20-21 February 2025
"What do you think of Trump?" he asked.
"I think that just as I can't say, 'He's not my president because I didn't vote for him, but my country did,' you can't say, 'Netanyahu is not my Prime Minister because even if you didn't vote for him, your country did.'"
He likes Trump because he said Trump's shaking up the world and people listen when he talks. He is also a combat soldier in Gaza and so I can only imagine how that experience has influenced his worldview. Or maybe he's also just one of many young men around the world who enjoy witnessing what they perceive as my president's bad-boy quality. I don't get it, fortunately, but I do need to pay attention to their enthusiasm.
On the way to Israel, I spent the afternoon with a physician friend, who wore a cloth yellow ribbon on her coat; a metal one hanging from a chain; a Jewish star ring, a "Bring Them Home Now" hostages dog-tag; and now, the heart necklace I gave her, honoring partners of Israelis, who are necessarily fighting in the war. I was amazed by her visibility. I wore the dog-tag while traveling, but under my blouse.
She belongs to https://apfmed.org/, which helps fund scholarships for Israeli doctors' training, and which also helped train my friend and other physicians around the world in mass casualty medicine 'cause now, they're experts. After October 7th, she asked, "How can I help? I want to volunteer."
"Do you speak Hebrew?"
"No."
"Then you can't. We would have to babysit you and have two people doing your job--you and a translator." How stereotypically Israeli to put it out there so directly.
On my El Al flight, they included a package of strawberry jam with my breakfast. The package illustration flashed me back to my first Israel trip in 1973, when hope had a different and maybe better quality in Israel. I don't remember who during these travels so far was wondering if we're in 1938 yet again, but I do remember showing the book, Ghosts of a Holy War... to my host last night, about the Hebron massacre. "I did some light reading on the plane."
He said, "Look, that was 1929, not the 6 Day War or the War in 1948. They did the massacre even before [they perceived us as having displaced/disgraced them]."
Another Israeli I met, "I'm a pretty racist dude. I don't like Muslims." He's a Nova Festival survivor and only because he served in the Iron Dome division, he recognized the Iron Dome would not withstand all of the missiles, and told his friends, and they escaped earlier than others. If they had driven the wrong way out of the area, they wouldn't have survived.
Orit Fuchs: a sunny, sexy artist, whom my hosts like, and I do, too, since my introduction to her work yesterday. I'm glad her art makes them feel good. And Naftali Bezem, too.
One of my hosts said, "I'm glad my mother's not alive [since October 7th]." Her family made aliyah from Argentina when she was seven. She remembers the unrest in Argentina.
Quickly discovered common ground with my hosts:
Just as my father (z"l) studied Industrial Design, so did my male host. My female host spent her career in corporations like I did, and also as a tall woman. We like art, all of us.
I miss Pat and Sammi, who Pat says slept on my pillow last night. I do hope I see the feral cat whom they say visits. My host prepared chicken scraps for the cat last night. So sweet. They liked the water bowl I brought as a gift, though the Memphis Tigers baseball caps might have been a bridge too far, even though one of them wore it and looked very sportive.
Their favorite author is David Grossman and another couple I had never heard of, Agur Schiff and Ofir Touché Gafla. One of their sons likes Etgar Keret whose "New Yorker" stories I've read.
I said, I have a cousin, who thinks Israel is the safest place to be.
"Was he born here?" asked the host who had made aliyah from Argentina.
"Yes."
"That's why he thinks that."
He said, "It's the only place where Jews have our own army."
I mostly appreciate how honest and direct Israelis are in my experience. Like Jews on steroids.
And how intimate so quickly: The El Al flight attendant researched the Wissotzky ingredients on her phone to see if the fruit tea had sugar and then said, "I'm worried about it. I have fresh mint. Would you like me to make you mint tea?"
"Na'ana. Oh, I'd love that." The spearmint tea appeared--just like I would drink at my Israeli cousins' after picking it from a shrub in their front yard. I was 15 again, spending the summer at their moshav near the often-Black-flag festooned Mediterranean beach. We always swam anyway, black flags be damned! Who's gonna day when they're 15? Again, a more hopeful time.
Active Israeli Jews are so Jewish and so not. Active American Jews are so Jewish and so not. In opposite ways.
Most Israel-based Israeli Jews, in my experience, are steeped in the culture, but really don't care about the ritual while most active American Jews care about the ritual, but focus less on the culture and more on fitting into American culture. My family of origin does both, though I'd categorize my wife Pat as more Israeli than American in relation to ritual.
Last night, one of my hosts’ sons said he felt all Americans acted entitled. I wish I had asked him further what he meant. I think we fascinate one another, actually -- American and Israeli Jews, if we let ourselves.
Would they feel alienated if I told them that in my head, and aloud when I'm alone, I say a brachah/blessing before every meal? And that I lead minyan at least once a month now at my shul in Memphis?
The co-founder of the Shoham-Memphis partnership and I spoke last night. I asked about his involvement in the Jewish Agency and he talked about being a shaliach in Tulsa, Oklahoma for two years during a hiatus from the Israel Air Force.
After the first six months, he said he told his employer that helping Jewish kindergartners celebrate holidays was too small a job for him, and that the job either needed to be larger in scope, or he needed to return to Israel. He ended up giving talks around the country and helping Jewish organizations beyond the JCC.
I told him, The way you want Israel to have relations with others in the world, that's how I feel about writing and producing Jewish, lesbian plays. Not many people think they want to hear such voices, but I want them to hear them. It is the same. He wants the world to understand Israel. He doesn't want the world to ignore Israel.
What's my motivation for being part of this Jewish Agency program?
Part of the answer: My mother (z”l) might be proud. She volunteered, helping Meir Shfeya succeed in the ‘50s as a Junior Hadassah member. Another part: The modern Orthodox Jewish day school I attended from Grades 1-8 and my family taught us to care about Israel’s future. And another: I want Israeli Jews to understand American Jews and have fewer stereotypes.
My host's son might still think Americans, including Jewish ones, are entitled after having met me. But at least, he has more data now, and from a primary source.
Today, we might go honor the incoming hostages or we might avoid the tragic scene and visit museums or simply walk around Shoham. I can't believe this unprecedented hostage crisis has been going on for so long that they've created an original and newer model of the commemorative dog-tag-style necklace, urging, "Bring Them Home Now."
