Sephardic Torah from the Holy Land | My Heart is in the East

It’s been over three months since I’ve written something for the Jewish Journal. My last column was written in another era, in what seems like a galaxy far, far away – a week before October 7, 2023. I wrote that column as Peni and I prepared to board a plane to Israel, to celebrate Sukkot and then spend a few weeks with our son Ilan and his wife Kayla. They got married in Israel in February 2023, are both IDF veterans, live in Herzliya, and had just returned home to Israel from a honeymoon trip in Thailand a few days before Sukkot. Ilan was scheduled to start his second year of law school at Reichman University, and Kayla her Mechina year at Bar Ilan. Peni and I planned to stay in Israel for about a month, including for meetings and events in Jerusalem with my organization, the Sephardic Educational Center.

Three months later, Ilan is now an Israeli war veteran, having served in a frontline infantry unit in Gaza, fighting in the ground war from its very first days. Kayla served in her search and rescue unit, doing patrols and guard duty on the northern border. While this brave couple served Israel in wartime, Peni and I spent all of our time worrying, not sleeping a wink, and volunteering everywhere we could, delivering supplies to IDF bases, helping evacuated families and supporting families of hostages during our frequent visits to “Hostage Square” (a place I call “The Kotel of Tel Aviv”). We were even privileged to meet and spend time with Meirav Tal, who spent 53 days in horrific captivity as a hostage in Gaza.

As long as our kids were serving in this war, Peni and I refused to come back to LA. A one-month trip became 6 weeks, 8 weeks, possibly one year…until we came to a decision that was a long time in the making for us: this trip to Israel will be permanent, as we have now made Aliya and proudly call Israel our home – no longer just metaphorically, but actually.

In the iconic words of the Sephardic poet Rabbi Judah Halevi – “Our hearts are in the East” – and now – so is our home. Welcome to my renewed column, “Sephardic Torah from the Holy Land.”

Rabbi Daniel Bouskila is the international director of the Sephardic Educational Center.