Birthright city
By Eliezra
Schaffzin
“Israel,” my
father said.he was an oral surgeon. It was December and I was getting a
Hanukkah present. My mother packed my bags: two-month supply of tampons, a
pepper-spray key chain, and a family pack of Dove soap. It was 1986. It was New
Jersey. I had Madonna posters on my bedroom walls. I was embarrassed by the
particular way she put her hands on herself. I’d needed something to replace
the Kristy McNichol. When I was in elementary school, I’d sent her a letter
telling her to be careful, since I’d seen some of the kids who had to have
dental work done in my dad’s office after they fell off their skateboard. It
was 1986, almost 1987, and i was going on a two week winter break trip to
Israel. Somebody was bound to know somebody, I didn’t recognize anyone. I found
my parents in the waiting area. My parents snagged their seats, they really
liked to keep them. When i got closer, I saw they were both nodding at a woman
in a fur coat. She needed the space.
I got a window
seat, jammed in next to an Orthodox rabbi and his wife. I don’t know why I was
surprised to hear the usual announcements not just in English. I didn’t
understand one word of it. I pretty much slept through the entire flight, and
for most of the bus ride from Ben Gurion to Jerusalem. The brochure called it
our “birthright city”. It said going there would feel like coming home. Shlomo
as our guide, introduced us to Jerusalem : the new city with its glossy, modern
buildings,the old city with its greasy looking white walls to the east.
At night we
stayed in youth hostel rooms, girls on one hall, boys on another.
About a week
into the tour, we were told to pack. I’d knowd from the brochure that we were
going to mock-military boot camp. After some shouting, they gave us each a
little stack army-green shirts and pants and sent us off to barracks.
I remember that
moment brtter than any other, because it was the one in which I fell, as my
mother had predicted, in love-permanently, devastatingly with my own distance,
the thing I finally understood would be my rightful salvation, my rightfull
ruin.
