Going home

December 23, 2009 - 10:05 AM by

airport-queue-200I knew I was headed home to Israel as soon as we passed security in Philadelphia and entered the protected Israel-bound departure gate at US Air. After hearing nary a raised voice for a week, the tranquility was shattered by a woman’s voice shrieking in Hebrew.

She was complaining about something to do with another passenger encroaching on her space in the waiting area, or maybe cutting in line – it wasn’t totally clear. But in either scenario, I had to chuckle at the pot calling the kettle black – those are both Israeli inventions, so maybe she was just upset at having her tactics nicked.

As we sat down to wait for the flight and ran into a friend from Jerusalem on the same flight (also a longtime immigrant from the US), we got to talking about other cultural differences we’d noticed on our visits to the US. I recounted a day trip to Boston with my brother in which a car veered close to his one-month old Infinity forcing him to blast the horn.

“At least the horn works,” he said, looking on the bright side of the encounter. All I could think about was that he had spent a month driving prior to that without having to place his hand on the horn – Imagine being able to last a day like that in Israel?

We laughed together about Americans’ obsessions with the weather (when in both Minnesota and Maine, where we were respectively, the forecast for a few months can just be one one word – cold) and sports, especially fantasy football leagues which take on a far greater importance to fans than the actual games being played.

We contrasted those interests with what we Israelis spend our days debating – the Gilad Schalit release, the settlement freeze, and granted, to a lesser extent, Maccabi Tel Aviv, and the weather – at least as far as rainfall and its impact on our water situation.

Of course, Americans also think about issues – the health bill, gay rights, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – but there’s still a sense of being once removed from them, of observing from the outside. We wondered out loud what it would be like to return to that environment.

My friend – who had lived for many years in the US as an adult before moving to Israel – said that he had made the choice, and that he would do it again without hesitation. Giving up the comfort, the football, and manners of the US for the cramped, in-your-face disfunctionality of Israel was a natural decision all because of this, he said, pointing to his 11-year-old daughter sitting next to him.

With that, our flight was called for boarding, and the planeload of mostly American tourists began to line up. It was time to go home.

Tags: , , , , , • Category: A New Reality, General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Travel 

Comments

Leave a Comment





© 2012 ISRAELITY | Site by illuminea | Sitemap