The flight was relatively full but uneventful. Lots of PPO and far too many hours in a mask, or in our case, two masks and a face shield which we ended up not wearing but faithfully carried at least, as if it were a talisman to protect us. That said, the airports on both sides were empty and the flight was much less scary in reality than in anticipation.
When we got off the plane, a young woman with a Russian accent to her Hebrew waited at the top of the stairs going into the terminal. She carried a sign that said “Welcome Olim!” in French, Russian and English. We were the last people off the plane, and she didn’t emote much excitement about our arrival, our bravery, or our aliya, but she did dutifully walk us through the empty airport to our next Russian handler, chatting on her cell phone the whole way.
Our next handler, another young woman with Russian-accented Hebrew, spoke with me from behind a red chest- height counter just before the entrance to the center of the terminal. I somehow imagined that we’d at least be taken into a private room for this historic moment, but no, our long-awaited granting of Israeli citizenship was about as private as checking into an airplane. Our handler spent some time clearing up the anticipated confusion around whether Max could really be let in as a 17 year old who was not making aliyah but wanted to enter on a tourist visa. I assured him this had all been cleared in advance, handed her a printed copy of a letter from the ministry of internal affairs saying as much, and she went back to the computers and dug around some more and made some phone calls and decided we were all legit. She then instructed me to sign a number of forms in the language of my choice. She, like the first handler, wore street clothes, and didn’t even have a uniform, not even a vest or a badge or button or anything.
Who were these women? Who did they work for? If they had been part of a shadowy group of gangsters and assassins and not representatives of the state of Israel, I never would have known. But they seemed to know who I was and why I was coming to Israel, and so I trusted them, and signed in English on whatever dotted line they put in front of me.
After I signed the last document, the handler handed me an identity card, a SIM card with three months of unlimited use, an envelope with 3500 shekels ($1000), and a document stating my status as an owner of Israeli health insurance. She pointed out in my little blue booklet the identity numbers for me and each of the kids. Then she gave me a folder with some more papers to read at home and recommended I put all my documents together so I don’t lose them. She never said welcome to Israel, but hey, this is Israel, where actions often speak louder than words. I felt the sabra love.
She then escorted us to get our luggage, grudgingly let us stop to buy bourekas and sabich and chocolate rugelach as is our usual entering Israel routine, and led us to the airport exit.
To my surprise, a plush 14 seater black van was waiting to take us and our 18 suitcases on a free and private ride to our apartment. While Dudu loaded the bus, our handler smoked a cigarette. I suspect she was now done for the night. After Dudu finished loading all our suitcases on his bus, he also had a cigarette. Watching the smoking made me made me happy. It’s been years since I’ve seen anyone smoke, and it reminded me that I was really not in Berkeley/Kansas anymore. Finishing his cigarette, Dudu joined us on our bus, checked in with me about our address, and off we sped.
I was a little shell shocked for the beginning of the ride. It had been decades of anticipation. Years of planning. Months of bureaucratic hurdles and anxiety. And now, an hour and a half after landing in Israel, we had actually become citizens.
As we sat in the dark and I watched the passing streetlights on the familiar drive from the airport, I felt tears welling up. I tried to remember when I had ever felt such a feeling and the only memory that came up was after I relocated my daughter, who got lost in a crowd. I had experienced that utter panic that maybe she was gone forever maybe she would never come back maybe my whole life was about this moment and then suddenly, through the shoulder to shoulder crowd, I caught a glimpse of her and pushed through the crowds and I was kneeling and she was crying and I was crying and somehow that was how I feel. Tearful relief from as deep a place of much older than me that I can still surprisingly access. Home.
I—a complicated word, hard to unpack the self at a moment like this but I will use first person singular nonetheless—I am back home.
Family members —both my parents, my sister Abigail and her husband, Adam, and their youngest son Yisrael—greeted us at the curb of our apartment, cheerfully lugged in all our enormous suitcases and heavy duffel bags. My sister opined that even if we got Covid on the plane, it hadn’t been in our system long enough to infect others, and thus gave me a big hug and their family stayed for a few hours.
As the clock approached midnight, my 16 and 18 year old nephews walked in unannounced, having just completed an all day hike through the Negev Desert. It was all bizarrely normal, all these people who are my rocks, the people I love and depend on, somehow all here in our new apartment in Jerusalem and acting as if it’s the most normal thing in the world that a family with six generations of roots in Colorado and before that a dozen generations in Europe would recongregate in the Promised Land, in the middle of a global pandemic nonetheless.
My sister and mother and nephews, G-d bless all of them, had thoroughly cleaned our entire apartment top to bottom and furnished it with all essentials including six Ikea beds, which they had purchased, delivered, and assembled themselves. They’d even made the beds for us and decided who should sleep in which room (that’s my big sister in a nutshell). They had stocked the entire kitchen and refrigerator, including all sorts of junk food that my kids love and knew I would never buy. A second cousin of Kenny’s had got wind of our arrival and without even telling us, brought over a five course homemade meal and homemade challah for Shabbat. All of this with no asking on my part.
So far I have eaten far too many salty cheese bourekas, a bag of bamba, a sabra fruit, some tangy-sweet candy strips that you can only get here, and a bit of sticky gooey exceptionally caloric chocolate rugelach. Cultural return through the palate.
Our new home is so close to the green line that at 4:16 AM I am listening to the call of the local muezzin. Then again, in the month before Rosh Hashanah sephardic Jews also wake up in the middle of the night and say some special melodic prayers that sound like Arabs praying so who knows? I feel welcomed to Jerusalem. I might need to start sleeping with earplugs.
The muezzin finally stopped. I will try to sleep.
Pomegranate Dreams 