ACC Conference in Israel/ June 29....Yavneh to Tel Aviv....old friends...old stories

ACC 2014 Conference/ June 29----Tel Aviv -----

President Shimon Peres

My El Al bunkmate on a Jewish Women's Renaissance Project mission--all the way from Boston

Beautiful pools in Sonora Promenade

Beautiful cafe hafuch in Sonora

Friends grow and grow

The mighty Ms. Chen Amir

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How many shlichim can you fit in one blog?....4 !!!!

Or as I began to think of it....my really good reason to get back to Israel. 

It has been 5 years since my sandaled feet became dusty walking for endless blocks and listening to Hebrew--only some of which I can understand, and some of which I can understand all the words but still can't formulate into a sentence.

Little by little the month of June emptied my house of Phillip, Coby, then Ben, and then finally myself. President Shimon Peres was on my El Al flight with his entourage, as was a huge group from the Jewish Women's Renaissance Project. So in spite of my fear of flying, I was assured that this plane would arrive safely. I sat next to a boy and his father who were travelling back to Israel to bury their mother, for the length of the flight my heart broke for him--he slept, cried, and wrote her eulogy.

I was in the middle of reading My Promised Land by Ari Shavit, our TJ Reads pick of the month--and my heart was breaking for other reasons as it was dawning on me that the permanence of the State of Israel was not a foregone conclusion. Perhaps this miracle Jewish experiment would only last another few decades.....to contextualize this, the three Israeli boys, Naphtali, Gilad and Ephraim were at this point still missing but not yet found.

I landed in Tel Aviv, gratefully found my suitcase and immediately sat in the airport with my first cafe hafuch--a very milky latte--and called my friend Randi who lives on an amazing moshav near Yavne called B'naya. I used my creaky hebrew to buy a train ticket and travel to her office at the beautiful Azrieli towers in Tel Aviv and walked through the brand new Sonora outdoor marketplace of gardens, cafes, and high end shops while she finished her work day...and had another cafe hafuch. It was only later that evening over dinner that we looked up to see that the three boys' bodies had been recovered. An inevitable shadow leaned over Israel. These three boys were not kidnapped soldiers. Everyone waited for what kind of retaliation would emerge...from a person? the government? The country was sad, and we knew that Jews around the world were planning their memorials as well.

And so the backdrop of my excuse to finally come back to Israel came into focus. National brotherhood. It colored everything we did.

At Randi's, I slept downstairs right near the entrance to their miklat--bomb shelter, wondering if we would need to use it. I happily made my way back into the heart of Tel Aviv to begin the reconvening of cantors from around the world, and friends that I couldn't wait to hug again and giggle with.

The first day was slow as we ate chips, hummus, salad, amazing cheeses around the pool and reunited with people for whom it just felt like yesterday!  We grabbed a bus to Nahalat Binyamin and Sheinker Street where we browsed, ate, caught up, and bumped into Rabbi Hesch Sommer from our time at HUC! Only in Israel do these reunions happen...but this is just the beginning, because just an hour later on a short walking tour of Old Jaffo--to hear about co-existence within the communities, who is leading but our own Chen Amir. Newly married and learning and leading within the progressive movement in Israel. So happy to see her, so happy for how it made me feel like I was home.

We concluded our day with maariv atop Mishkanot Ruth and Daniel--where we had dinner, watched the sunset and heard the most beautiful music I've heard in so long from the Israeli teen chapter of HaZamir chorale--before I learned that our own Bonim group was staying there, so was able to grab some photos with Phillip Taylor, Sam Wiston, and Shanni and Nir...again, only in Israel!

And then my phone charger exploded in the hotel. It's good to be back. :-)