I went to Israel for the beginning of spring break! I hadn't been since I was 15 and I really wanted to go soooo badly. Israel and I have a love/hate relationship but it is definitely more loving since I returned. THe first time I went I had trouble with everyone telling me this is your country you belong here, I was so acclimated in the US in Chicago. It's a great place I saw no problem with living there. I went to the Kotel where I thought I would feel something, sense G-d since it is supposed to be one of the most holiest places on earth, but I felt nothing, it was an ancient wall and nothing more. It has been a while since then, after going to a public school I missed getting learning Hebrew daily, praying daily, learning Torah daily and I moved away from my Jewish community at home because to be honest I don't feel comfortable there I am not a fan of the peeps, I don't like to listen to my brother, I got more involved in dance......but then I cam full circle. I moved into a house in AA a stranger and I met the most wonderful people of my life the girls of which I like to call them my sisters. They taught me what friendship truly was and they taught me I could pursue my religion according to my own desires, but they made me remember how important it was to me. How a piece of me is missing if my Jewish identity is not strong and so I have been yearning to go back to ISrael. I mean don't get me wrong Judaism has always been a major part of my life, I think G-d exists everywhere and I feel a connection to (him) an ongoing conversation as it were, but now I feel more of a push to be more active and religious in a daily way. So to Israel I went and right away especially coming from france I felt a difference. Let me just say security in Paris at the airport was redic, French soldiers with rifles and dressed in fatigues strolled the terminal which was located at the very end of CDG. I digress...in France I am a definite outside, I don't look French, I don't speak fluently or with the right accent, and I tend to dress without a je ne sais quoi one can only link to France, but I got to Israel and I was mostly surrounded by a lot of Jews, of course we all have diff backgrounds and educations and religious sentiments but they spoke Hebrew in their daily life the language I pray in, the language of the Torah they speak it daily, it is almost like living in ancient days when. The religious intersects the daily in a strange way. Holidays become a universal thing, being Jewish is the norm it just took me a while to realize the magnitude of a Jewish state and the museum Beth Hakfutzot the museum of the diasporah showed me that even more. The museum showed Jewish life through the world over the years and I just love seeing the differences between how people live from one place to another. They had replicas of synagogeus from all over and it is really so interesting to see how places of worship and customs are defined by the locations in which one lives. I went out to dinner with my cousins and I wass truck by how similar our lives are yet different. We picked up their grandmother at a retirement home and drove for a half hour trying to figure out where to eat...the same exact thing would happen in the U.S. with my grandmother just miles and miles away. Before I started my study abroad experience I was aware that other countries existed I had traveled often before but for me the U.S> still seemed the place to live not the place to lives but the normal one the one I could compare to all others. But after living in another country for an extended amount of time I see that the U.S. is just one place people locate to make a life for themselves just an example but one that mirrors the life of almost any country. I mean I am not going to get detailed with health benefits religious freedom etc but just for the purpose of not being so Americocentric.
So back at the museum we met with a woman who my father gave film to that was shot before WWII in Lithuania of our family and she is going to make a movie out of it which it quite interesting. She showed us previous films including one from a wedding in the 1920's in a Hungarian town......it was amazing. The footage was unbelievable. It wasn't like looking at a still image where you try to image the faces as real people with real personalities...you saw these people smiling talking dancing there actions that truly mirrored how anyone would act at a wedding today. They were prosperous and happy just like the wedding I had just attended in ISrael with no idea anything was to change for them in the future. I felt years dissapear between them and me and I also relaized the idea that throughout the years Jews situated all over the world and built lives perhaps for hundreds of years but times always change and countries change and who knows when life in the states could take a turn for the worst ok maybe this sounds stupid but I still believe that you can't get too comfortable wherever you are and for me it is a comfort to know that I have Israel it's my country I can go there it's like coming home.
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