Nobody told me about the cats. I’d seen a plethora of photographs, heard the myriad stories of friends and family who’d previously visited the Jewish homeland and had been exposed to innumerable articles and media pieces on Israel’s current political condition.
But nobody ever told me about the cats roaming the streets and alleys in an every-cat-for-himself sort of fashion. And it was the cats, which an Israeli friend compared to the squirrels in Wisconsin, that I noted on my two-week vacation to Israel.
They alerted me to the idea that as much as you study, scrutinize or even dissect the integral characteristics of a place, you can never obtain the complete picture without physically going there.
The cats are a small accessory to the overall environment and are completely insignificant to the substantiality of Israel. But as vital as the momentous landmarks are, it’s often the small things that consummate the experience and lock an attachment in your heart forever.
We spent the majority of our days running from one sight to the next, sometimes hitting up to five museums in one day, trying our best to maintain a sponge-like state and soak up as much of the barrage of information thrown at us as our minds would permit.
“Fun” doesn’t quite describe it, as we often fought against our feet’s pleas for hiatus and our bodies’ (or at least my body’s) grievance of waking up at 8 a.m. every morning on spring break. Yet the exposure and close proximity to my roots often masked my physical protest.
Healing a tree
I particularly enjoyed the individual stories. The exemplary incidents of outright heroism and passionate dedication to Israel were spine-tingling. As a result, improbable feats were accomplished, most notably the against-all-odds establishment of Israel in the first place.
A moving tale was that of Kibbutz Ayalon, where a group of young adults around my age (18) built an underground bullet factory in anticipation of the war for independence against the Arabs in 1948.
Working as a team, they were able to disguise the factory as a kibbutz and hide their activities from not only the British Mandate administration, but also from family, friends and even other people living beside them.
Stories like the one embedded at Kibbutz Ayalon are in abundance in Israel.
Of much smaller amplitude but just as affecting is a humble story of a tree on Kibbutz Tel-Katzir, the home of Meital Saar, who lived with my family for six months last year while she volunteered in the Jewish community.
Meital explained that the tree was wounded after being hit by a bomb from Syria. The children on the kibbutz, in an innocently hopeful pursuit, bound the tree together with a metal band. Miraculously, the tree healed and has grown strong and majestic and is still standing.
In Israel, the words museum and tourism have taken on different meaning than they are subject to in the United States. To put it more simply, you can touch things.
For example, the historical ruins at Caesarea wouldn’t have been nearly as powerful had I been pressing my forehead against a glass case rather than sitting on the very steps built by Herod ages ago.
And the people have a drive for learning through doing that astonishingly contrasts with our crusade for institutionalized education. After they complete their army service, they don’t want to go to college immediately. They want to travel the world.
It doesn’t matter that they won’t have a tangible degree right away to prove their intelligence; they’re content with pure experience.
Being in Israel with my family and my grandparents, who have watched me grow from birth to present, was incredibly meaningful.
And seeing Meital in her home, after watching her become acquainted to our home, tied up a lot of ends that I didn’t even realize were loose. Saying goodbye to her, for the second time, was one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do.
Two weeks after my arrival in Israel, I said goodbye to the cats and hello to the squirrels. And though I immediately fell back into the familiar pattern of my life, I am changed, enriched, by the Israel that I touched.
Kiera Wiatrak, a senior at Nicolet High School, has been Chronicle student intern for the past year.
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