Israeli-American

by Claire Rosenberg

December 10, 2010

While a quick moving and destructive fire raged in the Israeli Carmel during the first week of December, I received a number of emails requesting aid; the first plea being  to “host refugees from the North,” a message to which I nearly responded “I’ve got space for two!” before remembering that I don’t live in Israel—yet.  The impulse is indicative of my frame of mind in general…living in and amongst American Jewry, yet more often associating myself with Israeli culture, given my lifestyle even as I reside in North America.

In the Fall of 2005, I was living and studying at Ben Gurion University in Be’er Sheva, where I took every opportunity to delve into Israeli culture…living with Israeli students, doing my weekly grocery shopping at the Shuk (an open market on the city limits), and speaking Hebrew at every opportunity, even when the Israelis responded in English. I will admit to paying extra for Heinz ketchup at the local superstore, but I otherwise left American food and habits behind without so much as a backwards glance, making burekas, malawah, veggie schnitzel, shakshouka, and Israeli salads the mainstays of my first year cooking, and quickly incorporating the local slang into both my Hebrew and English vocabulary. Upon returning to the U.S., many of my newly gleaned Israeli habits stuck…including an unfortunate addiction to Milkys (pudding cups with cream on top); full of fat and $4.50 for two at my local kosher butcher, and the fact that  five years later, I’m still apt to answer my cellphone “Allo” as my Israeli roommates did. To this day, I often request that someone “close” the light, a direct translation from the Hebrew grammar.

My ability to purchase Milkys in New Haven albeit at a highly inflated rate, is evidence that considering Israel’s size, the number of Israelis in this country and their influence is impressive.  In New York, it is possible to shop for your groceries at Supersol on the West Side, following breakfast at Aroma Café (both Israeli imports), while in Los Angeles you can enjoy the city for days without ever having to speak a language other than Hebrew.  (An experiment I completed successfully this past summer) The Aroma Café I visited in Encino did not so much as offer an English menu, since with their largely native Israeli clientele and wait staff, there is no need. While it may not speak much to our morals, it was a reflection of the surroundings, that when I found myself on the upper west side with an Israeli friend recently, he remarked that “if we want to talk about people here, we need to do it in English or they’ll understand”. The neighborhood could accurately be renamed Little Israel.

While it often seems there is already a nation’s worth of Israeli emigrants here in America, it’s important to note that we’ve made some well-received exports of our own who now work to further Israeli-American relations. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir hailed from Milwaukee, while an outstanding modern example is Michael Oren, the author and current Israeli Ambassador to America, who was raised in New Jersey and became an Israeli citizen in 1979.  After serving in the first Lebanon War, Oren married and raised a family in Israel, all in the process of becoming a foremost authority on Middle East History and Policy. Mr. Oren also walked with me to synagogue in Jerusalem one Rosh Hashana morning, simply doing his part as a citizen helping a lost tourist, and making this owner of his complete written works quite star-struck. To him, walking from the gates of the old city to Emek Refaim  (about a 25 minute stroll) with a fellow Jew was undoubtedly a common and forgettable experience, yet the generosity had a life changing effect on me, and was not an experience I’ve ever duplicated on the streets of New Haven, Connecticut. (Although Oren did spend a year as a visiting professor at Yale University after our Jerusalem encounter, I was never fortunate enough to cross paths with him here).

If I were to pinpoint one habit I consider intimately “Israeli” through my experiences, it is the atmosphere of hospitality prevalent throughout the population. While I experienced the pushing and shoving at the bus stations, and the intrusions into my so-called “privacy” at every turn, the hospitality I encountered everywhere was one element of the Israeli experience that struck me in particular. The recent request to host refugees from the north that landed in my inbox was an embodiment of “being Israeli” as I now understand it, and my inclination to fulfill it; learned behavior from all the wonderful hosts I have had welcome me into their homes in the Holy Land.

Since returning from my semester in Be’er Sheva, I’ve also worked to maintain that welcoming spirit here in my home, making certain all my friends and relatives are always welcome in my apartment, and while I don’t yet have a residence in Israel, I’ve already offered space to anyone wishing to visit me there. It’s been ingrained in me, courtesy of a people who rely on each other, in a geographical region where other friends are unfortunately few and far between, that we are all family, blood or not.  While American Religious Schools attempt to impress upon students our oneness as a Jewish people, it was not until I spent six months living in Israel that I truly understood the connection.

Thankfully the fires in Northern Israel have ceased to burn, and with the aid of Israel’s friends worldwide, many evacuated Israelis have returned home. Unfortunately there are still those without homes to return to (dwellings in Kibbutz Beit Oren and the Artists Village of Ein Hod were irreparably destroyed) who are currently depending on the hospitality of their fellow Israelis, with the knowledge that were the situation reversed, they would offer the same.

Claire Rosenberg is a Jewish semi-professional living in Connecticut, where she teaches, writes, does yoga, and runs the occasional 5k. She spends the majority of her time these days applying to Masters Programs in Israel and creating recipes to post on her vegetarian food blog, www.bokchoybohemia.com. She is also a regular contributor to the New Vilna Review.