“Everyone has one place on earth that they connect to. They don’t have to have ever been there to feel the connection, but for every person, there is a place on Earth that has their heart.
For every Jewish person, there are two places. One place of their heart, and one place of their soul. The place of your soul is somewhere in Israel. Sometimes the place of your heart is, too.”
—R.K.
THE FIRST THING I do when the plane touches down in Israel is cry. Happy tears, streaming down my cheeks as the plane taxis slowly to a stop. The nice Christian lady sitting next to me is all sorts of confused, but too polite to say anything to a nineteen-year-old girl sobbing as the plane lands in Tel Aviv.
The Israeli lady sitting in the seat on the other side of the nice Christian lady would have said something, but she’s already on the phone with her husband, telling him that we just landed.
I don’t bother turning my phone on—Barbara is in Italy for the next month, leaving her apartment empty, and Salome just got married. Also, I’d probably just end up sobbing incoherently to whoever it is I call, and the nice lady sitting next to me is already kinda traumatized by my sobbing.
I’m really not a pretty crier. Oh, well.
The plane hasn’t come to a full stop yet, and already the overhead compartments have been opened, people taking their bags out, talking loudly on cell phones to various and sundry friends and relatives, letting them know their flight from New York had been okay, not so bad, just a little bit of turbulence, nothing to worry about, and they had just landed, don’t worry, motek, I’ll just take a nesher, it’s late, don’t worry.
I lean against the window and drink in the sight of the Tel Aviv airport for the first time since June. A month off of college means that the first flight to Israel I could find, I was on. Barbara on a month-long business trip in Italy means I had a free apartment in Chevron. Dream vacation? Basically.
The plane finally taxis to a stop, and the pilot’s thick Israeli accent welcomes us to Israel, thanking us for flying with El Al, and Chanukah Sameach. The nice Christian lady smiles at me, wishes me a nice visit, and stands up to get her bags. The Israeli lady is already waiting in the aisle, chatting with the man sitting in the row in front of us, talking about the latest Knesset drama.
Walking into the airport threatens more tears, because I’m home. I’m tired, a little caffeine-deprived, I want a bed more than anything else right now, but I’m back and I’m home, and that’s what counts.
And the airport is playing Chanukah music.
“Taxi drivers are by far my favorite people. I used to ask them if they needed me to drive them anywhere, because I was bored and I missed driving. It confused the heck out of the drivers, mostly because they thought that I was asking for a ride somewhere but I didn’t know how to say so in Hebrew. Sadly, none of them ever let me drive a taxi.”
—M.I.
THE RIDE TO Chevron is mostly quiet—the taxi driver is listening to the radio and grumbling about traffic and politics. I text my mom that I landed, but she’s sleeping, so she’ll probably text me later. I text Riva, letting her know I’d send her pictures the minute I get to Chevron. Or more accurately, whenever I feel human enough to do anything other than swan dive directly onto a bed. Riva doesn’t have winter semester off, which is the only reason she hadn’t been on the plane sitting next to me.
YOU’D BETTER! she texts back, because of course Riva is awake. Riva never sleeps. Well, she does, but Salome is convinced she never did. I’ve tried to convince Salome that I’ve seen Riva sleeping more than once, usually when we went away for Shabbos together. Riva was always awake when Salome was going to sleep, and was already awake when Salome got out of bed. Riva never sleeping had been a dorm room joke the whole year, and still continued with our group chat, when Riva is awake at hours that she shouldn’t be.
The taxi pulls up in front of Barbara’s building, and the taxi driver climbs out of the car to get my suitcases. “This is where you’re staying?” he asks again in his heavily accented English.
“This is where I’m staying,” I answer, rifling through my wallet for money. There should be some shekalim in here somewhere. I knew I saved some before I left Israel in June . . .
“Are you sure?”
“Yes . . .”
“It’s not so safe here,” he says. “You know this, right?”
I switch to Hebrew. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve stayed here before.”
“And now she tells me she speaks Hebrew,” the taxi driver says, shaking his head dramatically. “It took you this long?”
“You started in English,” I argue. “So I continued.”
“Americans,” he mutters. “Always so stubborn.”
I burst into laughter. “Look who’s talking,” I say between giggles.
“Israelis are never stubborn,” the taxi driver says, his mouth twitching. “Never ever.”
“Right. Never.” I honestly don’t know how funny this even is, but I haven’t slept in around forty hours. And I’m no Riva, which means I’m pretty sure I’m going to start tasting colors or something equally superheroish.
“Chanukah Sameach,” the taxi driver says, climbing back into his car. “Enjoy your stay, and don’t forget to eat some sufganiyot while you’re here.”
“Chanukah Sameach,” I say, and yawn. “Don’t worry, I will definitely have a sufganiya while I’m here.” I will be consuming all of the jelly doughnuts in the State of Israel, so if he wants to have any of his own, he should probably get on that sooner rather than later.
“Layla tov, motek,” the taxi driver says, and drives off, leaving me on the quiet street.
This is the part where you schlep your things inside, I tell myself, but it’s so beautiful out, and I’m not tired anymore.
Who are we kidding here? I am tired. I’m just too lazy to move.
Barbara’s apartment is a ten minute walk from Me’arat HaMachpeilah, but it’s a little too late to walk there alone. Tomorrow, I promise myself. I’ll go inside now, unpack, light the menorah, eat something, and go to sleep. Tomorrow, I’ll go to Me’arat HaMachpeilah, The Cave of the Patriarchs, and to get a sufganiya. The jelly doughnuts in New York just aren’t the same as the ones here.
The thought of a bed finally gets me moving, and I manage to get everything that I want done before lighting the menorah and then collapsing onto the couch. The two little lights of the menorah twinkle by the window, and I watch them happily.
Sleep threatens to overtake, so I distract myself by humming Chanukah songs and eating some five percent cottage cheese on those crackers in the green wrapper.
Nice to know that my meal choices don’t change that much when given the freedom of someone’s fridge. I go to put the cottage cheese back and discover a Shoko.
“Awww, Barbara!” I practically squeal. She doesn’t drink chocolate milk, which means she bought it special for me.
I rip a little hole in the corner of the little bag of Shoko and drink happily. I don’t care what anyone says, chocolate milk tastes best straight from the bag.
I check my phone. It’s been half an hour since I lit the candles on the menorah. I blow them out and within minutes I’m face-planted onto the bed.
Beds are the best thing ever, I think as I settle in. Even better than chocolate milk in a bag.
“I don’t think I ever realized how real history is here until I went the Cave of The Patriarchs. I was standing only a few feet away from where Abraham is buried. Abraham. Like, father of Isaac and Ishmael. Who routinely spoke to God. I think my head exploded.”
—R.S.
OMGGGGGG CHEVRON I’M SO JEALOUS AND I KINDA HATE YOU, Riva texts when I send her pictures of the city decorated for Chanukah. Daven for me, eat a sufganiya, and flirt with a chayal, okay?
OBVS. But I won’t be taking any pictures with any chayalim, no matter how cute they look, and no matter which unit they’re in, I text back, and stuff my phone back into my bag.
Me’arat HaMachpeilah is fairly empty that morning, which makes me happy. There’s something to be said about being here with crowds of people, like it was the first time I went, but the silence is nice. I take a seat next to Leah’s burial site and begin to pray.
“My favorite Israel story? I was on an intercity bus when it started raining. Not just a little drizzle, but RAIN. The entire bus started cheering. I don’t think I ever appreciated rain as much as I did when I lived in Israel. Every drop of rain felt like a gift.”
—T.E.
THE SKY IS cloudy as I leave Me’arat HaMachpeilah and head to the bus stop. I had packed my umbrella in a bout of optimism, and it definitely looks like it’s going to rain.
Awesome.
There’s a chayal leaning against the bus stop as I cross the street and try to avoid getting hit by a donkey cart pulled by a little Arab boy.
The chayal calls something to the little boy in Arabic, who laughs with his friends and yells a very loud “SORRY!” in English.
“Are you okay?” the chayal asks me in English.
I smile. “I’m fine, don’t worry. They’re just little kids.”
“Little kids with a donkey are a little more dangerous than just little kids,” he says.
I shrug. “That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about in New York.”
“Little boys driving donkeys? Yeah, not so much.” He smiles, a little dimple showing on his tanned cheek. “Taxis, maybe. But little boys don’t drive those.”
“There is that,” I agree, sitting down on the bench. He doesn’t have much of an accent when he speaks in English, and the little accent he does have sounds vaguely southern. Also, he’s really cute.
He leans back against the bus stop, content to watch and wait. There’s another chayal across the street, standing guard, machine gun in his hands.
The first time I saw a soldier with a machine gun, I freaked out a little. Especially since he looked around thirteen and had bumped into me on the train by Mount Herzel. I was going to ask him if he wanted me to hold the machine gun and protect him, but I figured that probably wouldn’t have ended all that well. I got used to the machine guns everywhere—on the bus, the train, in the shuk, at weddings, on the beach . . . you name it, the machine guns are there. Almost every eighteen-year-old in Israel is in uniform and has a machine gun. And so they go everywhere with them.
The sky looks darker and darker, and I check my phone. The bus should have been here by now.
“Excuse me.”
Cute chayal turns to me.
“Has the 160 come yet?”
“Yeah, five minutes before you got here.”
I sigh. Great. “Thanks.”
“The next one will probably be here in around twenty-five minutes,” he says.
“Gotcha.” I’ve taken this bus plenty of times and know the schedule pretty well, but I don’t have to tell him that. And honestly, a few months away could really mean the bus’s schedule might have totally changed. Weirder things had definitely happened with the buses here. I pull out my phone and sent a quick text to Salome, to let her know I’d missed the bus and I’d be in Yerushalayim a little later than I thought.
Just this once. In the future, please make sure that you plan your trips better. Curfew is instituted for your safety, she texts back.
Thank you, Mrs. Meirovitz, I text back. Of course Salome would remember the exact wording Mrs. Meirovitz would use when we would text her and ask for late curfew.
Of course, Salome texts. It’s my job.
Nicest. Dorm. Mother. Everrrrrrrr.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL, Salome texts back, and I giggle. Riva is usually the queen of overenthusiastic LOLs in texts, which confused Salome for a while. But now she uses as many L’s and O’s as possible, and Riva will Google-translate all her messages to Salome to French.
How we managed to all live through a year of seminary without someone getting grievously injured, I’m still not sure.
A loud crack of thunder startles me, and it begins to rain.
The chayal across the road whoops and starts dancing. “Avi!” he yells. “Bo l’rkod iti!” Come dance with me.
Cute chayal—Avi, I guess—grins. “Od regah, Asaf!” He turns to me. “I’ll be back in a few.”
“Go dance,” I say, smiling. “It’s raining.”
It’s raining!
“Thank God,” Avi says. “We need it.” He takes off at a jog toward Asaf, who’s full out jamming to the beat of the rain. The little Arab kids are back outside in front of their building, screaming and running in circles.
Asaf hoots as Avi begins to dance, goofing off as rain falls down in sheets. The Arab kids watch and giggle uncontrollably as Asaf grabs Avi and begins twirling him in circles, singing loudly. I lean back and laugh as the rain pours down.
Avi is cute. Really, really cute. Tall, tanned, and that little dimple that just makes everything so much better. Also, combine the uniform, his ombre kippah, and that southern accent, and whoo boy. On a scale from chamud to chatich hores, it’s not much of a contest. Asaf is Ethiopian, I’m pretty sure, and approximately the size of a house. He should been terrifying with his shaved head and the scar bisecting his eyebrow. But Asaf’s full out dancing here, all but inviting the little kids across the road to join them, and can’t look terrifying if he tried. Avi is trying to get Asaf to waltz with him, which is a disaster of epic proportions, and it is glorious. Avi’s trying to explain the steps to Asaf in a mixture of Hebrew and Amaharic, and Asaf is asking him where the spinning and dipping part happens.
“Now,” Avi says, and tries to dip Asaf.
It’s a good thing the rain is kind of blocking their view of me, because I am full out cracking up.
The little Arab kids from the building decide that they’re not going to let two ridiculous chayalim have all the fun, and begin dancing, shouting in Arabic about rain. A few of them are trying to copy Avi and Asaf, which just makes me laugh harder.
It’s a mess of shouting and dancing and splashing, and it’s everything I missed about being here. I’m smiling so hard my cheeks hurt.
Ten minutes later Avi is back, soaked to the skin, brown hair plastered to his head, beaming. “You missed out on a good dance party,” he says.
“I had a little bit of my own little dance party here,” I say, because I did. It was hard not to. “Aren’t you cold?”
He shrugs. “A little. It’s fine.” He grins. “But it’s raining!”
“That it is,” I agree. The rain is pouring down. I guess that bringing the umbrella was a good idea. “And not just a little drizzle, either.”
Avi sits down on the bench. “I’m pretty sure the bus is going to take a little longer than usual getting here, because of the rain.”
“I figured. It’s pretty universal.”
“You’re from New York, right?”
“Yup. And when it rains, the buses all run late, too.”
“Where in New York?”
What, like he’s going to know? On one hand, his English is unaccented enough that it’s possible he made aliyah. On the other hand, he seems to also be fluent in Hebrew, Arabic, and Amaharit. “Far Rockaway.”
“By the beach, right?”
So he does know where Far Rockaway is. All too often when I tell people in Israel I’m from New York, they’ll ask questions like how close I live to the Empire State Building. Or the Statue of Liberty.
“A couple of blocks away, actually.”
“Cool,” Avi says. “One of the guys in my unit lives there.”
“Really? Who?” I ask. What guy from Far Rockaway is in the IDF?
“Chaim Stein.”
“Of course,” I say, smirking.
“I know,” Avi says, clearly appreciating the irony. And whoo boy, he gets so much cuter when he smiles like that. “He has two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, too. Do you know him?”
“I know four of him,” I say. “Maybe five, if I think hard enough.”
“Yeah, it’s hilarious listening to him talk to people from New York. No, not that Stein. Or that one. Or that one. The one on Reads Lane, but not that one, though. The one closer to Empire.”
“Do you know his family’s address, too?” I tease.
“Not offhand,” Avi answers. “But all the guys in our unit know that he lives on Reads but not the other Steins on Reads Lane. There was one time we were all together on the bus and he met some guy from Far Rockaway. The whole unit informed the guy where Chaim was from. It was hilarious, especially since not everyone’s English is that good.”
“But they all know Reads Lane.”
“Every single one of them,” Avi agrees, and something about the way he says that just seems so familiar. Come to think of it, he just looks familiar.
Why? I don’t know. Maybe I’ve seen him somewhere before. That’s kind of how it just works here. You end up seeing the same people all over.
But I would remember seeing someone who looks like Avi.
I would. Really. And I would have mentioned it to Riva and Salome, who probably would have called me Mrs. Avi for like, a week or something, before finding someone else that they decided to marry me off to.
I don’t ever remember being called Mrs. Avi. Or anything about a really cute soldier that speaks English with a hint of something southern. But he does look familiar.
I look up to see Avi waiting patiently for my answer. Right. Conversation. Which is not when you space out while staring at cute Israeli guys. Jewish geography.
“I think I actually do know who you’re talking about, though,” I say, after doing a mental scan of all the Steins I know on Reads Lane. “Is his sister a redhead?”
“I have no idea,” Avi says. “Maybe? I’m pretty sure his sister is in school here this year.”
“Elisheva! Yeah, I do know them. Our moms are friends.”
“Small world.”
“And you’re right—he does have two eyes, a nose, and a mouth,” I say.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Avi teases. “And do you know my friend’s second cousin? He lives in America somewhere. Maybe New York? Maybe that place in the middle?”
“That place in the middle?” I repeat. “Which place?”
“I have no idea. A taxi driver asked me that one day. He was serious.”
“Taxi drivers are my favorite. One tried to set me up with his brother last year.”
“Did he?”
“Yeah. Apparently his brother works at the bank on Kanfei Nesharim in Jerusalem, and is only thirty-one. He also seems to like religious Americans, even though he’s not religious or American.”
“Is that so,” Avi says, trying hard not to laugh. “I can definitely see why he would think the two of you would suit.”
“Yes, because marrying a thirty-one-year-old guy would have totally not fazed my parents,” I say.
“It’s a bit of an age gap,” Avi agrees. I wonder how old he is.
“Yeah, thirteen years is a bit much, I think. When I told my parents, my dad said that if I was thirty-one and he was eighteen, then we could solve the shidduch crisis.”
“Some shidduch crisis group would probably give you a medal for single-handedly solving the whole shidduch crisis. The president would probably give you a medal.”
“Shame that I was the one that was eighteen,” I say. “Because it would be cool to single-handedly solve the entire shidduch crisis just by marrying one person.”
“The newspapers would have a field day,” Avi says. “All those letters to the editor.”
“You guys get them here?”
“My mom gets them sometimes,” Avi said. “I see them when I go home for Shabbat.”
So his family lives here. That relieves me, that he’s not a chayal boded. Not a lone soldier, without family here. I probably shouldn’t be that worried about him, but here we are. ”Were you born here?”
“Nope. I was born in Kenya.”
Huh. “That’s kinda random.”
“My dad is a doctor, and my mom is a nurse, and they were there with a team of Israeli doctors after a huge flood. They knew they were going to be there for a long time, so my mother decided to go along with them. She said that she was going to be pregnant anywhere, so she may as well come and help.” He shrugs. “And then I was born.”
“That is significantly cooler than anyone else’s birth story.”
“Well, all the rest of my siblings were born in Sha’arei Tzedek. My mom said one dramatic birthing story was enough for her.”
“I don’t blame her.” The rain is slowing down, but the bus still isn’t here. It’s a good thing I told Salome I would meet her by her apartment. If we had agreed to meet by the bus stop, she’d be sitting around in the Central Bus Station, doing nothing.
“The bus should be here soonish,” Avi says, seemingly reading my mind. “We’re lucky it’s not snow. We’d be stuck here forever.”
“You wouldn’t think it would be so hard to buy a few shovels. You all already have sand.”
Avi laughs, his dimple flashing. “This is the desert. We don’t understand snow.”
“I don’t think it has feelings,” I answer, standing up to stretch my legs. “But I don’t know if anyone’s ever did a study on whether it does or not.”
Avi tugs on a sweatshirt he pulled out from his knapsack. There’s a flash of skin as he wriggles it on. Tamar, don’t be a creeper. Stop looking. “I don’t know if you’d be able to find a way to test if snow had feelings or not. Like, how would you measure that?”
Good question. “I have no idea. Maybe if you whispered nice things to the snow, it would stay cold longer?”
“Snow, you are so pretty and white, and perhaps you’d like to build a snowman?” Avi jokes. “I don’t know if that would work.”
“I don’t know if it even makes sense to ask snow if it wants to build snowman. I don’t know how if it would be capable of building itself into something.”
“Well, now you have to write a grant and see if the government wants to pay you to find out,” Avi says.
His sweatshirt is safely on. I just keep on remembering my friend Sarah telling me about the time she went rafting with her brother and his friend when they were both in the army here. I’m telling you, when Shimon’s friend took his shirt off when they jumped in, I thought my eyes were going to pop out of my head. He was ripped. Peyos flying everywhere, and a six-pack. It was crazy. I’m telling you, never underestimate chayalim. Even the super frum ones.’
Okay, maybe thinking about if Avi has a six-pack is a bad idea.
Okay, not maybe. It is. Bad idea. Stop. Conversation. Focus, Tamar.
“I mean, I’d love to make the government happy, but I’m not sure I want to do it like that. I’d never live it down.”
There’s a slight rumbling.
“Shehechiyanu, it’s the bus,” Avi says, hoisting his knapsack up. “I thought it would never get here.”
The bus door opens and Avi waves me on. “I have to drop my bag down under the bus anyway. Go ahead.”
I get on and pay for my ticket, making sure it’s a round trip. I’ve forgotten, a lot more than once, and it’s more expensive to buy two separate ones. “All the buses are running behind schedule, so make sure to check before you go to wait for your bus back,” the driver tells me as he punches out change from the little change machine. “You don’t want to get stuck in the rain later.”
“Thank you.”
“No problem, neshama.”
I slide into a seat on the surprisingly full bus. Avi climbs on and chats with the bus driver before heading down the aisle and sliding into the seat next to mine.
Not the seat across from mine, which is taken by an old man. Not the seat in front of me, where a Hasidic mom and baby are sitting. Nope. The one right next to me.
Well, this is quite the turn of events.
“I guess the entirety of Chevron is going to Jerusalem now,” he says.
“Is anything happening there?”
Avi shrugs. “Well, my brother’s bar mitzvah, but that’s not why everyone is on the bus.”
“Mazel tov! I was wondering why you were leaving Chevron.”
“Yup, Baby Yaakov’s bar mitzvah.”
“Baby? If it’s his bar mitzvah, he’s not much of a baby, is he?”
“He’s the youngest, so he’ll always be the baby.”
“I get that. My baby sister is eight, and she’s always going to be my baby. Poor kiddo.”
Avi grins. “They’ll be okay.”
“I hope so.” Okay, so the thing about sitting next to someone on a bus is you sit next to them. Next to them. And it’s really close. I shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as I am. I lean against the window and try to snap out of it.
“So, how long are you going to be here?” Avi asks. “I assume you’re visiting.”
“Yup. For a month,” I say. “Not long enough, though.”
“Why don’t you just move here?”
“I wish it was that easy. But college.”
“We do have that here, you know.”
“I know. But I have a scholarship. So.”
“Ah.”
“Yup.” I sigh. Stupid money. “But when I finish, I want to make aliyah.”
“What are you going to school for?” he asks. Genuinely curious.
“Occupational therapy.”
“Cool. My older sister is an OT, also.”
“Older sister? Where was she when you guys went to Kenya?”
“She was there,” Avi says, stretching out in the seat. “She used to watch us when my parents were both working.”
“Us? Wait, how many older siblings do you have?”
“Three. Aliza, Noam, and Ezra. Noam and Ezra are twins.”
“Holy cow. Your mom is kind of a little crazy.”
“A little bit. All the doctors who were there thought she was a little nuts for bringing all of the kids with her. While pregnant.” Avi shrugs. “Well, more the other doctors there. Not so much the Israeli ones.”
“That doesn’t surprise me at all.”
“Anyone who knows Israelis isn’t all that surprised.”
Well, that’s true. “Do you remember anything from being there?”
“Not the first time,” he says. “We left when I was around eight months, but we went back a bunch of times. My parents are close to a lot of people in the village we lived in, and go back every couple of years to visit and help out.” He shrugs. “And I would go along with whoever went, because I picked up Swahili fairly easily.”
“That’s pretty impressive,” I say. “There’s a guy in my OT program who speaks Swahili, and apparently it’s not easy to learn.”
“So I’ve heard, mostly from the other doctors we used to go with.” He laughs. “I was a ridiculous little kid. Some pipsqueak little Israeli kid, wandering around Kenya with a group of doctors, translating medical problems for my dad and his coworkers.”
“Your childhood was significantly cooler than mine,” I say.
“It felt regular to me,” he says. “I mean, I knew at the time that not everyone went to Africa with their Abba. But Lior would go to Switzerland to visit his cousins, and Emanuel would go to Australia to visit his grandparents, and Yoram’s dad lived in America most of the time. So me going to Africa wasn’t that weird.”
“Yeah, mine was still not nearly as cool,” I say.
“Your childhood isn’t over,” he says.
“I’m registered to vote. I’m pretty sure that makes my childhood over.”
“Well, your adulthood can be cooler than mine,” he offers. “You still have plenty of time for that to happen.”
“One hundred and one years is plenty of time,” I agree.
“I have one hundred.” He laughs. “When I turned twenty, Noam called me and wished me a happy one hundred years left of my life.”
“Did you say thank you?” I ask, laughing. Riva would so do something like that.
“Obviously.” He widens his eyes in mock horror. “My mother would be scandalized if I did anything less.”
“And we don’t want your mother to be scandalized.”
“We try to avoid it if possible.”