A Tale of Two Homes: What It’s Like to Be an Israeli Expat in the US Right Now

It’s another hot summer morning in my Pittsburgh neighborhood of Squirrel Hill–an upscale, multicultural neighborhood and the epicenter of the city’s Jewish community. What has become old is new again. Each time there is a clash in Israel and Gaza, antisemitism becomes a news target.

Every Israeli knows that a rocket can fall any minute and they’ll have to run to the nearest shelter. Israelis deal with these threats collectively, not individually. They walk hand in hand with the fear.

I left Israel because of terrorist attacks but when my family ran to the bomb shelters this past month, I felt torn. Spring was in full bloom, but I felt neither here nor there. I knew what it was like to run to bomb shelters from thirty days of living as “refugees” on the beach during the second Israel-Lebanese war. I felt emotionally displaced. No U.S. crisis hotline could possibly understand what I was going through.

Because I have straddled two different homes for the past 15 years, trying to redefine home in a post-Tree of Life era has become especially challenging. Toward the end of the recent attacks in Israel, I noticed a sign posted by my next-door neighbor. It said, “The U.S. should stop aid to Israel now.”

I was taken aback, shocked. I had never before seen anything like this on our quiet street.

I had no choice but to speak up, and so I mustered all the courage I had and responded by saying, “You realize that the situation is complicated and there are two sides to every story.”

I wanted to tell my neighbor that as an Israeli expat and American Jew, I understand the insider mentality. I wanted to tell her of the rocket that landed in the backyard of our Arab-Christian relatives in the north of Israel and how important it was for me to say, “Stay strong. We are with you” in an act of solidarity. But I kept that part to myself.

“We don’t need to support an inhumane country. Look at what they’re doing to Gaza,” our neighbor shouted back to me.

Trying to stay composed, I said, “I just want you to know that I believe in peace and I am a proud American Israeli. Please do yourself a favor and research the facts.”

The next morning, the sign was gone. The house had gone dark and the neighbor was nowhere to be found. I don’t know if our confrontation prompted her to remove it. Quiet seems to reign again on our moss-filled streets. But something in me has profoundly shifted.

In my new memoir Sand and Steel: A Memoir of Longing and Finding Home, I write, “In the States, we don’t have the daily pressures of an ongoing war, and due to America’s vastness, we are far-flung; our distance separates us, both in space and in values. It’s easier to deal with feelings of stress, and perhaps even denial, privately. In Israel, people reflect the reality of their hardships. They are direct and to the point, and less prone to chitchat and pleasantries.”

And yet, in my own way, these geographical and cultural distinctions I know very well are working against me. On one hand, I’m an American. But on the other hand, I can’t let my fellow Americans beat up and villainize my heart’s home. And because I’m deeply aware of the fact that they are culturally removed from what’s happening in Israel, I feel an even greater need to speak up. It’s a different kind of war I’m fighting.  

On one hand, I’m an American. But on the other hand, I can’t let my fellow Americans beat up and villainize my heart’s home.

For a Jew in the United States, the outside world no longer feels safe, and like a parent protecting a child from a barrage of rockets, I have to protect and defend my country too. I know what it feels like to have your heart’s home under attack. I know what it’s like to run for dear life because you fear you might get blown-up. But does my U.S. neighbor?

The life of an expat is by nature conflicting. Israeli expats like me are not seen and there’s no room in American culture to discuss alienation and isolation. My sister-in-law in Israel summarized my expat condition well: You are an ambassador.

I am learning that the only “home” is the one inside of me. As an American Israeli, I’m realizing that the only way to resolve this inner conflict is to speak up against antisemitism in a country I thought I could reclaim as home.

Dorit Sasson is an SEO consultant and strategist and the author of the newly-released Sand and Steel: A Memoir of Longing and Finding Home and the award-winning memoir Accidental Soldier: A Memoir of Service and Sacrifice in the Israel Defense Forces.