This post was written by my friend, Jillian Altit, who made Aliyah 2.5 years ago, and has recently returned from a visit to her family home in New York.
Anyone who knows me knows that I’ve always had my heart in two places.
Having been away from New York for so long and now having returned to the quiet of the holidays in Israel, I’ve had time to process my recent trip and why it is I’m so happy to have two homes.
It’s a strange thing to have your heart literally feel so much for two places. Most of my expat friends sympathize with me on this and it’s something we often talk about.
Because my vacation in New York was actually a vacation, I left with such positive feelings rather than my usual conflicting feelings of someone remind me why I chose to live in the Middle East over land of 24 hour diners and actual Mexican food?
When you’re on a timeline and you know you have just 20 days to pack everything in, you don’t take one second for granted. Every moment I spent with my family and friends I really took in, making my time in New York even more special for me.
For years before I decided to make aliyah I felt so conflicted. Whichever country I chose to live in would obviously define me for the rest of my life and I would live with a harping feeling of regret for all eternity if I didn’t just pick one already. My friends in Israel are constantly asking me if I’m staying forever and my friends in New York are constantly asking me when I’m moving back. That’s a lot of pressure, man. Can everyone just chill out for like, five minutes?
But now that I’m back home (home as in Tel Aviv, ya habibi, Tel Aviv), I finally realized how fortunate I am to have two places that I’m completely comfortable calling home.
I mean, what is a home, anyway?
Home is catching up with your camp friends and feeling that no time has passed, even though it’s been two years. It’s the irony of seeing Kaunnamednye West in Ramat Gan. It’s watching the first NFL game of the season in a bar where everyone actually understands and appreciates the game. It’s watching 40,000 people rally outside your window for change. Home is finally knowing what it feels like to be a bleacher creature at Yankee Stadium. It’s being able to lie down in the middle of the highway on the evening of Yom Kippur with no car in sight. Home is walking down Second Avenue on 9/11 feeling a pride you’ve never felt before. It’s being ripped off by your taxi driver, but receiving an invite to his Shabbat dinner in that same minute. Home is watching your best friend walk down the aisle to marry the man of her dreams. It’s having the privilege of being next to your Saba on his 90th birthday. Home is curling into your twin sized bed you outgrew over 10 years ago, knowing that the three most important people in your life are under the same roof, that same place where you first uttered the word ‘home.’
My mom has always said, “home is where the heart is.” (Except coming from my mom’s thick Lawnguyland accent it sounds more like, Jilli always remembah that home is wheh the haht is).
As always, she’s right. Home is where the heart is.
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