Should I stay or should I go?

Oct. 2002

Should I stay or Should I Go, great line, great rhythm- to a great song. If it were up to friends and family in the States, the question would not even be posed. They'd arrange the plane tickets to have my family and me on the next flight out. In spite of my deep connection to this unique country, their concern relating to the extreme terrorist violence of the past 2 years has forced me and many others to question things that were formerly taken for granted such as where to live. Although I am compelled by outsiders and extraordinary events to examine my choices, examination is as far as it gets.

So when a Jewish business associate called me from Tel Aviv on a recent visit, and was shocked to learn that I was American and living in Israel, reacting with, "You're brave - it's a dangerous place to be now. What are you doing here in the midst of all this bloodshed?", I explained that although the idea of leaving had crossed my mind, I really couldn't take it at all seriously. "You see my commitment to this land is analogous to my commitment to my children. I could no sooner leave Israel than leave them."

Although I discovered it late in life (24yrs old), I'm a true Zionist. After college, I visited my sister in Israel a couple of times with no particular feeling one way or the other about the country. Suddenly, on the third visit, as I made my way down the stairs from the 747 to the steaming tarmac of Israel's Ben Gurion Airport, I had an epiphany as a wave of understanding swept over me. I felt an unexpected, deep connection to this place and realized that it was my home. I was also motivated to start learning about Jewish religion, which had been absent from my education. I started learning Torah during the 2-year period it took me to move to Israel, where I knew I belonged.

I was overwhelmed by my great good luck in being able to make aliya by getting on a plane. I'd read Leon Uris' The Exodus where, during WWII, a ship of Jews was unwelcome at every port. I'd heard so many stories of Jews from Arab countries trekking to Israel on foot. The existence of a state for the Jewish people and the reclamation of Hebrew as a living language was truly a latter-day miracle.

I made aliya just before the outset of the first Palestinian Intafada in 1987. Israelis had a list of friendly epithets for me, an American who chose to make Israel my home. So many of them were trying to take up residence in the USA to find monetary fulfillment. In their eyes I was crazy, nuts, naïve, just plain stupid or all of the above. What could Israel possibly offer that wasn't in the great capitalist success story with low taxes and no conscription?

Wow. How could I explain to people who take for granted their Jewishness what it is like to live in the minority mentality? Jewish life and culture are completely natural to life here. Whether religious or non-religious, Shabbat is national event. Everyone goes to visit his/her family almost every Shabbat either for Friday night dinner or Saturday lunch. Although Israel has a six-day work week (School is from Sunday-Friday), in many fields people work five days and the weekend is Friday and Saturday. Schools, stores and offices all close automatically on the holidays, but here that means the Jewish holidays. During the many holidays, some of which I'd never heard of before my Torah learning, I reveled in the advertising and promotion for items relating to Rosh Hashanah, Simchat Torah, Shavuot, Tu B'Shvat, Succoth, Passover...etc. Although rife with foreign programming, television in Israel is pervaded by the Jewish identity. It is subtle, subliminal and very healthy if you're Jewish.

It was a joy to food shop without having to hunt for Kosher items. When I first arrived, I was surprised that there were no ads for cheeseburgers, bacon and eggs and all the other foodstuffs and traditions that belong to non-Jewish cultures.

Mandatory conscription for everyone at age 18 means thousands of men and women, when on leave, are out and about sporting army issue. For years it made me smile to see so many young people moving in and around society with a rifle over their shoulders and everyone taking it for granted that the guns would not be used for nefarious purposes. I spent many years in NYC when it wasn't such a nice, safe place to be. The idea of the government passing out rifles to a bunch of 18 yr olds was not only a joke, it flew in the face of most legislative goals relating to gun control. Israel had great gun control - everybody had them and no one used them in civilian circumstances. That was, of course, before Oslo when Israel gave guns to the Palestinians.

Terror attacks have always plagued this tiny country. However the bloodletting over the past 2 years has been overwhelming. Living a stone's throw from the Green Line (a term that stemmed from the difference in color of the land on the Israeli vs. Arab side of the border before 1967), I have watched many a sound and light show of ground and air fire in and around the city of Tulkarm. At times the power has been cut in our entire area so the helicopters could better identify their targets. During one particularly severe response to a spate of suicide bombings, the attack helicopter hovered over the Eastern edge of our farm. I was worried that a missile might accidentally be released prematurely near or over our house.

The helicopter's holding pattern periodically brought it overhead. It was almost midnight. My husband, I stood on the veranda, watching, sharing various scenarios that could befall both us and our Palestinian neighbors across the valley. The glittering lights from the numerous villages in the hills growing gently out of the Emek Hefer valley belied the danger inherent in the scene. We watched, mesmerized by the contrast of the chirping birds and crickets, the star filled sky, the fresh farm air, juxtaposed to the intermittent jolts of gunshots from both the air and the ground. Spurts of light would fly across the sky with a great boom echoing off the hills. The deep rumbling sounds of the helicopter's engine and blade told us when it was overhead. Then a sudden silence cut through the darkness. The mission was over. Momentarily the pastoral sounds of the farm would return.

Since the Al Aksa Intafada began, gunshots permeate life here. Our neighbors up the hill run a cheese farm. They raise goats, sheep and cows. They have a herd of Water Buffalo to produce mozzarella. They keep a couple of camels for good measure. Now, when we visit on Shabbat, we hear gunfire. Not dangerous - it's just fire practice by the troops on the adjacent army base. Due to "the situation" they must also train on Shabbat.

Life in Israel was never easy. But the "situation" has come to affect everyone and everything, causing people to consider options they would have never entertained. The thought of escaping the constant danger and pain wreaked by suicide bombers cannot be avoided. As a result, a few Americans have returned to the USA. Some Israelis are trying to find employment abroad. In all the years here, through all the difficulties, political, economic, and security, it never entered my mind to leave. Even job offers abroad could not tempt me to consider moving. But the extremity of the "situation" has caused everyone to question things that were once a given.

My mother lives 2 blocks away from the site of the Passover Seder massacre. My neighbor's cousin had 6 bullets removed from his head and 1 from his brain after suffering critical wounds in one of the many suicide bombings that occurred in the center of Jerusalem. Miraculously he is up and around.

Many, many others have not been so lucky. Every time there is an act of terrorism resulting in murder, the news media reports each name along with a photo and short obituary as a kind of national, collective memorial to the victims. The pain is all pervading.

6000 Frenchmen and women arrived in Eilat last week as part of their month tour of Israel. They are visiting Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem. It's annual holiday time in Europe, when the entire continent migrates to the Riviera for a month. One of the tourists was interviewed on Israel News Radio. The interviewer ascertained that friends and family considered him crazy for coming to Israel now, when the danger of violence is so real. "So why did you come?", he persisted. The Frenchman replied commandingly, "You think we are here to support Israel. But it is Israel that supports us. We are strong because of Israel. When I was a boy, 55 years ago, and the Jewish people were under threat, and so many of us were killed, there was no Israel. The situation for us was very bad. Now we have Israel. Believe me, we need Israel as much or more than Israel needs us. We are with you."

Can I even recite the words, Should I stay or should I go? If everyone who could leave did so, where would the Jewish people be? Regardless of "winning" or "losing" to the terrorists, where would we be? Turn the clock back 55 years. That's not were I'm willing to be. This is my home. This is my country. I'll stay.

Carice Witte
BK '83