First Person – Torn in Two

To the Jews of the Diaspora:

I recently returned from a monthlong vacation to the United States. Since I’ve gotten back home to Israel,

however, it seems as though “reality” has smacked me upside the head. I say this because of such a severe contrast between daily life in the United States and Israel.

Every minute of television, radio and Internet coverage is dedicated to the disengagement currently taking place. I feel so torn. It is just as hard to see people being booted out of their homes, as it is to see the soldiers unwillingly carrying out their orders because they have no choice in the matter. When the TV is filled with images of a kippah-clad settler crying and dancing arm in arm with a kippah-clad solider, one the evictor and one the evictee, how can a Jew not be profoundly moved to tears?

The disengagement is not solving any problems — it just creates many smaller ones. Where are these people supposed to move? The government has not planned sufficiently for this. People are living in tents.

A mother holds her child up and says, “Look, sweetie, this is who evicted you from your home … remember….” Is this the kind of image we want our Israeli/Jewish youth to have of our own Israel Defense Forces (IDF)? Is that how people will see me when I don an IDF uniform in a month, when I am to be drafted? Why should soldiers be forced to carry out these orders? They do not deserve this type of bad reputation.

How on earth is this “good for the State of Israel,” as Ariel Sharon claims over and over? Will the terror stop? Will the imams stop chanting and preaching “Allah is great and kill the Jews?” Will they stop educating their kids to do the same and will suicide bombers’ parents stop being proud of their children who “died for the cause?” Does Sharon not see and hear on Al Jazeera how the Arabs are dancing on the rooftops at the Israeli retreat? Does he not hear their preachers saying, “This is only the beginning?” What are Israelis receiving from the Palestinians in return for our bending over backward for them?

How can a Jew not cry when he sees four crying female soldiers trying to console one another while at the same time forcefully carrying out a crying woman from her home or shul?

How can a Jew not tear his garments when he sees crying rabbis and yeshiva heads abandoning their shuls and batei midrash where they spent days and nights sanctifying God’s name and learning Torah? They lead somber processions of their students, Torah scrolls in hand. They stand together in a circle with soldiers singing “Hatikva,” their voices cracking. Seeing these images and hearing their souls singing and their “Shema Yisroels” resonating is equally as mind boggling, disturbing, moving and awe-inspiring as thinking of how Jews throughout our history have done everything possible to make Kiddushei Hashem in the face of the worst situations imaginable.

I cannot just go on with daily life and not be affected. I feel like I have so much more to say. The simplest questions of “How are you? How was your day today?” take 2,000 words to answer. What if it was me being evicted? What if one day I’m going to be commanded to evict some of my neighbors? How can I ever raise children in this country when this is what they might have to face? The State of Israel and all of its people are in a state of mourning. I feel so lonely. I feel like there’s nothing I can do, completely helpless to reverse this awful direction my country is taking. It makes me want to run away, back to the States. I ask myself so often now, “Why am I here? Am I crazy?”

A planeload of 250 immigrants from Canada and the United States arrived in Israel last week. Former mayor of Jerusalem and current Finance Minister Ehud Olmert greeted them. Immediately upon arrival, they engaged in heckling him and the government’s “crazy” policies. He shouted back at them, “Well, if a million of you would’ve come a long time ago, maybe things wouldn’t be this way.”

Is this the kind of greeting new ideological immigrants to Israel, who give up “the good life” in the States are supposed to have from a government minister? Is Olmert right, though? Hopefully reading what I’ve had to say has made you just stop and think for a minute or two. I just wish you were here with me.

Robert Strazynski is a former resident of Los Angeles who has been living in Israel for the past seven years. He resides in the West Bank settlement of Ginot Shomron.