After a busy month back in the United States, visiting parents and children and welcoming a new grandson, my husband and I returned to Israel last week in time to celebrate our six-month aliyah anniversary.
On the one hand, being outside of Israel felt entirely normal, as if I had never left. After all, I had spent most of my adult life residing in Texas after growing up in New York and Florida and attending college in New Jersey.
Back in Houston, I know where to go and how to get anywhere in my regular orbit without the help of Waze. I also speak the language effortlessly, without any second guessing on whether the plural of a certain noun is masculine or feminine – contrary to its singular form.
In the US, I don’t have to do mental calculations to figure out how fast I’m driving or how far I’ve walked or how much I’m spending on gas or how much hawaij or halva I’m buying at the shuk – if there actually were a market in America selling hawaij or halva, which there isn’t, sad to say.
Nevertheless, while daily life in the US felt familiar and routine, I felt a clear undercurrent of disconnection, especially being physically distanced from Israel during such turbulent times, when most of the first-stage hostages were released from Hamas captivity.
Indeed, I felt not just the physical distance from my new homeland but spiritually distanced, too, from the land and people I have adopted as my own.
Yes, I could read the news and commentary on my phone obsessively – which I did. When the Bibas children were returned for burial, and when Shiri Bibas’s body was baited and switched in that carnival of the grotesque, I was sick with a virus in Baltimore, unable to get out of bed without retching.
It felt strangely fitting to suffer in that way on that day, as the whole situation was beyond nauseating.
Nevertheless, what I really wanted was to have been able to pay tribute along with the rest of the nation to these beautiful souls on the way to their final resting place – mother and children entwined for eternity.
What I felt was the need not to be laid up in bed by myself but to be together with the nation of Israel in the land of Israel during these most difficult days of national grief.
Although, unlike the majority of my American Jewish friends and family, I had chosen to take the plunge and become an Israeli, I found that being physically in Israel was the main point.
A desire to be one nation
There was an urgency in the desire to be together as a nation that one simply does not and cannot feel outside of Israel, even in the tight-knit Jewish communities that exist abroad.
Members of those communities, though undoubtedly connected to and concerned about Israel, just cannot feel the same as those who have made Israel their home either by birth or by choice.
In Israel, when it comes to the nation’s crisis, we look at each other in stores, on the bus, and at the infirmary – and there is an understanding of togetherness that does not exist outside our homeland.
Although my time in the US highlighted the distance I felt from Israel, this sense of being outside the country was sharply brought to life in a small but telling incident when we returned.
After finally arriving home after a long journey with delayed flights and a long stopover in Vienna, we discovered that our car’s battery had died.
Back in the US, we knew how to solve the problem: call AAA.
Indeed, we knew where to tow the car when it was in need of service because our trusted mechanic of many years was located within a mile of our home.
New challenges in a new home
HERE IN Israel, we were faced with a new problem that we didn’t know how to handle.
I recalled that we were entitled to some roadside assistance with our insurance policy, but I had no idea where that information was, and I wouldn’t have had the patience to sort through the Hebrew to find it.
I quickly sent a message on the local Anglo chat in Ir Yamim as well as the chat for new olim called On the Other Side.
First responders on both chats suggested contacting Yedidim Roadside Assistance Israel, a volunteer organization that helps with such matters.
I called the number, explained the problem to the dispatcher, and was told that I’d be called within half an hour. Not five minutes later, a woman called, telling me she’d be at my home within 15 minutes.
She was there within 10. Assessing the situation, she quickly charged the car battery – and told us where to go to replace the batteries in the remote.
From the discovery of the problem to its resolution was no more than 30 minutes. In Houston, I knew how to resolve a dead car battery.
Here in Israel, where I didn’t know what to do, I was helped by strangers immediately, free of charge. This act of kindness was not just about fixing a car battery, it was a tangible reminder of the community spirit that exists in Israel.
The moments of national grief that I missed while in the US certainly deepened my connection to Israel, but it’s the smaller, everyday acts of solidarity that truly make me feel at home here.
Whether it’s in times of crisis or in a simple roadside service, I am part of something greater – a nation that stands together in both sorrow and joy. That’s why I need to be here. Am Yisrael Chai.
The writer is a recent immigrant from Houston. Formerly a professor of English as a second language to international students at Houston Community College and University of Houston, she is currently a lecturer of English at Bar-Ilan University and Ruppin Academic College.