly to America. It follows us all. It won’t go away because we ignore it or pretend it is benign.
Tali Hatuel, her unborn baby & her daughters; all murdered at point blank range
Then I got personal…I had to face myself. I couldn’t run either. As Jews we aren’t allowed and aren’t even able to run from our destiny. As Yishai Fleisher*** says, quoting his father, being afraid is sometimes our heritage too. Facing Islam down, in spite of our love for life, and our very understandable fear, is also part of being “ohr l’goyim” (a light unto the nations). Radical Islam had imposed itself and it’s bloody ways on Israel for over a century.
We each have to be where HaShem wants us, and I knew where He wanted me. As wonderful as America was and is, I knew I belonged in Israel for this last stand between civilization and barbarism. My family belongs in Israel, and forgive me for being so black and white about this, but so do all Jews.
Five years after landing at the airport in Minneapolis, I decided it was time to go home.
To Israel.
Night time rainbow over Jerusalem
Now I had someone else to convince, someone who’s confidence in his dreams had been shaken to their core by the one person who should never have done that to him — by me. I had some serious teshuvah (repentance) to do, and didn’t quite know it yet. Ahhh, but HaShem knew exactly what next lessons we both needed to learn before our homecoming would finally ”stick”. He had only just begun to show me.
To be continued….
Another note: Apologies for this blog being only from my perspective thus far. Elya Yenkel works long hours and so, hasn’t been able to find the time to write any posts, though he is a loyal reader. He’ll get to it and it will be worth the wait for all of us.
Disclaimer: Any negative views of Israel, the Zionist project or Israeli culture I describe in my stories are purely evidence of my own limited understanding at the time I held them, and in no way reflect the complexity and beauty one finds once the heart is open and willing to learn a few new things about Israel, Zionist history or Israeli culture. — Dvorah Chanah Cohen
Image Attributes:
Brer Rabbit’s tar baby – www.luvzbluez.com/easterbunnies.html
Goat nostrils – drinky clown
Bee beard – Max xx’s photostream
“Yours, Mine & Ours” photo – Lucyfan dot com
Second Tower collapsing – wstera2
Modern Aliyah Poster – WeJew dot com
Tali Hatuel & her 4 little girls – WeJew dot com
Night time rainbow over Jerusalem – forwarded to WeJew dot come by Tamar Yonah, radio host at Israel National Radio. Tamar is an activist, daily encouraging her fellow Jews to jump in…the water’s fine! Come home already.
***Yishai Fleisher, radio host and program director of Israel National Radio, and founder of Kumah dot org a neo-Zionist organization who’s mission is to inspire us all to be passionate about our aliyah, whether it be from the exile to Eretz Israel, or if already in Eretz Israel, elevating the spirit of the Jewish nation and rectifying the vessel that is the State of Israel. Copy taken almost word for word from the Kumah website. I’m inspired.
BS”D
