Alef: The NEXT Conversation
Moishe House’s 5th Question
We’ve asked Jewish educators and organizations all over North America to add a fifth question to the Seder – one that will inspire us to make Passover meaningful for today’s Jewish world. Find out more about our 5th Question project.
Our first 5th Question comes from Moishe House -
The questions are the key purpose of the Seder, in asking them it’s important to pick up on something that makes this night different from all other nights. The 5th question can be personal to the group of people that are joining together.
What is different about this night, that on all other nights we eat in separate homes, but tonight we are all together?
Joshua Einstein from Moishe House Hoboken also asks:
Why is it that on other nights most Jews around the world do not participate in Jewish holidays, but on this night over 80% of the Jewish people engage with their peoplehood and history?
Moishe House is an international organization providing meaningful Jewish experiences to young adults in their twenties. Our innovative model trains, supports and sponsors young Jewish leaders as they create vibrant home-based communities for their peers.
Photo by Basheertome, licensed under Creative Commons.
Finding Home
By Natasha Gluzman
What is home? Does the place where you are born and raised automatically become your home? Are you born into a home or do you make one? When you hear the word “home,” what comes first to your mind, the people or the place?
There is no right or wrong answer.
My parents were born and raised in Ukraine, but they never felt at home. Ever since they met at the age of 16 (imagine yourself living with one person for that long) they dreamed of Israel. The land that they were walking on was foreign for them, the streets they were crossing never invited them to stay. So they built their “home” with people who shared the same dream of home. They listened quietly to the Israeli radio station, and read books about Israel before hand-copying them and passing them between their Jewish friends. It was unsafe to be a Jew and Zionist in Ukraine in those days, but this was what made my mom and dad feel at “home.”
Many years passed and yet my parents still dreamed of “home.” And, even though my grandparents resisted the urge to make Aliyah and live in Israel, my parents never gave up.
September 28, 1990 was an extremely hot day, my parents and I didn’t speak any Hebrew, we didn’t know anyone and didn’t even have our luggage, or even a place to stay. But, we felt at home. Our first year in Israel was very difficult for my parents; known as great musicians in FSU (Former Soviet Union) they became nobodies in Israel. And still, nothing changed their minds. They loved the country they found themselves in even more than they had loved the imaginary place those many years ago.
Ima and Aba always told everyone that I was born at the wrong place, that I was a natural Israeli, who grew up in a small town in the northern part of central Israel. Everyone knew each other and each other’s business.
I was the only Olah (immigrant) in class, and while everyone knew, they never let me feel different. I had only Israeli friends and Hebrew quickly became my primary language instead of Russian. Being accepted put the ingredients of “home” into one big mixture: the people, the place, the language, the culture, the food, the smell of dew at the beginning of every hot summer day, all made me feel at home.
After years of running barefoot on the grass at my school, it was time to put on the uniform and go into the army. There was no prouder person in the world than me, but I never expected that the meaning of “home” would change as a result of my service. When we’d just arrived in Israel, my dad immediately went to volunteer in the IDF, but was rejected as “too old.” So when I joined the army, I wasn’t just doing it for myself. I was doing it for my Aba, as well.
I spent the first year of my army service teaching Hebrew to soldiers who were Olim Chadashim (new immigrants) in Israel. My army base was 40 minutes away from Eilat, the southernmost city in Israel, and it took me 7 hours by public transportation to get there from my house, and in those 7 hours I transformed from daddy’s little girl who played the clarinet, to teaching soldiers who were “playing” with tanks. All of a sudden, the dessert and the tanks became the most romantic things in the world for me.
At that point in my life the meaning of home changed for me once more. Home was now the sand that covered my country. Home was the steel wheels that rode on that sand and protected my parents and friends, back home. Those wheels were also a nightmare for so many of the parents whose children were ridding those tanks at night. But that was home for me.
Unlike the average Israeli, I went from the army directly to the university and eventually became a Hebrew literature teacher. In my eyes, both the kids I was teaching, as well as their families, were the face of my country, and since my country was my home, those kids were my home as well. I dealt with a lot of criticism but ultimately, this was my family.
Today I am a Shlicha, a young emissary for the State of Israel in NJ. I am far away from the grass I sat on in high-school. I am far away from the tanks I used to watch, and I’m far away from my family, friends, and everything I knew before. I don’t speak Hebrew every day and sometimes I even dream in English. And yet, I feel at home. In a way, I feel like my parents did when they were young – Israel is everywherem in my classrooms, in my kitchen, in my dreams, in my hopes, and especially, in my community.
So I ask again, what do you call home?
Read more posts from Issue 12: Aliyah – Going Home.
Photos provided by Alexkerhead, Rennett Stowe and ohmeaghan , licensed under Creative Commons
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
By Nava Szwergold
When I think about going home I think of Philadelphia. As an adult I walk down the street, and see the places where I used to hang out after school: parks, diners, movie theaters. It makes me feel safe. Everything is familiar and yet I know that there will always be something new for me to find- new connections to be made and things to learn. This is my place and I don’t want or need to live anywhere else. But, it hasn’t always felt this way. In high school I could not wait to get away. I thought it was my destiny to go forth and start a life in a new city, just like my parents and my grandparents had done. Staying in the city I grew up in would show a lack of independence I thought, a lack of imagination.
When I was a kid, every month or so, my brother and I would pile into the car with our parents to go and visit the family in New York. We would fight in the back seat, drawing invisible lines down the middle of the car to mark off our space; My mom would threaten to turn the car around. Sometimes, the car would break down. Once across the final bridge or tunnel we’d begin our rounds- stopping in to see aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents in all corners of the city. I assumed that when I grew up I would take my own kids away for the weekend to see their grandparents, somewhere else.
There’s a kind of “kid’s logic” that lacks a thorough understanding of cause and effect. What I realize now is that my parents and grandparents didn’t want to leave the places they were from. There were external factors that helped bring those changes about. Grave factors like Nazi or Soviet persecution, or just really inconvenient ones like a career opportunities in another city. The conversations that I’ve been able to have with family members over the past several years have helped me see how even the least traumatic of these moves has been a source of pain for someone.
Ok, so maybe it builds character; It’s cosmopolitanism to move around, to be spread out  but, I come from Philadelphia – the biggest small town in America, where it’s normal to have all your extended family in a 3 block radius and feel like you know every other person in a city of 1.5 million. Conveniently, I happen to love this city, and have the opportunity to stay, An opportunity my grandparents didn’t have for sure. I can fulfill this longing for place and groundedness, the same longing which I imagine fueled the movements of early Zionism as well as Diasporism.
As a young adult people expect me to move around, for the best job, the best school. Making a big city my home means I can do pretty well with all that stuff without going very far. Staying in one place gives me a greater opportunity to build community with other young adults. Without community, this time of life can be very isolating. Creating connection to place helps to sustain connections between people. For me remaining in this city where I grew up and building a community here is an original and creative process.
Read more posts from Issue 12: Aliyah – Going Home.
Photos provided by vic15 and Tony_The_Misfit,  licensed under Creative Commons
You Can Take the Girl out of Israel…
By “Tell Danielle”
Like most children, my birthday was my favorite day of the year. Not only because I got presents, cake, and a treasure hunt, but because all eyes were on me, and I loved the attention. You can imagine how I felt, when arriving home from school on my seventh birthday – January 17th, 1991 – I found my mother in our kitchen listening to the radio, sobbing. This was not the the birthday I had envisioned. Confused, I asked my mother, “if today is my birthday, how come you are crying?” My mother explained to me that scud missiles had begun falling in Israel, launched from Iraq by Saddam Hussein as a result of the Gulf War.
Although we found out later on that there were much fewer casualties than expected, the grave tone of the radio announcer made it seem as if the imminent destruction of Israel was at hand. It was difficult to reconcile my personal reasons to celebrate – my birthday – with the national state of panic in Israel. On my seventh birthday I learned that as Jews, our personal joys cannot be fully realized without the assurance of safety and security in Israel. Although I was born in Vancouver, BC to Canadian parents (and grandparents), my parents have always identified as more Israeli than Canadian. Early on in my parents’ marriage, they lived and studied Torah in Israel; my father worked for Israel’s Ministry of Justice while my mother worked as a reporter for English news television. They hoped to make aliya and raise their children in Israel. As life often goes, their plans didn’t work out as expected, and they ended up back in Vancouver, where my brothers and I were raised. However, many of my childhood summers were spent exploring Israel: car trips visiting our cousins in Mitzpe Hila up north, or day trips from our apartment in Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, or the Dead Sea. Israel is where I was first allowed to roam the streets alone as a child and I truly felt safe. After high school, I spent one year learning and living in Jerusalem before returning to Canada to start university.
My parents passed on their “Israeliness” to myself and my siblings, not by lecturing us on the political justification of the Jewish state, but by exemplifying through action what it means to be a diaspora Jew who longs for Israel and strives for aliya. I believe one day, after my youngest brother leaves home, my parents will return again to live in Israel. But, regardless of where my family ends up, our hearts and minds will always be in Israel.
Knowing that I feel most at home in Israel, Ryan (my husband) proposed to me on the top of Masada. Romance to us isn’t just roses and candlelight – it’s rooted in the beauty of common values and tradition. Although we live in California, we hope to celebrate all our future simchas in Israel, passing our “Israeliness” on to the next generation.
***
Danielle loves solving life’s dilemmas: family, relationships, career, religion, love, and life. To read Danielle’s advice column, visit: www.telldanielle.com.
***
Read more posts from Issue 12: Aliyah – Going Home.
Photos by Zeevveez, licensed under Creative Commons
New Country, Old Home
By Benjamin Bakhshi
I used to read Israeli news at least three times a day, waiting for bad news to happen. When the Second Lebanon war broke out I found myself glued to the couch, watching the war on a buffet of television networks. This process repeated for Operation “Cast Lead” in Gaza. I found most of my attention focused on Israel, I could not stop thinking that half the Jews in the world were busy fighting wars and building a new country while I was at home managing a store at my mall, and doing some real estate on the side. I was a speaker at a small press conference in San Francisco where I shared my family’s experience leaving Iran and told the world of explicit desire to rid the Where was my justification to stay and watch the next war from my couch when I could physically be in Israel and influence Israel’s success, along with my Israeli peers?
Garin Tzabar helped me do just that. They organize groups of 20-30 people in cities throughout the world who are interested in joining the IDF. I joined them in March 2009 as a late entrant. The informational and bonding meetings continued until May, at which point participants waited until August to move to a kibbutz with their new friends, or like me, move to Israel earlier in order to learn more Hebrew.
I lived on friends couches in Tel Aviv for a while before I settled into my own apartment. Me and two guys from my program enrolled at Ulpan Gordon in Tel Aviv (I highly recommend this Ulpan to anyone at any level of Hebrew) where I spent the summer studying Hebrew, and partying. Israel has some of the best clubs in the world, in case you didn’t know, and as an American learning Hebrew the best way to practice a new language is by approaching a cute Israeli girl and saying, “Shalom, ani oleh hadash mCalifornia, ma shlomeh?” – Hello, I’m a new immigrant from California. How’re you?
In August I moved into Kibbutz Ein Hashofet with the rest of my new friends from America. We continued learning about the army and all the various places we could end up serving. I learned that I could serve in the Air Force, and began asking hundreds of questions about the opportunity. I was given a lot answers, and learned things I never would have had I been alone, relying solely on my own research on the Internet.
We did physical training to prepare for the shock of basic Army training. We took part in political and moral debates about war and peace. And of course, we studied Hebrew to be sure we could understand our officer’s commands.
I decided to leave the kibbutz in October and move back to Tel Aviv with a friend from my Garin. We found a roommate and are now settled not four blocks from the Mediterranean Sea. There is no replacement to living in Tel Aviv. It is a mix of a big city, suburban family life, and Cancun, all in one. I signed up with a gym across the street. I visited long-lost relatives throughout the country for Shabbat, BBQs, and trips to the Kineret. I worked as a busboy for some easy money and the chance to learn some more Hebrew. All the while I was at Ulpan Gordon, learning Hebrew and making friends from all over the world.
In December I enlisted into the Air Force, in the Anti-Aircraft division. I had four months of basic training, which included lots of discipline, physical training, shooting, and classroom time to learn our new jobs. The army provides lone soldiers, those who have no immediate family in the country, with extra benefits such as: double salary, extra days off, 30 days a year to visit family outside of Israel, and about 1000 shekels a month for rent.
I must say, as a 24 year old Californian with a degree in economics who volunteered for the army, I get a lot of special attetion from my fellow soldiers and commanders. I have heard numerous soldiers tell me that they felt ther job became more meaningful knowning that I gave up so much to join the army, while they are forced to enlist. I didn’t join expecting special treatment, but it does come well accepted when on the other side of the world my parents are wishing to see me everyday.
My parents and I maintain communication and have a good relationship with each other. They did not agree with my decision to leave home for Israel, but they supported me every step of the way. I give them credit for making me who I am today and not a day goes by without me thinking about them and trying to make them proud. They visited me one time so far, I will be visiting them soon I hope, and we will maintain a game of ping pong of visitations for a long time to come. In the meantime, live video chat via Skype and Facebook help them keep tabs on my life.
I haven’t regretted a single moment of my army service or my time as a new citizen in Israel. On the contrary I am happy to be here, happy that I have learned a new language, met new friends and family, and am able to directly impact and improve Israel and it’s defense forces by my actions, and not through third or fourth hand donations or taxes. And if, God forbid, there is another war, I won’t be sitting at home watching TV, I will be on base actively guarding Israeli lives and moving forward the Zionist dream through the 21st century.
Read more posts from Issue 12: Aliyah – Going Home.
Photos by Karen Horton, licensed under Creative Commons
Follow Us
2009. Alef: The NEXT Conversation All rights reserved.
Home |
About |
Contact Us
Recent Comments