Israel, It seems unfinished
Our kids' hot take on Israel (*mostly written in April 2022 but posted now in 2024 due to procrastination with a note about how it feels to be reflecting on this trip during war in the region)
How does one describe a place, an entire place? Especially when that place is almost by its definition divisive, emotionally charged, and triggering? Our oldest son, Naz, we feel summed it up pretty accurately in his hot take as we were heading to the airport after a week spent in Israel, that Israel “seems unfinished”. It is indeed, our dearest one, it most definitely is.
Our family passed a full + action packed time traveling the country of Israel in celebration of Naz’s Bar Mitzvah in March of 2022. Now before you go and get the wrong impression of us as a family that we “that” kind of Jewish family that would have a Bar Mitzvah in Jerusalem (which we did) I feel that it’s important to state clearly that we are and we are not “those” kinds of Jews.
We ARE the kind of Jews who root our family’s Jewish practices in culture, not religion. My husband and I are proud atheists who love science, tradition, service, ritual, and community. Those are the foundations of our family’s Jewish identity.
Naz was born in Israel in 2008 on a day when Eid and the Jewish High Holidays overlapped on the calendar. He was born in a private hospital in Nazareth, a mostly Arab town in the northern part of the country. It’s a gorgeous town and they took very good care of us.
We were living in Israel because Adam, my darling husband, was in medical school in a program that focused on training physicians through the lens of global health. We lived there for three, long, often violent (we lived through three wars) years. In addition to growing + birthing a baby I professionally collaborated with Palestinian + Israeli midwives on a coexistence program that brought me into the community connection and impact I craved while living there.
So to honor Naz, our family’s values, and to show our kids around the place, we organized our a trip to Israel in March 2022 around connecting with the people + places in Israel that bring us joy. You can be sure that we did our best to talk a lot about justice, occupation, and how Israel is indeed “unfinished” as it continues to strive towards being a more just, equitable, and safe place for everyone. As Americans, we know something about trying to tell the truth about land that was taken, lives that are lived now on said land, and our roles in ongoing harm done in our name.
We started in Tel Aviv, its modern iteration is a European-vibe inspired city, on the Mediterranean. We wandered, ate our weight in Gelato, ate double our weight in some of THE BEST food to be found on planet earth, found some knock off Air Jordans for Naz, and hugged friends + family we hadn’t seen in years.
From Tel Aviv we headed North into the Galilee. This part of the country reminds both Adam and I of the Napa region in California: rolling hills, vineyards, brushy trees, and a cooler climate than the rest of the country.
We wandered the ruins of Cesarea, an ancient Roman port, where we learned more about the history of occupation in this region. There is a gorgeous amphitheater in this national part where the kids reenacted a fight for us while we took in the sea breezes.
We passed some treasured time with Naz + Sera’s midwife, Mindy, and Naz’s first friend, Avner. Mindy and Avner opened their home to us when Naz was two months old in December 2008 as missiles were falling in our neighborhood as Gaza and Israel expressed their distrust of one another through flying weaponry. That is a story for another time, but suffice it to say that we will never forget that time we spent nestled in their home while we waited for that war to end.
Naz’s service project for his Bar Mitzvah involved fundraising for the hospital in Nazareth where he was born. Nazareth is a magical place, full of gorgeous churches, stunning mosques, and loads of history. We spent the day touring the hospital, they even had a birthday party for Naz in the Labor and Delivery ward. It was a very “circle of life” kind of day as the kids got to see an embryo implant in the IVF lab, heard a baby take its first breaths, and then saw that same baby in the L&D ward with it’s mom a few hours later.
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We then headed south, to Be’er Sheba, to the place where Adam went to med school and I had a newborn. We spent our day there showing the kids around, hugging old friends and faculty that we’d loved when we lived there, and eating some incredible Ethiopian food. The time we spent in this city when we were newly married, pregnant, in med school, and then new parents was really hard. It was also some of the most intimate time in our lives when we had friends that we saw everyday, we showed up for each other when we were struggling, and we rested SO deeply.
We then headed to the Dead sea and Masada. During this stretch of the trip the kids saw the first rural poverty on the trip as we passed several unregistered, unrecognized Bedouin settlements. This is a much contested human rights issue in Israel as these settlements are without government supported water, power, schools, medical care. Adam and I spent some time caring for + in community with some of the members of such settlements when we lived in Israel and we were saddened to see that the situation had not much improved for this population.
This photo is from the morning of Naz’s Bat Mitzvah ceremony itself. Behind us is both the Dome on the Rock and the Kotel. These places are holy to many and each bring their own sense of reverence and restriction. They are also places that are deeply divisive and contentious. There is a heavy military presence in this part of the city and there are areas that are off limits to Palestinians which is heart breaking and wrong. This place is emotionally charged. As a great grandchild of holocaust survivors, choosing this spot for Naz’s ceremony felt significant. It also felt (And continues to feel) complicated.
Naz’s Torah portion was about sacrifice and ritual and so that was his focus for his year of study. This photo was clandestinely captured by Naz’s Mimi (photos are frowned upon during Shabbat at the Kotel) while we was reading his portion in Hebrew. He nailed it and we are all so very proud of him.
We then went to Ramallah in the West Bank to pass some time with one of our beloved friends who we close with when we lived in the region, Aisha. This part of the trip is another story, so that piece is coming here *soon. Stay tuned.
We passed the rest of the weekend in Jerusalem before we headed to Egypt for the second part of the trip (that is another story, also). Coming soonish*.
This trip now, in July of 2024, seems impossible. As I finally publish this, there is war in Palestine and Israel. It seems that war is on the brink in Lebanon and perhaps Iran. All of this to say that we continue, as a family, to advocate for safety, equality, a release of the Israeli hostages right now, and a ceasefire immediately. This substack piece is meant to be about a trip that our family took to a complicated, sometimes violent, and incredibly gorgeous and significant to our family part of the world. I leave this here, now, and trust that you, the reader, know my heart and how it is breaking each day for Palestinians, Israelis, and all of us who love the people living a terrible war each day.