The Old Neighborhood
For a Jew, it doesn’t get any older than this. It’s the oldest new country in the world. Like any other old neighborhood you might know and love, it just feels like home to me.
I love the people in my old hood. “No you don’t” my husband said. “You love those ultra Orthodox Haredi Jews who won’t look you in the eye because you’re a woman? The ones that look at you and don’t think you’re Jewish?” And my answer was yes, I do. I don’t like how women are marginalized by Haredi society. Nor do I like the idea that some of my peeps think they own the rights to God’s word. I love them despite this. In fact I love all my people despite a lot of shit they do. Maybe it’s out shared DNA. Maybe it’s centuries of trauma that got imprinted on our DNA. I have an affinity for the slightly damaged. So I love the people that voted for Bibi and those that voted for Meretz too. I think they’re both really wrong but somehow we fit like KellyAnne Conway and George Conway.
You know how when you go to your old neighborhood and you can almost hear echoes from the past as you stand quietly on the corner where you used to hang out? You know, the corner with the mailbox. Sometimes it happens like that here in this old hood. I’m driving through the Jerusalem hills wondering if Abraham came this way on his way back home to Hebron. Or I’m on the beach in Tel Aviv close to sunset and I wonder about who sat on this very beach 3000 years ago. It’ll happen at random times. Maybe to remind me why I’m here.
For me Passover is about liberation and the solidifying of the Jewish people into a nation. We have stayed together through a lot of hard times and with a lot of disdain for each other at times. Some would define that as family. But stay together we have and on this Passover I am glad we did because we are living a history now that our enemies throughout history tried to take from us. There is still work to be done and solutions to find but as long as we are here we can hope.
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