Israel isn’t perfect, but we ARE a miracle

by Sarah Tuttle-Singer | The Blogs | The Times of Israel

Oh, this distance.

This rift between my people in “the Old Country” — America — and my people here in Israel.

It’s killing us.

Even though we grew from the same seed: We drew water from the same wells on the way to Jerusalem. We survived the rough earth of Babylon. And expulsion from Spain. And pogroms, too many to count, uprooting, upending, like the wisps of a dandelion, we floated and fell. And then the Holocaust. Even that.

We survived.

And you’re there in the Old Country — America — in that place I still dream about that holds my childhood in the palm of its hand. The Old Country, where there are bagels and lox, and a map of Israel next to the chalkboard, where we drove to Temple and sang hinei ma tov u ma nayim, how good it is to be together. Where we love IsREAL from afar, from a map, from the quickening we would feel in our hearts when we would do folk dancing in the social hall…(shafte mayim b’sason — draw water joyfully… mayim mayim mayim mayim…) Where the relationship wasn’t messy, but easily compartmentalized as I would drop a few coins in the blue JNFA box in front of the sanctuary.

(It’s a mitzvah after all.)

Continue reading.

Love Israel? We do too. Follow our Israel board on    page.