Over ten years ago, I joined a mailing list for people who were interested in making aliya to Israel. English speakers who already were living in Israel answered the questions of those who were contemplating aliya. I got to “know” many of the people on the list from their postings. There were the generous and kind ones (most of them), the intellectuals (some of them also falling into the first category), the “I know everything better than you do’s”, the “I may not know, but it doesn’t stop me from preaching’s,” “I made it in Israel, but you probably can’t’s” and other assorted people.
Some of the people were people I got to meet in real life and aside from having a very different physical appearance than what I had pictured, they were exactly who I thought they were. It is/was a very special group of people.
But not everyone on the list was an answerer… there were those who asked questions. One, in particular, had a a very winning way of asking questions. I read as he asked about aliya– where it would be good for him to live given his “black hat.” It seemed like only a few months before he was here and asking how to get a stain out of his shirt. In a fllash, he was asking about wedding halls, and in what seemed like no time at all, he was asking about maternity hospitals. Then he asked about pediatricians and recently asked for more information about where he could receive services appropriate to his daughter.
As I smiled at his latest posting, I realized that if I were standing behind him in a checkout line, I would not be able to identify him, yet, I have watched his life change over the years and find myself hoping that he will have the pleasure of seeing his family grow and that together he and I and my family and friends and millions more people I don’t know will enjoy living in a safe, secure Israel.
