Ha Tikvah

Ha Tikvah, which means The Hope, is the Israeli national anthem. My second daughter loved when I sang this to her when she was a toddler. I loved singing to my kids and each night they’d each choose three songs to hear. This child always made Ha Tikvah one of her choices. Today that kid is almost 19, and we put her on a plane to spend a gap year in Israel. Since this is a common move post high school in the orthodox community, I have concluded that we parents often don’t process the enormity of it, by virtue of the fact we are so used to it. It’s major though. Sending a teenager across the world to a Middle Eastern country that is constantly under the very real threat of attack, would understandably seem completely insane and irresponsible. A friend and I have been discussing this the past few weeks, a friend whose daughter is also going, and we decided that it’s crazy how normalized this decision is. Are we in denial as parents? Are we choosing the expected, rote move over logic and rationale? Have we reached herd level stupidity in shipping our children off to Israel? Who the heck cares if almost everyone else is doing it?? I am not a conformist in any other area of my life so these questions were both curious and uncomfortable. I love Israel deeply. I actually spent a gap year there myself. I obviously am approaching this idea differently as a parent than when I was 18, but circumstances were certainly safer when I went. Granted, now there is texting and FaceTime. I am not a helicopter parent at all, but I’m hyper vigilant about safety and caution. I know all this letting go is part of the parenting deal, but giving my daughter a lecture about never taking a bus out due to the ever present threat of suicide bombers is objectively fucked up. I am at peace with having conflicting emotions in life, which means I welcome feelings of anxiety, sadness, and excitement that surround this experience for me as a mother in this situation. Along with that comes hope. Hope she will be safe, hope I can visit her in times of a third covid wave, hope there won’t be forced lockdown, hope she won’t spend weeks in bomb shelters like her friends did last year, hope she will be happy there, and hope that my beautiful Israel will be safe and at peace. Ha Tikvah is a truly loaded title for a song. Israel’s very existence is constantly under fire, as we have seen with the disgusting storm of anti Semitism that has gone on for many months. I will never defend or debate Jewish ties to our own homeland, that’s not what this post is about. That’s like me debating why the French should be able to live in France, or me contemplating whether or not I’m pro Italy. Over it. However, “hope” in regards to Zion, Israel, the Land of Milk and Honey means many things. For the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, it means hope of the continuity of the Jewish people which is absolutely sustained, nurtured, and nourished by the land of Israel. As vulnerable as Jews are worldwide, since we are hunted for sport, we would be toast without Israel. It is our safety, our sanctuary, our home base. Jews have been fully ethnically cleansed from countless countries. Completely. Israel accepts and welcomes Jewish refugees from all over the globe. There is no more such a thing as the lost tribes since all Jews are found in the holy land. And sadly, America, the land of the free and home of the brave, has not been a friendly place for Jews recently. This week a 19 year old yeshivah student was mercilessly gunned down in Denver in an act of hateful anti Semitism. Which basically blows up the safety argument. Anti Semitism has been continuously vicious both here and worldwide, making Israel probably and ironically the safest place for Jews. Is it strange that I won’t let my kids take ubers here yet will ship them off to Israel alone? Yes. Is it bizarre that American parents pack up our youth for a year in a place where rocket fire is normal and buildings aren’t up to code unless they contain a bomb shelter? No question. So why do we do it then? More so, why am I doing it? The answer can seem unsatisfactory in its simplicity. Because as Jews it is just what we do. It’s as if we block out the long list of why nots in favor of the one why; it’s our homeland and we fucking love it. I can’t think of another country where parents who are active citizens elsewhere, have children who selflessly and courageously volunteer to serve in an army in a country where they don’t live. Jews from all over the world literally put their lives on the line to join the IDF. The Israeli army is no joke. You may very well not come home. It is clear that our instinct to protect and serve this land defies logic, which true love is meant to do. As I looked around the airport at Jews from all types of backgrounds, calmly lining up at security as if on line for a Disney ride, I was genuinely comforted, at least in the moment. I was comforted by that Jewish resolve to do what we do no matter what the rest of the world says or thinks. We have ALWAYS beat to our own drum, and it’s this very quality of non conformity that the rest of the world seems so threatened by. Solidarity trumps popularity, at least for the Yiddin who are proud of who we are. My Buddhist practice teaches no separation. I admit I am most at peace in my life, body, mind, and heart when I open myself up to this practice. It genuinely feels good on all levels. But I was placed in a Jewish body for which I’m extremely grateful. I have been conditioned to define humans as Jews or non Jews. This is complete separation, and I don’t know yet how to marry both ideologies. Maybe I never will. Sometimes this division bothers me since separation is wrong and feels like shit to me, and sometimes I’m really proud to be in the exclusive Jewish club. I have sadly concluded that the world indeed also defines us in those terms; Jews and non Jews. How do I, a Jew, escape a concrete label that is coming at me from both sides? My desire to just be known as a human being is strong, and that has nothing to do with not maintaining my intrinsically deep connection to a culture, history, language, and traditions that I love. As is evidenced by the extreme reactivity to Jews throughout history, as well as currently, the whole freaking world is fiercely determined to keep Jews in our own category, so that it can keep throwing darts at us. And you know what? Fuck it. I’m still going to get on that hellish line at JFK airport and board an El Al flight to Israel because it is my birthright, my privilege, and my responsibility. And it’s my job as a Jewish mother to impart the same ideas to my kids. Jews must stick together. We don’t have a choice. Those who think they do will change their tune very quickly when another genocidal madman usurps power. Torquemada, Hitler, and the Taliban ain’t handing out street cred points to self hating Jews. Let’s see how fast these anti Zionist progressives clamor to buy condos in Herzeliya when there’s a pogrom in LA or Brooklyn. And guess what? Israel will turn not one of them away, despite how many times they have turned their backs to her. Because Israel is the motherland and mothers, good ones, welcome their children unconditionally and without judgement. Mothers can’t always explain our actions. And when said actions come from a place of wholeness and purity, we no longer feel we have to.