Shalom from the Motherland! As you can imagine, it has been an interesting past few days here in Israel. I left for Beit She'an on Thursday and as I was on the bus, reports of missiles hitting in the Tel Aviv area started coming in. Several of the other MASA people on the trip had just been evacuated from southern cities to Tel Aviv and I had just finished explaining to family and friends that Tel Aviv was far enough away from Gaza to be threatened, so the news was rather disconcerting. However, the IDF soon installed an Iron Dome to protect the area and has been successfully intercepting rockets coming into the region.
Meanwhile, I spent a peaceful 2.5 days in Beit She'an getting in touch with my Jewish roots. (I also learned that Beit She'an is part of a partnership with Cleveland, Ohio!). The topic of conversation was Jewish identity and issues facing Israel and the modern Jew. There were 90-some people from different MASA/MASA-affiliated programs as well as Israelis, and then we were split into smaller groups of about 10 people. I met my first Wisconsinite (an Orthodox Jew from Milwaukee), who also happens to be half-Asian. There were actually a few of us who grew up with only one Jewish parent, so it was interesting to hear about their backgrounds.
I grew up learning about Jewish history because my mother (the non-Jew) wanted to make sure that I was aware of my heritage. In fact, I knew more about the Jewish holidays than I did of the Christian ones. Until I happened upon an Easter story book when I was about 10, I thought Easter just meant having an egg hunt and being given ridiculously large chocolate rabbits that would remain in the fridge for months on end. I attended church for a few years because I enjoyed singing in the choir and hearing the sermons, but I gradually became disenchanted with organized religion and stopped going. The result is that I'm an agnostic Jewish-Christian mutt who has a travel menorah, makes latkes and matzoh ball soup and who also has Noche Buena (midnight dinner on Christmas Eve) and sings Christmas carols.
Outside of Israel, I think there are many people like me who have Jewish heritage but do not practice Judaism. Here in Israel, there is no separation between cultural and religious Jews. Many people here think that even if you're a secular Israeli Jew, you are still surrounded by the religion and that makes you Jewish. They believe that
if you marry a non-Jew, your children are no longer Jewish (unless they
formally convert) and by that logic, I had no place at the seminar. As I told my group, the seminar actually made me more confused about where I fit as a Jew in Israel. If I made aliyah, I would feel like a hypocrite because I do not believe in Judaism. But when people tell me (even jokingly) that I am not a Jew simply because my mother isn't, it is offensive: both sides of my family are an integral part of who I am.
As I've been deliberating over my Jewish identity, the situation with Gaza continues. We had two sirens in Tel Aviv yesterday, but both rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome and caused zero-to-minimal damage (a car caught fire from shrapnel in Holon, but the driver was not injured). Really, it feels a bit like tornado season except that here, we have technology to track and destroy the tornadoes before they hit and we only have to wait for 10 minutes after the siren versus staying in a basement for a few hours during tornado watches. In the south, of course, it is a different story, but Tel Aviv itself is far removed from the main action. I don't understand how Hamas operates - they act only offensively and they endanger their own citizens because of their poor defense system. They also report that Israel is killing women and children, but it is their own actions that are putting their citizens at risk. Their technology is so imprecise that many of their own rockets exploded in Gaza itself while others have landed near Arabic towns in Israel. I don't understand their motives and I am saddened that they don't even seem to value their own people's lives. Everyone is hoping for a quick resolution.
For you at home, here is a good website for updates on the situation here: http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3083,00.html. I am continuing my life as usual here as is the rest of Tel Aviv. Tomorrow, we are spending the day at the Dead Sea, and it will actually be my first time in the water since coming to Israel! I'm looking forward to collecting more Dead Sea framboids :)
Peace and coconuts,
Daniella
