The following first appeared in Youth Outlook.
This is Where My Family Is...
I was at a loss.
I realized that I didn’t want to leave for “my world” in America. This is where my family is. My father’s parents were Zionists, the group of people who believed in a Jewish state. They came as pioneers in the thirties. My mother’s parents came years later as survivors of the Holocaust.
All of my family has served in the Army. My grandparents fought in the war of independence in 1948 and helped to build Israel. My grandfather also fought in 1956 and 1967 in the Six Day War, and then continued to serve in the civilian branch of the Army, the Haggah. My father fought in the Yom Kippur war.
No one is all that shocked as my family all gathers around the TV, a place where much of my visit was spent watching the violence unfold. I spent a lot of my time in the neighborhood that was hit, specifically that block. Shenkin and the surrounding blocks is a young, hip neighborhood filled with local fashion designer’s shops, restaurants and bars. When we walked around there during the week, my cousin Anat kept saying, “They are going to come to Shenkin, it’s going to get hit.” She explained that it was a symbol of young Israeli creativity and prosperity - an obvious target.
I talked to Anat before I flew out to see what things were like. She described the nervousness and tension that engulfed even the smallest of crowds. At one point she said I might not even notice because I am not part of it. Once I got there though, the change was painfully obvious.
On my first day in Israel, I drove with my cousins, ages nine and 11, to our grandmother’s house. The whole drive they joked around, pretending to be suicide bombers.
Every cab ride, fruit market visit and family gathering was a story of pain, grief and misery. We visited my parent’s best friends’ house on one of our last days there. They have a daughter, Liat, who is exactly my age and goes to the University of Jerusalem. She waitressed at a restaurant that was bombed.
On the day of the bombing, she was training a new girl. Liat’s tables were all full, so she offered the new girl the table of people that had just sat down by the door. When the trainee walked over to take their order, the suicide bomber walked in. The girl was killed. She was 26 years old. Liat stood behind the bar, and the six people in front of her were killed in their seats. In all, 11 people died.
During Passover lunch at my grandmother’s house, my whole family sat around arguing about the situation. I asked questions, trying to get a feel of the conflict. When I asked how more violence was going to help anything, my 11-year-old cousin who had been silent up until this point responded, “Efty, when you know someone who has been blown up, you will think differently.” He was right.
Now that I’m back, I don’t want to talk to my friends about my trip. It is difficult for me to digest everything and understand it myself, how can I try and make someone else understand? I don’t want to have political conversations with people who aren’t from there. I loathe the abstract American political conversation, buried in ideology. The conversations I had with my family and friends in Israel were real and valid. This issue isn’t political for me, it’s about my family, my people’s home. How can I talk about it with someone who sees it as the newest protest topic?
In one conversation, I asked my grandmother what she made of what’s going on. She simply stated that she had been through the Holocaust. Her husband, my grandfather, spent three years in Auschwitz and when he got out, fought for the state of Israel as long as he was needed. She just thinks that she deserves to have a place to call home.
During another meal at my grandmother’s home, Anat asked my grandmother if she had found out more information about her Polish citizenship. I was shocked. It seems that some survivors of the Holocaust are trying to find documentation of their birth in Poland to grant them and their families Polish citizenship. This would be a place to go to in case the situation in Israel deteriorates beyond control. My parents explained to me that Israelis are cynical about where things are headed and that returning to Poland isn’t an entirely serious option.
But the possibility that my family would have to abandon our home in Israel never occurred to us before this latest trauma. The idea of my family returning to the place where most of our ancestors were slaughtered only intensifies my feelings of hopelessness.
I remember being a little girl in Israel and finally being old enough to go on the patrol with my grandfather. I got to stay up until one o’clock in the morning, driving around the perimeter of the city with him and the other men. I remember how proud I was walking around with his rifle. I felt safe and secure. I want to feel like that about Israel again.
>>Back to the introduction to Roots
Israel is My Home
by Efty Sharony 
I live in San Francisco and was raised in Los Angeles, but Israel is my home.
My head throbbed on the plane ride home. I wanted to help, but I didn’t know how. I was already planning my return trip. This was my first trip to Israel in a year and half, since the terror began. I have always wanted to live in Israel for a period of time, but now there’s a greater sense of urgency. I feel like there’s a way I could contribute to a solution.