CTeenConnection

Israel has been a huge part of my life my whole life. I am often asked why. Why do you care so much about Israel? What makes it so important? These questions forced me to think. The fact that I had to think says something in itself. I never had to think about why Israel is important to me. I was always just knew it was. I’ve visited Israel, I have family in Israel,There was never a doubt in my mind otherwise. I love Israel.

To explain it to someone who is not Jewish is a bit easier. I tell them the same thing, “I don’t feel like a minority, we all have a common passion, it is the land of my people, all in all, I feel like I’m home.” The first time I was really stumped from this question is when someone who was Jewish asked me this question. She is not religious, calls herself an atheist, and told me she doesn’t “feel a connection to Israel.” It put me in a situation where I really had to think of how to respond. Many of the reasons I usually told people didn’t seem to work this time. I replied by saying that it makes me feel like I’m not alone. I remembered walking around and just feeling safe. There is an aura in Israel that just can not be replicated.

The connection to Israel not in my head, it’s in my soul. It is something in me. I realized that’s why it was so hard for me to explain it to her, and, to go further, why she was even asking. It brought me to the realization of why I was always able to explain it to people who weren’t Jewish much easier. They never understood. It was easier for me to explain this feeling, because it was something they just wouldn’t understand and couldn’t relate to, so they had to accept it.
Israel is th
e safety net of the Jewish people, the soul of our nation, and the air that keeps us alive. It may be far from us now, but we celebrate that it is there no matter what. As an American, I am very appreciative of the life I get to live in the U.S., but going to Israel fulfills a whole different part of me, my soul. Watching parents talk as their children play, hearing the never-ending honking, smelling pita from miles away, seeing miles upon miles of spices, and looking up to see the old yellowish-looking bricks in the old city are just a few of the norms. To walk down the old city and look down at each step you take knowing that your ancestors took those same steps with the same purpose is something indescribable. To know that you are walking in history that is living, breathing, and part of who you are is life changing.