T-0: Israel

Rift between Israeli and American Jews; sleeping pilots, the rabbi offers his broccoli

On the plane, hour three of ten, practicing legible handwriting in a large bound book (my late father once asked that I type my letters to him; that they were more and more turning chicken scratch, but then, he went to Catholic grammar school in the 1940s) while listening to We Stand Divided: The Rift Between American Jews and Israel, by Daniel Gordis. One of the people I will be staying with said, after I secured our Airbnb, “After each day we can retire to our rooftop to strategize and finally solve this darn conflict once and for all." I have friends who I believe speak sensibly about this rift - I am thinking of Bari Weiss, and of people at Tablet, I am thinking of Eli Lake, whose podcast “The Re-Education with Eli Lake” you should be listening to, in fact you should stop reading and listen to today’s episode, “The Case for Divided Government.” And I have friends on quite the other side, friends who when I mention the Iron Dome show disgust that Israel has this protection; who write that “personally, [I] would not spend my own $ supporting a country engaging in unconscionable human rights violations” against Palestinians. I love all these people. I am playing historical catch-up. I am not the person to write about politics but I will talk to everyone per usual.

First person today was at Newark airport. I did an Instagram live and will do more (you can follow me there at @nancyromm). In a nutshell: former pilot, I’d put him at about 85. Reminded me of my dad. Agreed that talking to people is like watering a flower (you’re both the flowers). And, “any pilot that tells you he doesn’t fall asleep while flying is a liar!”

Ten minutes ago, my seat-mate tapped me and said, “The rabbis, they’re praying.” Indeed, the man at the end of our row and eight other men, young and old, had gathered near the steward’s station. If they were speaking aloud I could not hear them over the engine sound; a few were lightly davening; I imagine they were praying for many things and all of us, and I could lean over and ask the rabbi in our row, who is friendly and funny and could not believe this was my first time going to Israel (“WHAT?! What?!). Everyone instantly assumes I am Jewish and I do not say I am not. Before we took off we talked Boro Park (he doesn’t like it but he moved there 35 years ago for his wife so) and his five children (“a small family, relatively speaking”). Now he and the steward are engaged in a conversation about lopping off the top of the seat in front him because his TV monitor is not working, and earlier he offered around his broccoli, which he does not like. A man I can respect.

Here are some books we picked up yesterday at the Strand. I will have listened to or read two by the time we land. And if I feel as though I am walking into the new, it is because I am xx