About the Author: Lori Lowenthal Marcus is the US correspondent for The Jewish Press. She is a recovered lawyer who previously practiced First Amendment law and taught in Philadelphia-area graduate and law schools.
This is the West Bank? You have to tell people what it’s really like, my mother said to me.
I’ve been living in Israel, in Gush Etzion, in Efrat, since the end of August. I’m here because one daughter (YD) is studying in a seminary nearby (much more on that, later), and the other (OD) made Aliyah and is going into the IDF in December.
This is our chance to try a pilot project: can this particular family of upper middle class Jewish American Zionists make it in Israel? Do we have more to contribute being here, or is it important for stalwart Israel supporters to remain in the U.S., constantly correcting the myths created by the mainstream media about Israel, the shtachim, the plight of the Arabs, and all the rest.
And does Israel really need more lawyers? Or English-writing journalists? We’ll see. But for now, here I am.
This morning I showed my mother around the neighborhood. She thinks it is GORGEOUS. As she raved on and on (“you know, everything is flat in Florida, we have none of these gorgeous hills”), I said to her:
ME: You know, mom, this is the “West Bank.”
MOM: It’s so gorgeous…what? What are you talking about?
ME: Here. This house, this neighborhood, this whole area is what the New York Times and the rest of the planet calls the “West Bank.”