Opinion: Going home again

By Miriam Bradman Abrahams

Issue of April 24, 2009 / 30 Nissan 5769

Visiting Israel is going home for many of us. It’s really a second home, a place we look forward to being and feeling comfortable. We tend to revisit

sights we enjoy, spend time with family and take in the unique atmosphere. On a recent week-long trip to visit my son in Israel, I stayed at my friend’s apartment in Tel Aviv, which is celebrating its centennial this month.

I spent the days walking along the city’s streets on familiar and new routes; from the hectic Arlozorov train station to the Azrieli towers where I rose to the awesome observation deck on the 49th floor, and from breezy Namal Tel Aviv, the port on the northern end of the city’s coastline to Neve Zedek’s quaint streets near Jaffa at the southern end of the city. I circled upscale Kikar Hamedina, down to Rechov Weizman past Ichilov hospital to the Tel Aviv Museum. I strolled from Rabin Square to Sderot Ben Gurion to Dizengoff’s Bauhaus center, down to the Kikar’s flea market then on to Nahalat Binyamin’s colorful artist shuk and Shenkin’s interesting vibe.

I’m ready to offer my own version of walking tours of the 100 year old city. I relished having my son accompany me for some walks, while enjoying some on my own. The boulevards were filled with people riding bikes, pushing strollers, walking dogs, eating a falafel or having a coffee and chatting on their pelefones. On Erev Shabbat, Dizengoff was packed with café goers and shoppers and we people watched.

Ideas percolated in my head as I walked, that I am a part of this people; though my physical home is so far away, my enjoyment from catching snippets of conversations in a “foreign language” that I totally get or being handed a regular menu instead of the English one signifying that I was mistaken as “one of them”, and knowing in my heart that this is where I really belong.

I love taking the train in Israel, from Tel Aviv north to Nahariya and south to Beersheva, with our family living at both ends of the line. Boarding as the only civilian in a car full of Israeli soldiers is a totally surreal experience. They are laughing and talking loudly to each other or on their cells or fall asleep immediately. Some boys barely have facial hair, and some of the girls giggle together at the swaggering boy soldiers, while others are more serious and aloof. Some carry guns, some huge duffel bags, a few wear kippot, many are bare headed, some of their uniforms are rumpled while others are crisply ironed. But they all stand in defense of our country and while I feel great pride in them, as a mom I cannot imagine what it would be like if my own sons were wearing that uniform. You know the mixed feelings I’m talking about.

As I walk I scan for details I’ve missed in the past and begin to notice memorial plaques everywhere, along the tayelet by the beach, on the boulevards, and in the squares. They honor Israelis who have been killed by acts of terror, whether in a café or disco, during wars and political strife. Renowned are the Altalena memorial, Rabin Square renamed for murdered prime minister Yitzchak Rabin, a memorial to the victims of the Number 5 bus bombing on Dizengoff during the First Intifada and the Dolphinarium memorial for the teens murdered by suicide bomber in the Second Intifada. The one next door to my friend’s apartment building honors the 11 Israeli team members who were victims of the Munich Olympics, naming each athlete and coach along with his sport. A ceremony takes place there each year to preserve their memories.

The cosmopolitan city of Tel Aviv is beloved to me as a Jewish New Yorker, vibrant with fun and culture to be enjoyed by natives and visitors alike. But this city, like the entire country, rightfully continues to honor its tragic legacy as well. With Yom HaShoah just past and Yom HaZikaron approaching, may our people’s suffering become ancient history.