I have so often heard people saying bad things about living in "this country", albeit I am guilty of doing it myself. Inevitably it happens after a typical Israeli experience at the bank, with the builders on your house, with the traffic... You get the point. My husband gets this year's award for the most amounts of "I want to leave and go back to...".
The old adage goes, "the grass is always greener." I am not sure if it is or it isn't but driving home from work today I had an almost fleeting, very real desire to be anywhere else other than Israel. I have never felt it as strongly as I did today, and of all days? The one thing I always say to people who complain about Israel and express a desire to leave is to imagine how much worse it would be if we did not have this country, if the Jewish homeland did not exist and we were unable to come and go freely. Would we really feel so nonchalant about Israel and it's, what I like to call, quirks?
It was this thought that brought me back to reality. I was ashamed of my fleeting desire to leave. On this very sad and special day I had betrayed, for just a second, all those people who had given their lives defending my freedom and right to live here in peace. We MUST do everything to keep Israel our Jewish homeland, even if that means giving back a small peace of it (pun intended).
With that in mind. Chag Sameach and enjoy your barbecues. As a true Australian (even though I was born in South Africa) it warms my heart that the Israeli way of celebrating Yom Haatzmaut is to light up the barbie, shame about the shrimps though!
