Graduation
Posted June 18, 2007
Dear Peoplehooders, I have tried not to have too much personal information on this blog, but every once in a while the intersection of personal and ideological comes together and is hard to avoid. Today, Aliza, our 14 year old, graduated from Boston’s Jewish Community Day School with her friends in eighth grade. It was a beautiful and touching and funny graduation, with all the trademark warmth, bi-lingualism and Peoplehood values shining through. As you know, we’ve spent the past ten months on Kibbutz Ketura in the southern desert of Israel. In that time, four of Aliza’s classmates came to visit, which always made her happy but also increased her longing for her chevre in Boston. The gift and anti-gift that we have given our children is that they are not exactly home in the Arava yet, and they are not exactly home, or with a home, in Newton, yet both places have magic and a lot in common. Experiencing the commonalities of places seemingly so different and so remote is a Peoplehood experience. We are very proud of all the kids and tonight especially of Aliza, who had to sacrifice the most this year. It was good to have her reunited with her chevre for nearly a month, yet making the goodbye even more bittersweet, as the class now breaks up to go to different high schools. Living in Israel one has a greater sense of the mobility of our people, of the great distances people have come for a dream–not always a Zionist dream–but, nevertheless, with a dream or two. Living between two worlds, or perhaps in two worlds, is part of the global nature of 21st century jewish life.
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