Sunday, July 7 – Leaving Boston
Saying goodbye to Sarah and Aleza had more trepidation than my last trip to Israel in April 2023. Sarah said: be safe. Don’t do anything stupid. Aleza wouldn’t let go. I pulled away, entered the terminal, and my journey began.
Today was a day of connections. As I walked through terminal E towards check-in, I ran into CSH congregant, Marc Andler, and a moment later Rabbi Marc Baker, President and CEO of CJP. They were on a 3-day mission to meet with twelve Israeli organizations and then decide how to allocate the next round of the Israel Emergency Fund.
Rabbi Ragozin, Rabbi Marc Baker, and Marc Andler
Waiting in line I ran into a young man whom I recognized from that April 2023 mission. Since that trip he’s been connecting more to Judaism as a spiritual practice, learning Torah weekly with a group of twenty-somethings in Boston and forming deep friendships.
On the plane, my seat mate was Rachel Kadish, author of the 2017 National Jewish Book Awards winner, The Weight of Ink. She shared thoughts about antisemitism in the literary world and was flying to a conference of Jewish writers for a much needed in-personal gathering to discuss this trend. As an example, she cited the literary magazine Guernica’s decision to retract a nuanced essay about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Though being Zionist or expressing anything other than negativity about Israel has long been assumed to be taboo in the literary world, the Guernica decision thrust this antisemitism into the open where it can be addressed more effectively.
I feel a bond with my fellow Jews, and that bond is amplified when travelling together to Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, our homeland. What a start to my Israel trip portion of my sabbatical.