Tablet Magazine has an essay contest that got me thinking – even though I’m not eligible to enter. Here’s their pitch:

Years ago, when my daughter lived in New York and was making movies, she interviewed people for a film she wanted to make about the idea of home.  The one I remember most was a woman who said, “Home is a place you can defend with a gun.”  

She was a Palestinian lady, as I recall, and so surprised my daughter that she never made the film.  That was a period in which I thought that peace was around the corner and we’d be next door neighbors exchanging recipes and babysitters.  

I cannot forget the moment I first stepped foot on the ground here.  The argument I had had years ago with the rabbi my mother thoguht would be my perfect shiddach about why I wasn’t going to go to a religious college for girls.  I told him I believed in being part of the world,  and not only was I going to find a way to pay for tuition for a good university, but I was going to see the world.  But somehow a ticket to Israel appeared, and although I thought I’d escape to Athens and parts unknown, I stepped on the soil of the Holy Land and was hooked.   That was it.  I was home.