I’ve concluded my brief visit to Cambridge and now I am back in Israel after nearly a 2 year absence. I haven’t left my air conditioned parents’ house yet dreading the humidity and heat blast I will have to endure. Besides, the culture shock one comes to expect when returning here is not really something I look forward to; if you ever been here as a visitor, you’ll know what I mean. On the other hand, this is where I feel at home because I know what to expect and how to behave without feeling like a fish out of water as I do anywhere else. It’s also the only place where I don’t need to fill in papers when I go through immigration. Of course, by other hard core Israelis I am already considered a dropout and they can even detect an American accent in my Hebrew. I’m OK with that.
I might write more about Israel while I am here with all the disengagement action going on, but I might not. Israel was dealt a bad hand from the world press over the years, and I don’t want to contribute to that from the “inside.” Instead, I try to be more constructive and informative so people understand the news better.
on another note…
The highlight of yesterday was spending time with my mom, brother, sister and soon-to-be 2 year old niece. That little girl is really something. However, she wouldn’t get close to me. She’s got a very fast response time, this is how it went:
me: “Sapir…”
her: “What?”
me: “Come to Saar.”
here: “NO!”
me: “Why?”
her: “mommy.”
I thought that routine was amusing, but can’t think of why this would be of any interest to you readers; I left it in all the same.
Welcome home!
I had the same experience in reverse – leaving the US to live in Israel makes you a bit of an alien in your home country. You embrace another culture and are never quite the same again. I guess it makes us world citizens that can’t be neatly pigeon holed. Another way to put it is that we become more innoculated against group think.
Enjoy your time ba’aretz.
The culture shock between Israel and the USA isn’t too bad ( if your from LA ) but the difference between the USA and Malaysia was really entertaining.
Enjoy Israel and try not to get “Disengaged”.
I am glad I am not there since I would probably get emotional, start protesting, get arrested, and then have to explain carefully to a very attractive police lady that I was only trying to get to the Tel Aviv Museum, but was side tracked by a gang of 20 something Shlomo Carlebach look alikes that forced me to sing “Yiboneh HaMikdash”, eat kugel, and camp out in a tent. 3 week vacations can be really tough…
[...] My sister gave birth to another baby girl this morning. Her name is ‘Nofar’, which is a name of a flower in Hebrew. Now please do not congratulate me, because I had nothing to do with it (spoiler: save your blessings for 2 more days.) I hope this one would be more sensitive to my feelings, since ‘Sapir’, her two-year-old sister still doesn’t come near me. [...]