{"id":28432,"date":"2018-04-13T03:38:52","date_gmt":"2018-04-13T10:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=28432"},"modified":"2018-04-11T15:24:00","modified_gmt":"2018-04-11T22:24:00","slug":"the-bond-between-israelis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2018\/04\/13\/the-bond-between-israelis\/","title":{"rendered":"The bond between Israelis"},"content":{"rendered":"

This photograph by Ziv Koren is from My Jerusalem: The Eternal City<\/em>, a collection of reflections on the city by notable Israeli and Diaspora (mainly American) Jews edited by Ilan Greenfield and published by Gefen Publishing House last year.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I read a lovely quotation recently: \u201cI met a hundred people going to Delhi. And every one of them was my brother.\u201d I often feel that way in Israel. In the 40 years I have lived here, I have met saints and sinners, business tycoons and homemakers, and many, many others. But, by the very fact of them pulling up their roots, leaving behind their birthplaces and culture, here they become ordinary people leading extraordinary lives. I once had a friend, sadly passed on, who used to say that he stood on the corner and watched all the poems walk by.<\/p>\n

Israel makes demands on us. We don\u2019t just drift along acquiring more and more material possessions \u2013 a bigger home, a more luxurious car, a wardrobe of designer clothing. No matter how rich or poor we may be, when our children turn 18, they are expected to serve their country, either in the Israel Defence Forces or national service (Sherut Leumi). Almost everyone I know is a mother, father, grandparent, sister, brother, wife or daughter of a soldier, and there is always the fear for their safety, or of terrorist attacks that can occur anywhere, changing lives forever. And the six-day work week doesn\u2019t leave much time for leisure, or keeping up with friends and family scattered around the country. Yet there is a resilience here. On the whole, we are optimists. It is almost a clich\u00e9 that, if you live in Israel and don\u2019t believe in miracles, then you are not a realist. We live on miracles and expect them \u2013 the Entebbe rescue and the Six Day War victory are just two examples.<\/p>\n

Stand on the corner of any Jerusalem street and, in the space of 10 minutes, you can hear several languages. There might be a monk in a long habit; a soldier whose face is etched in weariness; a teenager with earrings and tattoos; tourists with cameras slung around their necks; a housewife trundling a shopping cart; a Charedi Jew with peyot; and everywhere people talking on their mobile phones. A gregarious lot contributing to the rich mosaic of our society. Each one unique.<\/p>\n

They may be strangers, but Israelis won\u2019t hesitate to speak to you … on a bus, waiting in a queue, sitting at your doctor\u2019s office. They may ask you where you bought your shoes, where you work, how much you earn, and why haven\u2019t you dressed your child warmly enough. One big family. It\u2019s not just idle curiosity \u2013 they are really interested.<\/p>\n

This is what\u2019s so endearing about living in Israel. We all express our identity differently, in the way we dress and the words we speak, but, in the end, it\u2019s a similar identity. We are bonded by birth, by choice or by belief and it creates a link \u2013 invisible perhaps but, when needed, we will help each other. It\u2019s an unspoken commitment. How lucky we are!<\/p>\n

Dvora Waysman<\/strong> is a Jerusalem-based author. She has written 14 books, including <\/em>The Pomegranate Pendant, which was made into a movie, and her latest novella, <\/em>Searching for Sarah. She can be contacted at dwaysman@gmail.com<\/a> or through her blog dvorawaysman.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This photograph by Ziv Koren is from My Jerusalem: The Eternal City, a collection of reflections on the city by notable Israeli and Diaspora (mainly American) Jews edited by Ilan Greenfield and published by Gefen Publishing House last year. I read a lovely quotation recently: \u201cI met a hundred people going to Delhi. And every […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[5780,4330],"class_list":["post-28432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-op-ed","tag-culture","tag-israel"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}