Back to Baltimore

When I left for Israel, I knew that living there wasn’t going to be easy.  I was prepared to experience a different way of life; to be shoved out of line by aggressive natives, to ride the crowded buses for hours each day and to feel like an outsider until I adjusted.  What I didn’t realize I needed to prepare for was coming home.

I went with my father last week to see the new movie on the Holocaust, Defiance.  Throughout my life, I have seen dozens of films on the topic, walked through the Holocaust museum in DC a handful of times, visited Yad Vashem in Israel five times in the past year and half alone, and taken classes on the topic, but for some reason the implication of the Holocaust never quite clicked.  I understood it as a historical event; as a defining point in Jewish history, but never as a defining point in my history.  After this movie however, I walked out of the theater with tears in my eyes and speechless.

Through five months in Israel and a whirlwind adventure in Thailand, through war, parliamentary scandals, and fifty hours straight of travel home, I didn’t think about what it would be like for me here, in Baltimore.  The most common question people ask me is if I feel like a lot has changed since I went away.  The honest answer is no; things were heading in a certain direction and have kept on that path.  What has changed is my perspective and my question now is where these new experiences will fit into an old life.

We are lucky to live in a city where Jews are ubiquitous.  Where the public schools basically shut down on high holidays and new kosher restaurants are thriving.  We don’t have to think about what being Jewish meant to our grandparents or even what it means to our peers in Israel.  Even in my family, where taking two days off for Rosh Hashannah and a day for Yom Kippur used to be a given, it’s not anymore.  Instead, it has become more important to keep our employers happy and our jobs secure. 

Understanding the importance of Judaism in our lives can’t be explained by someone else.  It is the connection that we, as individuals, finally make with something bigger then ourselves.  I sat in that movie and I realized, after a Bat Mitzvah, Hebrew High School, 6 trips to Israel, a Chabad house in Thailand, and being told millions of times, that I am Jewish and this is my history.