just a bit about HOME

all along, since the moment of my arrival i have been mental noting things i wanted to share about israel. the little things, like, right at the start, the arrival at Ben Gurion airport. It is a long,wide walkway from your gate, through an atrium like hall, complete with indoor fountain, cafes and luxurious duty free shops...the walls are lined with beautiful posters from each of Israel's independence day celebrations. I am walking (and walking and walking), taking it all in, excited to be here.....there are huge windows showing me the tall date palms blowing fronds and a large sign designed into the grass "Welcome Home"!!!!!!! you see? , not " Welcome to Israel" (well, maybe there was a sign like that somewhere) but "Welcome Home". Israel is certainley welcoming to it's tourists...needs them and has been improving her treatment of them...but Israel  wants her citizens (or potential citizens) to know they have arrived home. 

Today, i jotted down something i noticed israelis would say when, while making plans to come over to their homes "we're here", "I'm here",  = it's okay, we're not going anywhere until you get here, take your time, we're waiting......

and all my friends said it...and they are all very different from different streams of israeli culture....and i loved the way it made me feel when they said it....

there are all these incentives in celebration of israel's 60th anniversary, to get "yordim" (those who have emigrated out of israel, literal translation "those who have gone down") to return to israel. there are tax breaks, help with job finding, free medical etc...people keep asking me if i will be taking advantage of these...no...i am not staying.

by the way....those who immigrate TO israel are called.....uhuh "olim" =  those that go up. get it?!

One goes up to Israel.

people keep encouraging me to "buy something in israel..you know a home...you should always have a little something to return to". 

Israel is big on "Home". El Al airlines talks of "coming home" in their jingles. 

there is a soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been in capitivity  with the Hamas for over 2 years now. and great controversy on how to "bring him home". during the last elections, when they counted the soldiers ballots ...they found Gilad's name written on a blank slip of paper, instead of  one of the various names of one of the various parties......

there is such a sense of shared fate in this country. she's small, israel. with lots of controversy, diversity,extremism, fury, pressure. a constant pulsing...pushing forward...out in the street, in the public places, an undercurrent of ...anxiety? the common responsive phrase when asked "Ma nishma?" = "what's heard?"  is "yihiye beseder" = " it will be allright"   ..... 

"the economy is terrible; factories are closing, tens of thousands people out of work, the grads/scuds and kassams are still falling on the western negev from gaza, no water, no government as yet.....but (they say) "zeh ma yesh" = " this is what there is....it will be allright". very zen. then they dart in front of you in line. bring their front bumper up against your rear bumper on the freeway at 120 km per hour while flashing lights and honking. interupt you when you are asking anyone anything...because they are "in a hurry".  double park behind you to go to the atm machine.....meantime you ask them to move and they get angry and insulted " hey all i needed was to go get money..can't you wait? Ma karah? = "what happened?"....entitled hand gestures  and loud voices. 

and I? I use the voice and the gestures to deal with it....i can match the intensity but it's not the quality of intensity i want to cultivate ...it's "interesting" to see how it sets me on the defensive...instinctively. most of us here in israel walk in readiness. it's a country on alert. you may be home. but you're not really safe.