You're 22 and you live ... in Jerusalem

I know I haven't written anything in a while. Which probably seemed rather ironic considering that all eyes were on Israel for the last few weeks. But it wasn't ironic at all. Nothing in the last few weeks has really changed in my life. I'm safe and, despite feeling more nervous in crowded areas, Jerusalem has felt more or less the same. But every time I opened www.blogger.com to write, I found myself crippled my confusion and unable to find words to describe the experience of being in Israel during a war. And so, the updates about all of the exciting non-war aspects of my life were sacrificed, because it felt strange to write about them as if nothing else was new.

Don't get too excited. I still really don't have the words. The words to describe how war leaves no room for wishy-washy political views. How defining "my Zionism" began to feel like an imperative. How much I've thought and read about what it's like to send your 18-year-old boy into war; to decide that the State of Israel and what it stands for and what it does is something you believe in enough to do raise your children here. How scary it felt to ride a bus, but not even comparable to the faces in the photographs of the Palestinian women who see death all around them. How conscious I became of the peacenik-y "war is bad" view that I was raised with, and how to reconcile that with Israel - and reality. How much I've thought about the dozens of Israelis who made yerida (moved away from Israel - the opposite of aaliyah) and became my Jewish teachers, mentors, role models in my reform synagogue in my small corner of the United States. How different Judaism is to Americans and to Israelis. How little I know about my own religion and how little I know about what I want from it in my life. How strange it was to have dinner at my teacher's home last night, and look at from his balcony at the sea of green lights that shine from the tops of mosques in the West Bank, just over the hill.

In the last week, I would have written about a new class at Pardes on Spirituality that I'm taking and how difficult it is not to fall asleep during meditating. That my friend Greta is now in Israel, and how happy I am to have her here. That I had a lovely dinner last week at my friend Dena's house and pulled off an amazing veggie lasagna. How much fun it was to have lunch with old camp friends and gossip about who will return. That we have a new President and, despite missing America, how fun our inauguration pizza party was! That I heard a famous jazz saxophonist, painted a floor, and learned about the art of Storahtelling on our Dorot seminar "What is Jewish Art?" That I received a 30 page packet detailing how my friends and fellow Dorot Fellows and classmates and employers and professors rate my emotional intelligence. Well, that one will probably have to be explained in detail later.

For now let me say that I am safe and, despite being confused by Israel and, in the most quintessentially "Avenue Q" kind of way, about being 22, I am happy. And that www.kayak.com says that you can buy a round trip ticket to Israel for only $800. So if you happen to have $800 lying around (yeah right!) come visit me because it's getting warmer in Israel now and I just found a delicious pizza restaurant in Jerusalem and it would force me to clean my apartment.