WHY ISRAEL?
In November 2014, Alex came to the dinner table one evening and proposed that we all move to Israel for a term. We have an Israeli friend who lives in Sydney with his Australian wife and four children and they had spent 6 months living in Jaffa, with their children attending the Tabeetha School. He so generously and kindly offered his place for us to stay in to do something similar.
When Alex first proposed this I just shrugged my shoulders and felt exhausted by the idea. I was three quarters of the way into my Masters and Dad had just left us to move back in with Mum, after having lived with us for a year and a half. I was so much in need of rest and all I could think of was the mountains of paperwork that would be required to make a move like this. Although I was surprised by Alex's enthusiasm to take this on I didn't think it was something that we could do. The other factor was that the kids were not so excited about the idea of Israel and kept asking for us to go and live in Amsterdam. I also couldn't believe that our friend was seriously offering us a place to stay for 3.5 months.
Alex and I had visited Israel in 2008 without the children and it was definitely a place that I knew I would visit again. There's nowhere quite like it!
Weeks went by and Alex bumped into our friend a couple more times at the supermarket and came home even more excited by the idea. I can remember the exact moment in December when I stopped and said, "Ok God. If you want us to go to Israel you have to assure me: 1) that my children will be safe, 2) that you make it blatantly clear to me that you want us to go, and 3) that you do all the work for me - I'm exhausted and I don't have the reserves to organise such a trip.
It was amazing how quickly things started to fall into place and the peace that came over me about the idea. Alex and I wrote to the Tabeetha school in Jaffa and within a couple of weeks we secured a place for Brigid and Marcus and had Conor & Dario on the waiting list. We met with our Israeli friend and he explained that he has a place for us but it has no furniture. I was a bit worried about the idea of renting all the furniture we would need and fitting out a kitchen but by then I was hooked on the idea of going.
A few months before we were to leave our friend called to say that, after two years of trying to rent the apartment we were to move into, he had rented it to a Canadian couple. I thought, "Ok, that's it. It's over" but then he said, "It's ok though as you can have our apartment, which is a bit smaller but is fully furnished and has wifi." I couldn't believe it!
We had many other little trials along the way that made me think we might not make it. Alex came home a few months before we were to leave and announced that he'd been offered a job as an advisor to the NSW Treasurer, Gladys Berejiklian. "But what about Israel?" I pleaded. Alex said, "If they don't let me take the four months off then I just won't take the job." This was a job I knew Alex wanted so it made me realise how important this trip is to him. We were a little surprised when they readily said yes to him taking leave. I was to finish my Masters in August, so there wasn't anything else stopping us.
Alex and I have talked endlessly about the idea of taking the children out of the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney for a period. In a way, this was our last chance to do this as a family, with Brigid heading into Year 10 next year. It's a moment in time when the children are partly independent but still under our rules.
We wanted to use this unique time in the children's lives to take them out of their regular environment and give them a common challenge where they would need to collaborate and work together to unify them as a family. We hoped that having all of them at the one, new school, where they walk to and from school together, would hopefully bring them together.
Why Israel? It is such a unique country. No matter what your political views, one cannot deny the incredible ingenuity of the Israeli people. Here is this small sliver of land, of which 60% is desert, and yet what they have done with this land in such a short space of time is almost miraculous. It's a strange land, to say the least, where you wake to the sound of the Muslim's call to prayer, alongside Church bells and then on Friday nights one can hear the Shabbat songs being sung by our Jewish neighbours upstairs. Just as you feel you are getting closer to understanding this country you learn something new that puts everything into question - it's a see saw of opinion with no end so you just have to take the ride and try as best as you can to maintain an open and loving heart.
I wrote most of this when I first got here and can say, after three months of being here, that our children have learnt so much from our time here. Their friends at school are Christians, Muslims and Jews. They only occasionally discuss politics and religion but mainly to better understand each other. Our children can't help but pick up on the differences and some of the discriminations their friends encounter. I sometimes feel that we are such outsiders - so white and clearly not Jewish or Muslim. On the whole people are very kind and welcoming to us. The Israelis love the fact that we chose to visit Israel and beam when we speak kindly of their land. Where we live in Jaffa there is, on the whole, a good relationship between the Arabs and Jews. Sadly, the rest of the world tends to only hear of the conflict here but there are so many wonderful projects in play. The average Israeli struggles with much of the Government's actions but they also recognise the need for security. There's no easy answer to it all.....
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| Jaffa resident at local falafel shop wearing "Jews & Arabs - Refuse to be Enemies" tshirt. |
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-35128143
Yet another little miracle occurred for us this week. We were told that tickets to the Midnight Mass at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem are booked out years in advance. I met a Franciscan priest who said that he normally gets two tickets each Christmas and that he would happily give them to me. He called me and said, "A little miracle has occurred. They've sent me 6 tickets this year!" So we're now going to be able to attend Midnight Mass in Bethlehem - feel so blessed and excited as this has been a life long dream of my father's.
We are going to find it very hard to leave this place. As our dear friend, Karim, wrote to me recently, "In fact, you never leave that blessed land. It inhabits your soul and stays there deep, deep down with all its beauty and challenges and imprints an indelible mark/presence in the soul. Well....you fall in love with it/Him!" Karim, you've provided words to how we're feeling. Thank you.
I have a very strong sense that we will be back and fear that we may lose our daughter to this place for a while in the future. You're just not allowed to move here for good Brigid :)
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