It's probably time we should all just come to terms with my obsession.

I don’t feel very self-assured tonight, dear reader. Old skeletons seem to be lurking at the door, though it’s probably the hiss and scratch of Resistance trying to bully me into not using my voice…

This tactic worked for a while, once. I silenced myself for the two years that the lockdowns and mayhem raged, because I could not summon any thoughts to share that weren’t criticisms. And because, “what you focus on, expands,” I just stayed quiet for a really long time, until the dust from all the marching and raging had settled. This blog, in fact, is partly the result of that time of silence; like a vow never to be silent again.

I think I was riding up an elevator today, mid-dialogue with myself, when the conversation reminded me of the early days of my awareness that I was becoming a writer (when I was 22 or so and about to finish art school), and this sense of urgency I felt to go somewhere that challenged and ignited my spirit.

Instinctively, I knew that place to be Israel.

The previous year, six and a half months after my 21st birthday, I had traveled to Israel with my sister on a Birthright trip (a subsidized 10-day guided tour of Israel for people ages 18-26 who have at least one Jewish grandparent.) The purpose of the trip is to encourage young people to immigrate to the country, or “make Aliyah.” My first time leaving the US, I had a pretty miserable experience; my stomach didn’t agree with any of the food, the summer heat felt like death, everyone was hooking up and getting plastered at night (not my thing), and I had a devastating crush on one of the young Israeli soldiers who had been invited to travel with us—feelings which I had zero intention of doing anything with, other than to fuel my suffering. Worst of all (and I’ve written about this in the past), I stood before Ha Kotel, or the “Wailing Wall,” as it's known—one of the absolute holiest places in the Jewish narrative—and felt…nothing.

Empty. Numb.

As a kid, I had never found it easy to get along with other Jewish kids. I always perceived that they were “more Jewish” than me. Like they held the membership card and attended all the club functions, but my application kept getting denied or lost in the mail. Not ironically, my best Jewish friends always had one Jewish parent and one converted parent, like me. When you grow up suspended between two cultures, your Soul and your psyche seem to merge their influences into a very complicated sense of identity. Such was the case for me and for everyone I’ve spoken to directly about this who also grew up with one converted parent.

And yet, despite this tug of war which had been waged upon my heart, I always believed that being Jewish was somehow my duty, my “birthright,” and so I fought and fought to prove (mostly to myself) that I am totally Jewish.

You can imagine how confused I felt, standing at the Wall and not knowing what to think.

Years later, it dawned on me that our nuanced uniqueness is our special strength; the recipe which makes us totally one-of-a-kind. Being just enough removed from both sides of my heritage allows me to take a step back and observe the components with less subjectivity. This special ability influences my voice and my thoughts. It’s what makes me, me. Especially as a writer.

In 2020, I made a last and desperate pass at showing the world just how Jewish I could be and decided to “make Aliyah.” For nearly a year, I fought for that visa. The impasse that came as a result was so specific (“Failure to provide proof of Judaism,” the online forms said), that I finally shut up and started to listen.

Three years later, something has changed. Three years later, I don’t give a damn about what anyone else thinks of me.

Not totally Jewish. Not totally not-Jewish. And, just like my 22 year-old self knew, ready to immerse myself again in the place that is all of me and none of me. The place that makes my biting humor and cynicism come out. The place that makes me walk taller and stride longer; that makes me shy because I don’t speak the language, yet I can still somewhat fool the locals with my practiced accent; where my style make sense and doesn’t stand out so much. And the place where the narrative is so contested yet uncontested at once, it’s begging to be written about, to be pieced apart and parsed through; to hold up the shreds and the clues to the light, then to burn or cast them into the Mediterranean or make something new so as not to leave a single trace.

I told a stranger today that I was planning to go back to Tel Aviv within the next three months. 

He replied, “What’s in Tel Aviv?” 

And I just had to smile…

’Til Monday, dear reader.