homesick

Israel is far away from being an ideal country. It carries a burden which only a few people may understand. My experience in Israel was more than rewarding. A reward that took me a while to appreciate. Israel contributed to my personal development more than I would ever know. It taught me about loneliness, real desolation; it showed me what it was to feel alone. It blasted to my face the fear of desperation. It helped me grow. It gave me unconditional friends. Israel gave me the strength to stand up on my own feet. I was at home, even though I had terrible moments. With 18 years old, by my own, I didn’t have a clue of what I was supposed to do. But it still felt like home. I felt it that way; and it is extremely painful to miss home. That conflicted and beautiful land made of sand, blood and persistence gave me more than anyone or anything else.
If there is place with such a significance for me, that’s Israel. It’s the perfect ensemble of the old and the new. The perfect point where conservatives and liberals movements meet. It is the place where the three main religions in the world get to exist together, in peace or without it. It is the way it has always been. It is the place where my grand-grandmother lived and was buried. To where my uncle fled, 30 years ago, for a better “future”, from where my mom, with 16 years old, was “kicked off” because she wanted to stay there, fiercely, but never got her parents’ permission and was put back in a plane, realizing than an soldier was stronger than her will; where my grandmother went to live to fulfill an old dream. And where I went to fall in love with it, and from where I left because I was short of courage.
After this explanation there are a few things that I would add. Despite having thousands of anecdotes, the essence of all is only one. It was home. Because I lived there, peacefully in mind and spirit. Because you internalize the fact that in Israel, every day counts. Everyday counts.
There are a lot of things I could tell you about Israel and my relationship with it. But I will tell you that is like a bride and a groom, who did not marry, but despite all they still love each other in a secret language, a language that was always there. I just had to remember it.

Maybe in another time I will tell you a little bit more about it.

All that I know is that when I feel caged in here, I go back home. Because it is all that I have until I find a new home. For the time being, once in while, I go back to sunsets in Tel Aviv, to the dorms at the Hebrew University, to student parties. I go back to the sand and the stone. To its sea and its sun. To Jerusalem hills that surround history, my little story.