Your “what I love about Israel” thoughts keep pouring in. Here are two more, the second one a poem:
I’ve only been to Israel once. I went on a solidarity mission with my Rabbi and a couple of other guys from my shul during the Gulf War. The cabbies wouldn’t take money from us. Half of an IDF platoon ran around the Kotel looking for a band-aid for one of our group after he fell and hurt his knee (once they figured out what we meant by “band-aid”). I planted a tree with my bare hands. We visited an orientation camp for newly arrived Ethiopian Jews. We saw Ethiopian Jews in IDF uniforms. My Rabbi talked us onto a Patriot missile base. I visited cousins in Tel Aviv. We visited the mayor in Tel Aviv. I had to give back my gas mask when we left.
Martin, USA
An unforgettable place.
Sun emblazes wall and dome
brushes hills into gold.From a bench
in Jerusalem Square,
sipping Turkish coffee,
I watch men, women
walk the cobblestones.
One might be a cousin -
a death camp survivor.Merging cultures
thicken the air.
Stuffed cabbages, falafel,
honey and pine nuts.For a moment I forget
stones are being thrown
a kilometre away.But I breathe a feeling,
is it freedom
out of ashes?
Selma, Walnut Creek, CA