If ever a moment encapsulates what I chose to leave -- and what I want to embrace -- this was it.
It was not grand, but rather pedestrian. Very pedestrian, in fact.
Let me take you back a “step,” to Tel Aviv’s Arlozorov train station. We’re leaving the station, amused by the vendors hacking their wares. Like magnets, my eyes are drawn to the red, green and white puppets sold by one rather quiet vendor.
“What are they doing here?” I feel defensive. I take a brief, close look and feel even more defensive.
But within seconds the episode is over. I’m back in Israel, helping to chase 4 Chanukah-wild children down a leafy, blessedly-undecorated boulevard in the heart of Tel Aviv.
I’m doing my child-centered best until we pass another red, green and white display. This time in the window display of a fine chocolateria. My blood boils. “They must be catering to the diplomatic crowd here in Tel Aviv,” I comment to my cousin Lila.
“It doesn’t bother me, Mark. Here it’s just an amusement. There’s no threat. What, is everyone all of a sudden going to become Christian?”
For Lila, it’s painless nostalgia of her life long ago in America. For me, it’s just painful, the ever-present bogeyman who, I must remind myself, is no longer trying to get me.
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It's a problem. It's been getting worse over the years. True, it is just an amusement, and Russian immigrants think of it as a secular national holiday, not anything Christian. Still, Tehila laughs when I insist on not letting anything red and green into the house.
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