Ben-Gurion International Airport
Imagine having a known heritage stretching back thousands of
years. Norma Zager recently traveled to Israel. Norma is Jewish so she got to
experience the exhilarating feeling of coming to Israel and knowing who she is
and the struggles and victories of the Jewish people.
[Norma sent a huge amount of photos of her Israel
experience. I am including many but not all. Sorry about that Norma.]
JRH 10/28/18
In this current state of media censorship & defunding, consider
chipping in a few bucks for enjoying (or even despising yet read) this Blog.
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Awakening My Israel Gene
By Norma Zager
Sent October 28, 2018 12:39 AM
For a writer, knowing you have to write something can be a
mixed blessing. The urge to fill a page with gleaming rhetoric and prolific
phrases can be quite motivating at times, and yet…there are other times when it
can be downright intimidating. It is with much trepidation I begin this piece.
By all accounts there should be a million words rushing
forward to describe my first trip to Israel. So much seen and felt, a lifetime
of expectations achieved.
As a baby boomer I shared the experience with my fellow
boomers of filling coin-cards in Sunday school with a clear understanding of
our responsibilities toward the modern Jewish State. Our nickels and dimes
would plant forests and help Israel grow and prosper. It was as natural to us
as breathing, and we held a vested interest in this historical effort.
So recently when I found myself walking out of the plane and
stepped foot on Israeli ground for the first time, I was both emotional and
strangely at home; not quite certain what or how to feel. Although waiting in
line to get through customs tested my ardor, I remained in a sleep-deprived
coma of disbelief that I was actually standing on sacred soil.
It took the entire 70 years
or Israel’s existence as a modern country for Norma to finally arrive
When my friend Ari showed up at the airport and we headed to
his cousin’s home for Shabbat dinner, it felt so natural I really did not think
anything unusual about the evening. Yes, I thought this is Shabbat in an
Israeli home, but the table filled with every food you could possibly imagine
and the warm entreaties to eat, eat, eat seemed as familiar as the sunshine.
Shabbat Meal
Having the good fortune to have my friend Ari along on my
journey made the experience more unique. His American-Israel dual citizenship
affords him a perspective I could not achieve. I see and feel American, he
both. I gazed at a landscape in Tel Aviv and saw what reminded me of Central
Park South, while he saw the IDF GHQ offices in the building where he had
served.
Still I waited to feel the explosion of excitement I was
certain would arise and overwhelm me, but it was all so normal, it felt odd.
The next morning after I had checked into my hotel in
Jerusalem, I began my day with an Israeli breakfast. No lack of calories here.
My first response was that I was having one of those diet dreams, as I perused
the endless buffet of items from eggs, salads, breads and cheeses to cereals,
desserts and pastries as far as the eye could see. Aha, I thought, thank
Goodness I brought elastic waist pants along.
After I had ingested enough calories to sustain me for a
month, I headed for the Old City and the Western Wall, or as I continued to
refer to it from my childhood, the Wailing Wall. I was corrected many times by
Ari who reminded me we are not “wailing” any longer, thus the name no longer
applies. Yet feeling certain I would be wailing at the wall, the moniker felt
appropriate.
I traversed cobblestone streets past endless cubicles filled
with Jewish and Christian paraphernalia, as Arab merchants shouted pleas to
enter and buy and then insults when I did not comply with their wishes.
I wandered until suddenly in front of my eyes was a flight
of steps leading to the Wall. I numbly moved ahead uncertain how or if I would
feel.
Standing at the top of the steps leading down to the wall is
a panoramic view that is at once breathtaking and quite surreal. Is it real or
a picture? Am I really here or simply watching a video taken by a friend who
had previously visited?
I descended at a snail’s pace, staring at the wall, waiting
for the emotional rush I had always expected and envisioned, but instead there
was numbness, almost disbelief akin to shock.
I grew closer. When I got to the wall I placed my hand upon
the ancient stone expecting a charge of electricity; still nothing. I prayed
and attempted to place my prayer into the overflowing crevices in the wall,
then backed away dropping down onto one of the chairs. I stared for some time
then walked up and prayed again. It was very hot and I was feeling grateful to
be in the shade when suddenly a river of emotion washed over me. I fought it
back, afraid I might flood the entire area with a river of tears.
This is how I managed my emotions the entire trip, holding
back tears refusing to go to a place so deep inside it might overwhelm and
consume me totally.
At the Wall my friend Chaya met me to take me to her home
for Shabbat lunch. She and her husband Ronnie had made Aliyah to Israel over 14
years before. Walking in the Old City like a Jewish mountain goat and arriving
alive without suffering a heart attack from what seemed like thousands of steps
and hills seemed like a miracle, but of course I was in the place where they
happen regularly, so why be surprised?
Sharing an incredible Shabbat meal with friends as though no
time at all had passed, I felt blessed. I was feeling blessed every minute,
every second I was there. Yes, there is a lot of food, we are Jewish, it is who
we are so get over it.
I did not absorb all the emotion until I returned home and
finally allowed myself to open the floodgates. Being there and close to tears
most of the time, I needed to process what I felt.
Was it that I was a Jew coming home at last?
Being welcomed at Yad
VaShem
At the Dead (“Salt”) Sea “I
am healed!”
Was it standing on a mountain overlooking the ancient city
of Jericho that Joshua had fought to capture, but now had been given away so we
could no longer enter without risking our lives?
Was it a sense of pride gazing over palm trees and orchards
at what my people had created in a desert?
Or the sight of Jerusalem from Mt. Scopus? Swelling with
emotion and pride and a tie to the past that tugs at one’s heart so profoundly?
Our visit to a solar company creating products to light and
modernize Africa?
The Temple Mount as viewed
from Mount Scopus
The incredible work in Tel Aviv’s tech center including a
new tiny module that can see for the blind?
Was it a sense of loss for everything that had gone before
and those with whom I could never share this joyous moment?
Was it how amazing it felt to see my Christian friends
tearful and overcome with emotion as they experienced the Jewish State?
Or finally understanding why there is a battle for Israel
that raises such enormous emotional levels in people throughout the world?
Perhaps it was simply that inside us all there is an Israel
gene lying dormant to be truly awakened when we step foot on its land. A land
where history disappears and we meander through Biblical times as easily as
Moses or Jesus who return to stroll beside us.
We all felt, we all shed tears, we all knew we were in a
blessed place. No matter Jewish or Christian, we shared a unique bond
recognizing what we were witnessing and experiencing.
Israel is real. Trite to say perhaps, but also the most real
we may ever feel. Emotions are heightened and there is vibrancy, a special lens
through which our eyes see brighter, clearer and enhanced somehow.
I feel especially lucky to have been able to witness that it
is not just a Jewish feeling, but transcends and encompasses the human race in
its entirety. The Judeo-Christian world sharing this special time with
wonderful new friends from all over the world like Pucci from Manila, Monique
from Jakarta, Chris now living and working in Israel, Margaret from Kenya or
Sylvia from Spain; everyone on the trip felt the same emotions. Fellow travelers
so anxious to engage about their own personal Israel experience.
Walking up the hills of
Jerusalem, Monique from Indonesia, Norma from the USA and Pucci from the
Philippines [Miracles do happen, as the emphasis is on “walking!”]
That magnetic pull of history, an ancient legacy of love,
hate, war, peace and hope. We all belong to the State of Israel and the State
of Israel belongs in us all.
The Jewish people inherited the right to guard and protect
its borders, to defend our homeland - this amazing paradise - from invading
armies as we have done so throughout our history and will continue. Seeing
soldiers with innocent young faces armed and prepared to give their lives for
this ancient and charismatic land saddens and warms us at once.
It is our charge and our destiny, one the Jewish people
embrace with joy and rapture.
We do not visit Israel; we all go home to Israel. Once you
understand this, you really never leave her borders.
And may we all say, “Next Year in Jerusalem!”
“I AM COMING BACK!” “NEXT
YEAR IN JERUSALEM!"
More photos from
Norma Zagers time in the Jewish National Home Land:
An Ethiopian Israeli
preparing a Hungarian baked specialty inside the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv,
where several years ago a homicide bomber blew himself up for 70 virgins in
heaven
About to enter the
Israeli Parliament, the “Knesset"
With colleague and “partner
in crime” Ari Bussel, where the President usually receives official guests
A show inside the David
Citadel
Walking toward the opening
reception with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Norma Zager with Nitzan
Chen, Head of the Government Press Office: “I must take a picture with
Bibi, a Jewish Grandmother cannot be stopped!"
The following morning, “Did
you see the front page of the J Post?”
PM Pledges to Appoint
Israeli Envoy to Christian World
“Bibi’s Fan Club" -
breakfast in Israel
From Kenya to the UK,
Canada to Indonesia
__________________
This is the latest in the
series “Postcards from America – Postcards from Israel,” a collaboration
between Zager, award-winning investigative journalist and author, and
Bussel, a foreign correspondent reporting from Israel. The series, now in
its 11th year has been transformed to a radio program, “Conversations
Eye to Eye,” “The Jewish Voice on Christian Radio."
Ari Bussel and Norma Zager
collaborate both in writing and on the air in a point-counter-point discussion
of all things Israel-related. Together,
they have dedicated the past decade to promoting Israel.
© Israel Monitor- October
2018
First Published October
28, 2018
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