Well, I Haven’t written for a really long time. Writing is something that I love doing. It’s a way of expressing myself that I find enjoyable and I also find that others enjoy reading. I don’t actually know if anyone will read this and I’m not bothered by this potential reality at all. I actually decided to write now because I want to write for myself. But there still feels like there’s an audience here or at least that there’s a chance that I might be writing now not just for myself but also for someone else to read.
I guess I can start by saying that living in Israel the last 4 years hasn’t been easy. In fact, on the whole it’s been hard. By default I am a happy person and find it relatively easy to be happy, to enjoy life and to impact on my surroundings for the better. In Israel I wouldn’t say that this has been my modus operandi. I’d say that I’ve fluctuated between this state and a place of struggling to come to terms with my decision to live in this country and whether or not I still feel that I can make a difference here.
I guess I would say that what really brought me to Israel was a passion, a dream. A hope that I could make a difference here. However small or big, a passion to bring this country to a better more together place. My dream was and is centred around the conflicts that exist here between peoples - mainly between Arab and Israeli but also between secular and religious Jews. I’ve always been fascinated by the conflict here and that fascination is intertwined with my feeling that I can make a difference on the conflict. I’ve always known what my strengths are - connecting with people, expressing love and interest in them, seeing them as a person regardless of their story. These are ‘skills’ that come naturally to me. I connect. I can empathise on a deep level. I can engage and make laugh and play and point to a different place that we could live in. These are attributes that are in my DNA. They are just part of my make up. It’s just what I do. And it was the ability to bring people closer together that got me so excited about moving here. Learning Arabic and learning the stories and traditions of Judaism (and Islam) were always things that I knew that I would focus on as they would help me relate deeper with the very people that I hoped to work with and connect to.
Now after 4 years of being here I can say that somewhere along the line I forgot why I came here. I lost touch with these burning reasons and preceeded to live my life as another Israeli.
I don’t say this with regret. One of the toughest things someone can do is to consciously uproot themselves from a country where they have a loving family, happy history, adoring friends and everything at their fingertips to a foreign land with a different language, no personal history, vastly different culture, no family, few friends and to remain on your feet.
Moving country is hard. Moving from Australia to Israel is hard. I don’t wish it on anyone. I wish it only for those people that have a driving passion, because without that I don’t think that you’ll survive the move - and that applies to myself.
So I spent the last four or so years just trying to find my feet. In the first year I finished off a Monash Law degree in Jerusalem and worked hard on wrapping up two businesses I had launched in Australia in the years before I left. I lived in a tiny caravan which was nothing more than a piece of shit. I spent many lonely hours there in front of a computer screen, writing essays or working on my businesses. Far from my Australian life and far from any community in Israel that had Australians within it that understood what I was going through. In the following year I moved to the far north of the country where my partner Lia was studying Social Work. I worked on and off in Agriculture, something that I found very difficult - mainly trimming grape vines for hours on end - and had to contend with an ever worsening set of stomach fatigue like symptoms which would often render me unable to finish a day of work from pure physical discomfort.
In my third year I got a break. I was offered a job as a grade 5 home room teacher and English teacher in an alternative primary school close to my home. An incredible opportunity. I said yes with open arms. Being a teacher in Israel is challenging in and of itself. But being a teacher with no experience behind you and with only a faint grasp of the language is an entirely different experience altogether. Although I had a lot of beautiful moments in that year it was largely filled with my coming home shell shocked after work and sitting with a coffee for 1-2 hours trying to process what the hell had just happened that day. Then, at around 6pm I would start working and trying to figure out how I could do a better job tomorrow. The kids were great, the staff wonderful and I tried my heart out, but it was hard.
My fourth year I moved up with the kids into Grade 6. My Hebrew had improved, I had a year of experience under my belt and I was generally more comfortable. I started going to therapy that year to try and help me with my stomach symptoms which had not disappeared and had become such a regular, common part of my life that at times I would just accept the fact that I couldn’t eat a growing list of foods without having a bout of serious fatigue or terribly uncomfortable bloating. The therapy taught me that my body was just trying to communicate to me. Throughout the year I learnt to be more authentic and true to myself. To be who I am more freely, say what I think and do what I believe is right. Slowly but surely the stomach symptoms subsided. I returned to living a relative normal life, physically speaking. The year at school was much less difficult, but not without its challenges of course. My social life outside of work was still untendered to. Lia had a gorgeous group of friends but I found myself in need of my own group of friends too, but I was too far away physically to stay in touch with my best mates in Israel (a small group of Aussies). Socialising has never been something that came easy to me in groups and for these four years I always found it a challenge because of the Hebrew. I often felt like I would sit there in silence unable to say what I was thinking - one because I’m shy sometimes and two because I didn’t have confidence with my Hebrew. What resulted is a very unsatisfactory social experience, even uncomfortable at times.
I finished the school year with great appreciation from the entire school community. It really is amazing that I managed to teach a group of primary school kids in Hebrew for two years. I learnt in that year to appreciate myself, not just appreciate others (which is something that I do very well, but often don’t do the same thing to myself).
Now I’m in my fifth year. I’m living in Rishpon near Tel Aviv. Studying a 2 month nature tour guiding course. Something that I wanted to do now for a very long time. Nature and the proximity and diversity of it in Israel is something that I always loved and connected to. It’s something that all my visions of Israel and how I can impact on her centre around - work with people in nature. So I’m happy to be doing this course. It’s teaching me about nature in Israel and every day I feel more connected with Israel as a result.
Yet despite this I still felt a sadness in my heart up until recently - and those stomach symptoms had somewhat returned. This is a sadness which I feel has been with me for a long time. An underlying sadness about life here. A resignation to just living out an existence that I could’ve lived out much more happily in Melbourne. So why here? Where has the passion gone? Where have I gone? What are you doing here anyway?
These questions filled my head and occupied most of my attention over the last month and a bit.
And now I feel I’m starting to remember the answers. I’m starting to remember why I’m here. It took two beautiful movies to help me realise these answers which were just lying within me and always will be. The Little Prince and Zootopia. Two animated films with simple and beautiful messages - don’t forget who you are and hold onto your dreams no matter how tough it may seem.
I’m here to try and make a difference. I’m here because I love people. I love the people of Israel. I feel a closeness to them. I love Jewish people, religious and non religious. I love Arab people. I’m here because I want to try and form connections between Jews and their Arab brothers. To try and bring these two people’s closer together. There is so much suffering in this country. It is a land of great pain and sorrow. Of stress and anger. It is overwhelming and I can understand why for so many Israelis it just becomes too much to deal with and they either leave the country or just switch off from the overwhelmingly difficult political reality and their apparent lack of ability to do anything about it. This is something that I couldn’t understand before I moved here. Now after 4 years I do get it. But for me I cannot be another Israeli who is to be busy trying to pay the bills for the month and put food on the table that the political situation is just a problem that he has no time nor energy for. I don’t want to be another Israeli who lives in stress and anger and cuts people off the road or yells, or lives with a generous amount of lack of consideration. Yes, there are traits in Israelis that I would like to adopt and strengthen but there are many that I want nothing to do with as well.
I know why I’m here. I’m here because I believe in a different reality than the one that exists here. I’m here because I believe in people. I believe in the people of Israel. I believe in peace and the possibility that this country will become a more peaceful one. I love this country. I love its diversity, its challenges and its aliveness. It’s not easy here, in fact it is very difficult sometimes but I don’t want to shy away from this, I can’t. I am here to make a difference to this place. No matter how small. No matter what they tell me about what can and can’t be done. I’m here to be bold and outrageously loving and open and accepting.
Something that I understand now that I didn’t really understand before I came to Israel was that I am strong. And that it is OK to be strong. In the past I would shy away from stating my opinions afraid of what other’s might think of me or maybe how I would make other’s feel. Well now I say fuck it. I know what I think and I know who I am and I’m no longer going to remain in the shadows and live quietly. I will say what I think and I will love with the love and passion that I choose. I will be polite if that’s what I want and I will be trusting to all people that I want to be trusting towards. I will express my love to those that I feel love towards. And above all else, I will not forget why I came here. I came here to make a difference to this place. I came here because I have a vision in my heart for how people could relate to one another. And I’m here because I know that I have the ability to cause this change.
With my love, my kindness, my strength and my creativity.
I dearly hope that this next year is a year whereby I spend more and more time cultivating these reasons why I’m here. Where I’m more and more in touch with Mike, and who I am as a human being and what I want to bring to this remarkable place that I have chosen to call my home.
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