Israel, At First Blush

The author in Jerusalem, overlooking the Temple Mount. Talya Lev

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Waking up as the tour bus crawled to a stop on the shoulder of an otherwise empty Israeli highway, I opened my eyes to see eight strangers piling their luggage into the bottom of our bus and climbing up the steps. Clad in identical olive-shade uniforms differentiated only by their multi-colored berets, they walked down the aisles among the 40 wide-eyed Americans, taking the empty seats we had left for them.

I shifted over to the window seat, quickly adjusted my wrinkled University of Pennsylvania T-shirt and ran a brush through my hair — you know, just in case the male Israel Defense Forces soldiers lived up to their reputations. Felix, a 20-year-old and perfectly sculpted immigrant from Russia, sat down next to me, and within minutes we were somehow discussing Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s “The Little Prince” in broken English. Not that such a thing — a serious conversation about a literary classic — couldn’t happen with a guy from the States. But it was my first real sense that there was something different about Israelis.

It was midway through my Taglit Birthright Israel trip — June 1, 2007, to be exact — and the eight soldiers around our age had joined us as civilians for the remainder of our time in Israel. We were all reaping the benefits of the free 10-day journey available to all diaspora Jews under the age of 26, funded by private donors and the Israeli government.

Only two weeks before, I had walked through the wind tunnel of Franklin Field in Philadelphia arm in arm with the girls who had been my best friends for the past four years, following the plush red running track that would lead us to our college diplomas. Looking around me and waving up to applauding relatives, I remember being struck with fear. Not fear about graduation — I already had plans to attend journalism school — but fear that I might never make it to those plans because I had finally caved to peer pressure and agreed to go to Israel. Sure, I was an Ivy League grad and relatively proficient in Middle Eastern politics, but as my dad kindheartedly reminded me, “Don’t expect to come back from Israel alive.”

Despite having grown up in a largely Jewish community in New Jersey, all I seemed to know about Israel was war, terrorism and suicide bus bombings.

But I made it there in one piece, and on the first night, our bus pulled up next to the Zion Gate just before sundown, where we made kabbalat Shabbat near the 24-karat gold menorah that overlooks the Kotel. Outstretched in front of me was the Western Wall of my ancestors, a refuge of hope and prayer for thousands of Jews everyday, and I was stunned by the fact that I was actually there, in this place that I had been so afraid of for so many years.

Yet it wasn’t until the five male and three female soldiers joined our group that my understanding of Israel began to deepen, eventually turning to a passion for the small, embattled country.  Continue reading…