“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me”
To have an identity is to truly know who you are. It is to understand your roots and how they affect you. It is to know your history and your present and to know that they are one and the same. Sarit, our tour guide for the Golan Heights, identifies as a Jew, as an Israeli, as a mother, as a first generation Israeli. To me, she is a powerhouse. One of the first things I learned about Sarit is that she served in the IDF Intelligence for 15 years. She is sharp witted, intimidating, brave and has a heart of gold. As she described her father’s story, I could feel tears pricking my eyes. Sarit’s father came to Israel from Damascus, Syria and on the day of his Bar Mitzvah the UN Security Council voted in favor of the partition plan. War broke out and no one could come to his Bar Mitzvah, but Sarit’s father pushed through and didn’t let this affect him. As Sarit told us this story, she said it’s very hard for her to talk about it and that she was holding back tears. And honestly, so was I. Maybe that’s what it means to be Israeli, I thought. Maybe it means to let your story be a part of your life and to let it guide you, as Sarit does. The Golan Heights is a very important part of her father’s story and she involves it in her job, her life, her livelihood. Sarit went on to explain that during the Six Day War the Israeli forces didn’t have Intellegince telling them where the Wall was, they just went in to the Old City. She laughed as she explained this, “We had chutzpa” she said to us with a hint of seriousness in her voice. Maybe, I thought, that’s what being Israeli means. To have chutzpah, to defend what you know even if you aren’t completely sure how. On our drive to a different outlook point I thought about this idea of having chutzpah while looking out the window. I saw a tree standing alone in what was mostly desert while groups of trees grew together seperate from the stand alone tree. And I knew that that’s what it means to be Israeli, to stand alone and to be strong on your own. I thought about this as Sarit took us to a beautiful point where we could see almost all of the Sea of Galilee. But then Sarit started talking to us about Israel’s mandatory military service. She said that we were all nearing the age of 18, the age Israelis start serving. She said “So what does this mean? It means that at 18 you might have to fight this battle [in the north]. That’s it. That’s what it means to be Israeli.” I stood there in complete shock. That’s it? That’s what it means to be Israeli? How could that possibly be it? But then she went on to say that “I will be recruited [if war breaks out]. I will be underground, I will be okay. But my kids? They have a problem. [They live] 6 miles from the border, and have 9 seconds to get to shelter… It’s Israeli instinct,”. Okay, so is that what it means to be Israeli? To have the instinct of going to the bomb shelter? But then Sarit explained more about her kids “I let my sons go everywhere in the village by themselves… I let them live a normal, regular life… We don’t feel all of this fear… To be an Israeli means to live a normal life, to not be afraid anymore,”. And that is when I understood. To be Israeli, to live in Israel, to be immersed in the country means to be brave in the face of danger. To move forward, to stand alone, to know what to do in times of crisis but to also know how to celebrate in times of happiness. This is the Israeli identity, Sarit’s identity, and the identity of the Promised Land itself.