maybe i AM too american to live here.

You know what I want to do when I get home? I want to be nice to immigrants. Not that I was ever mean to them, but you know, I don’t think I ever really made an effort to go out of my way to be helpful. I want to really learn Spanish, and I want to run into the fields in California where the illegal immigrants work and give them all hugs. I don’t think I’ll ever again get impatient with someone having problems with English. I’ve only been away from home for like two months now, and even already I know how horrible it is to be separated from your family in a foreign country with a foreign language with foreign customs and foreign everything. Maybe when I go home I’ll see about teaching people English or something. I don’t know.

It’s been interesting talking to my roommate about this whole should I stay or should I go thing. She actually is probably the worst person to talk to.

Last night the Arabs in the neighboring village were shooting A LOT. It was actually a little scary. And I turned to my roommate and spoke over the sounds of BLAM BLAM BOOM BLAM! “You know, it might seem silly since this is only the Arabs celebrating a wedding or something, but this is the kind of stuff—like hearing gunshots and shit like that--that makes me want to stay. I hate the thought of abandoning Israel when I know there’s not going to be peace anytime soon and when I know that there’s the whole demographic war and when I know a lot of shit’s going to go down in the future. It makes me feel bad for wanting to leave because I feel like I’m jumping ship and leaving it for everyone else to deal with.”

And she just said in the nastiest, most condescending tone, “I don’t think you understand just how serious this stuff is here.” As if somehow she had this enormous reservoir of vast knowledge and deep understanding of the roots, history and current situation of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflictt, and that I was someone who just one day happened to show up in Israel without having ever heard of it. Like, “What’s an Israel?”

I don’t know. It was a little insulting coming from someone who only two weeks ago had no idea who Ehud Olmert was.



During my conversations with her on whether or not I should return home in September, she has said, “Well, you’re too American to live in Israel full-time.” What the fuck does that mean? The English guy here is as English as they come, but is he ‘too English?’ Is the Hungarian guy ‘too Hungarian?’ I found it a little insulting, like, “Oh, the stupid little Americans are too idiotic to cross the street by themselves, but all other nationalities of the world have been crossing the street by themselves for years now.” I wanted to tell her, “Oh yeah? Well, YOU are too fucking retarded for me to allow you out of the house, Roommate.”

I mean, I took that as a challenge. Like that was a direct challenge against me and the rest of the United States, and I wanted to be like, “Oh, I will show YOU who’s too American to be here” and then live the rest of my life in Israel just to spite her.

Actually, I think THAT would be ‘too American’ of me.


Maybe she does have a point though.

I will say that, no matter what I end up deciding to do, it’s been interesting. In LA I felt like how I was—half Jewish, half “native” American. In Chicago I felt 75% percent Jewish. And now in the Jewish homeland, I feel like 100 percent American and almost not Jewish at all. It’s been interesting because when I’m in Israel, I think of my brother who converted to Catholicism….and I kind of don’t care. In fact, I understand it a little better. Back in the US, it bothered me to no end that I had a brother who abandoned Judaism, but now that I’m in Israel I realize that until last year I knew close to nothing about Judaism. So I can kind of understand why my brother might find another religion more appealing, especially considering that there are a pant load of Catholics in the US and not as many Jews. Yes, I liked Israel, yes I was Jewish, but…..that’s about it. In contrast, I like the US too, and I’m American….and I actually grew up there and know its culture/history/whatever like the back of my hand.


Look, I don't want to shit talk Israel because I still love it, even if maybe I don't want to live here, but my point is that coming to Israel for someone like me is a little bit weird when I stand back and reflect on it. I think I found out what Shavuot was like two years ago (I learned about it briefly in Sunday school, but let’s be honest….no one pays attention there), but my entire childhood I got a basket on Easter (not from my family, but from a family friend). As I mentioned yesterday, I can only remember one family Passover seder, yet I can remember countless Christmases spent either at my cousins’ house or my granny’s house. Yes, I do enjoy Israeli music or Jewish music or klezmer music, but I have a huge reserve of fond memories that are associated with patriotic American songs or country music. I’ve known the words to “Dropkick Me Jesus” since I was a baby, yet I still don’t know the words to “Yerushalayim Shel Zahav.” Yes, I like “Hatikvah,” but I also like “The Star-Spangled Banner.” And the difference is that I actually have far more memories of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” like standing with my dad and my brothers at baseball games throughout my childhood, or like the last soccer game I saw in LA where the singer couldn’t get any of the words right or any part of the tune right and my dad and I were just cracking up to no end. Or of sitting in elementary school during music class and having to be taught the words (well, we already all knew the words, but no one ever remembers the order….), and I remember how bright red the teacher got because we were all being naughty. My memories of family vacations are of seeing all the historical sites important to the US or California—I have no fond childhood memories of touring Jewish sites or seeing Israel because I never came to Israel in my childhood.

I don’t bring this up because I want to. I bring this up because whenever I get into a discussion with a more religious friend here about going home or staying, he always flatly says to me, “America is not your country. You’re Jewish. Regardless of the fact that your dad is not Jewish, your mom is Jewish so you are 100 percent Jewish, so Israel is your country. America is not your country.”

How is America not my country? My parents have pictures of me dressed up for Halloween or school plays as the Statue of Liberty, Uncle Sam, Pocahontas (that’s maybe the fifth reference to her on this blog….I feel like I should get a prize), an American colonist, an American Indian who was NOT Pocahontas (but who mysteriously dressed exactly like her…), a pioneer, etc etc etc. * Oddly enough,* they have no pictures of me dressed as Ben Gurion or Golda Meir or whatever.
My idol in elementary school, the woman I named my favorite stuffed animal and later my dog after, was Dolley Madison—an American First Lady. I remember saying the Pledge of Allegiance in the morning at elementary school, and I remember American Appreciation Day every year where every class had to get up in front of all the parents and sing songs about the US. I remember elections, the 4 of July every year, Thanksgiving, the Super Bowl…..whatever you consider American, it was part of my childhood. My dad made sure of it. My mom made sure we were Jewish by sending us to Sunday school, but my dad made sure we were American by just SURROUNDING us with everything American. Actually, on the topic of my mother and father: I look almost nothing like my mother and her side of the family, but I look almost exactly like a female version of my dad and his side of the family. My family agrees that the family member whose personality and mind that mine most resemble are my dad’s. So I mean, let’s analyze this: if first off I’m only half ethnically Jewish, and when you throw in that in almost no way do I resemble the Jewish side of my family either mentally, physically, emotionally or politically, I guess you could conclude that I’m not particularly Jewish and that I’m probably more ethnically “American.”

I mean, given this and given everything that I’ve been rambling about for what seems like years now, how is the U.S. not my country?

Tell me again why Israel is my country and why people like the Jewish Agency expect me to feel ‘at home” here.

No, that’s not me being snarky. That’s an honest request. This is still an open debate. I want you to challenge me. I want you to say, NO Sam, you’ll be making a mistake if you go home.
This is a legit discussion. How does someone who grew up in a different country--a Christian country--with ½ a Christian family come to the Jewish nation and feel at home?

Challenge me, people!