Disclaimer: there’s no need to come back at me with claims of antisemitism. This piece is based on personal experience, not personal bias.
Some years ago, a good friend, newly divorced, moved from Canada to Israel. I missed talking to her in person but phone and social media narrowed the distance. She is Jewish and was brought up secular, however, some time in the early 2000s, she decided to become properly Jewish as she put it.
Her parents and siblings told her it was a crazy move. Why leave a comfortable life in Canada, good job, nice home in a semi-rural area for a small apartment in a foreign land? She hadn’t visited Israel before or spoke Hebrew, but stated emphatically that she had a clear idea of what living her principles meant.
One sibling accused her of living in a fantasy and disowned her, which was extreme, in my opinion. Soon, I learned what extreme looked like.
Let’s call her Helen…. Initially, after living there a few months, Helen told me of her shock that Israelis didn’t get along well with each other. There were many arguments in her building about whose turn it was to clean the stairs. Married men came on to her constantly. The crowds jostled roughly in the market like that was normal. Loud quarrels erupted over stolen parking spaces, and bartering made her feel cheap. There…
