"I Beg Your Pardon?" My Foreign Accent

It shouldn't be like that but, having lived in the US for almost fifteen years, I know that too often a foreign accent is a handicap.

When I arrived to the Midwest to do my graduate degree in English at one of the state universities, I asked my linguistic professor how I could get rid of my Israeli accent. He wasn't optimistic, I wanted to know if a strong accent indicated a lack of musical talent. He answered that based on what he had read it was a matter of personal identity. There were some people, he called them the Chamaeleon type, who could speak with almost no trace of a foreign accent. He felt that  subconsciously I  probably didn't want to lose my Israeli identity. This explanation was reassuring, it was a relief to hear that it wasn't my fault. I am not sure if this is still a valid theory, but I am not going to look for conflicting evidence.

As a person with a foreign accent I was often  treated with superiority.

Please keep reading in the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/i-beg-your-pardon-my-foreign-accent/

Is It True That You Can Never Go Home Again?

They say ”you can never go home again,” but is it true? Doesn’t  the word "home" imply that you can return, that you will always be welcome unconditionally, and regardless of anything?

 I was reminded of the more metaphorical meanings of this saying  this week while staying in the US with my daughter, her  husband and their new daughter-- my first granddaughter. We were discussing some  practices from the time when my daughters were babies, about  thirty years ago, in the US.

My daughter listened patiently to me and then told me, with a half embarrassed smile, that those practices were no longer used. Nowadays new regulations indicate that the baby should not sleep on her stomach without supervision, that she should not  drink water (but that has been true for years). There are also strict regulations about furniture which mean that she can no longer sleep in the family crib or in the cradle, built thirty years ago by a loving uncle. These are only few examples from a long list of practices and objects which could no longer be used. .

My daughter, a responsible and sensible mother, only wants what is best for her baby. Still it made me sad that, due to safety reasons, my daughter and her daughter are  deprived of the connection with the family history: her baby will not sleep in the same cradle that her father had slept in.

The main reason for those strict regulations is to prevent, as much as possible, Sudden Infant Death. I still remember the horrible fear of SIDS  when my own daughters were babies. Then we were not aware that anything could be done about it. Nowadays,  thanks to the new regulations, this syndrome has almost been eradicated.

But then yesterday my daughter went through the baby’s clothes showing me what she had received from family members and friends. Some of the items looked old and used, still she wanted to keep them.  Moreover, my daughter tried to convince me to return new gifts of clothes claiming that she already had more than enough. I argued  that it was fun to dress a new baby with new clothes.

At first I didn’t see why she wanted to keep the old clothes, but later I understood. Wearing clothes that came from cousins and friends was a way to maintain the important connection with the past. The baby was surrounded with so much new and impersonal equipment, that my daughter preferred the meaningful clothes to those new ones which were still sterile.

Dressing the baby with hand-me-down clothes  from people that you care about, is an act of bonding, and it is a way to go home again. 

Besides, it promotes another important value, that of social and consumer responsibility. It is especially significant in a place like the US where consumers goods are so abundant and  inexpensive that it is too easy to buy everything new.

I can compare this type of responsibility to the growing movement toward adoption of rescue pets, why spend money on one pedigree dog when so many other need a home?

And speaking of home, later today I will fly back to Israel; my daughter, her American husband, half American daughter, and her Israeli dog will remain  in their home in the US.  Staying with  this young  family I had to expand the meaning of home with the help of another saying: “home is where your heart is.” Indeed part of mine will remain with them.

Born In The USA But My Heart Is In The East

“I was born in the US, but I am originally from Israel,” is how my American-born daughter described herself in a second  grade personal narrative booklet.  The statement must have surprised her teacher, but I felt that it made sense.

My two daughters were born in the Midwest during our long stay in the US. Although we were not sure whether we would ever return to Israel, we spoke Hebrew at home, taught the girls  to read and write Hebrew, and at bedtime read to them from Israeli children's books.  Still, we always lived in American neighborhoods, they attended public school, had American friends and when they read on their own it was always in English. 

Since I was born in Israel it was clear to me that my “real home” was Israel, but until I read my daughter’s biography I hadn’t  imagined that her idea of a real home was not the one that our family had in Texas.

When we were at university in the US we met a young cousin who told us that he planned to move to Israel once he graduated from university. “But you don’t know if you’d like it, you have never been there,”  I said in amazement, and he answered: “ I just know.”  He has been in Israel now for over 30 years

Longing for a “real home” from afar is an old Jewish tradition; for centuries diaspora Jews  have been  yearning for Zion. They have kept Jerusalem in their prayers, vowing never to forget it and wishing to be "next year in Jerusalem."

In the 12th century Spain the Hebrew poet Yehuda Halevi wrote:

My heart is in the East

My heart is in the East, and I am at the ends of the West;

How can I taste what I eat and how could it be pleasing to me?

How shall I render my vows and my bonds, while yet

Zion lies beneath the fetter of Edom, and I am in the chains of Arabia?

It would be easy for me to leave all the bounty of Spain --

As it is precious for me to behold the dust of the desolate sanctuary.

As a poet  and a religious Jew, Halevi expressed his longings for Zion as a place and as a symbol, I, as a secular Israeli,  just missed my parents’ home in Israel. But although I had a concrete vision of that home, the  Israel that we encountered once we returned there was very different from the one that we had imagined.

 My daughter was quick to point it out; coming back from a social activity with her new class mates in Tel Aviv, she announced that "our" Israel was all wrong. She was right, my husband and I left Israel when we were in our early twenties and never experienced what it meant to live in Israel as grown- ups.  What we presented to our daughters as "home" was a fantasy made up of our childhood memories and the old fictional stories that we read as children.

Thus in our late thirties we finally had to grow up and reconcile our dreams with the  reality, which we found in our new home in Israel.

When I skated in the park today I listened to an episode of This American Life (number 130 from 1999): “Away from Home,” and  heard Ira Glass addressing the attachment to a faraway home.  I feel that his explanation of that metaphysical connection, whether it is place or a group of people, is beautiful:

“There's an uncanny quality when you fall in love. And there's an uncanny quality to finding the home you've never had. And at some level, what is there to say? What makes home feel like home? The fact that it feels like home.”

"Man Plans And God Laughs": Home Renovation And Bereavement

 NOV.06.2013 - 12:26 AM

After our two daughters had left home my husband Tzvi and I decided to downsize-- to move from our  house in the suburbs to a smaller one in town. It was going to be a happy move, an opportunity to be centrally located while still having a house with a garden.

In a green neighborhood  just outside Tel Aviv, we found the perfect house. It was an old semi- detached that needed a lot of work: in Israeli terms "old" means about 60 year old. We were thrilled, we knew that this was the place where we would spend many happy years together, and in February we signed the contract.

 However, as the Yiddish proverb goes “man plans and God laughs,” a week after we committed ourselves to buying the house Tzvi was diagnosed with lung cancer. Still we worked on the plans for the  new house together, it was our light in an otherwise very dark period. Originally we planned two studies, and  I remember my heart sinking when he told me one day “I don’t believe that you would need that second study,” I didn’t want to hear it.

On Tzvi’s last day in July he was busy saying good bye to friends and family, he also signed the final papers for the sale of our house in the suburbs to make sure that my move  to the new house would go smoothly.

Taking possession of the new house occurred on the day when I got up from the Shiva, and two days later, on the first day of August, the renovation began. I was grateful for this project, it forced me to be sharp and stay focused in order to take the necessary decisions and make the right choices. I was very fortunate because the architect and the builder, who were aware of my plight, were kind and generous. They took special care of me and we worked together in perfect harmony.

 I have not seen renovation mentioned as a prescribed medicine for bereavement, but for me, (although I was still angry with Him for laughing at our plans) it was “God sent.” It is almost a cliche as the word "renovation" has within it the root "renewal." Indeed as we demolished and built new walls gradually turning  a building site into  a home, I realized that my shattered life was also taking a new form. It gave me new hope for the future.

This was the beginning of my recovery, and  in less than three months, at the end of October, I moved into my new house. I remember waking up on that first morning -- boxes everywhere,  telling myself “this is where my new life starts.”

Each year, around this time,  when I mark another anniversary to my house, I reflect on my circumstances in the summer of 2007, and am thankful for the project and the kindness of people who helped me get back on my feet. But most of all, like Virginia Woolf, I am just happy to have “A Room of One's Own. “