La patrie est morte, vive la patrie or Home, bittersweet home

 

[small house  + VW Beetle*]

According to physics, everything is constant movement, however imperceptibly in the short term. This change affects places and people alike.  Both people and their hometowns evolve over time, eventually creating a completely different locale and persona. It does not mean that the past does not leave traces but this heritage is only part of the current reality. Therefore, as a native-born American that has lived in Israel for more than half of my life, I can say that you can’t go home again but you can adopt a new home.

First, regardless of the desire of individual people, neighborhoods have their own dynamic. The ages of the residents and residences increase and decrease. The size and upkeep of the housing have their ups and downs. Stores open and close, develop and disappear and change ownership and approach. The roads change in width, smoothness and traffic load. Stop signs appear and are may be replaced by traffic lights or even disappear. Sometimes, highways and rail stations appear or are closed. A comparison of a city even after 20 years will generally show a significant transformation.

Likewise, people develop their priorities, tastes and values over time. An 18-year-old may seek accessible and exciting night life but a young parent would not want drunk people walking by at night. Clearly, purchasing habits vary over time, with the DYI store replacing the toy store over time to be replaced by a pharmacy, to name just one example. Most importantly, individual world views evolve over a lifetime. What was once considered glorious freedom may turn into complete lack of respect. It is impossible to say that we are the exact same person that we were even five years ago, not to mention twenty years ago.

Granted, our early life does leave its traces. Parental attitudes color our perception of religion and ethics. Home and local food create a strong emotional connection. Even sports retain their mark. I still enjoy watching baseball and American football. Therefore, leaving home is not total rejection of its elements.

Still, after many years abroad, visiting “home” becomes increasingly similar to stopping in a someone familiar foreign city. It is not completely alien in that we can recognize the roads and landmarks. Yet, it is foreign not only in that the place is somehow different than we remember it but in that we also gradually lose the emotional connection to it. In practical terms, I now visit my mother in Los Angeles but I do not go home. This emotional distance is somewhat disturbing but almost inevitable. A person that is not part of the daily existence of a location is not part of it. Thus, there is a sense of losing our “home”.

However, for long-term expats, that feeling is balanced by realization of a new home, the country of their immigration. Clearly, this sentiment generally does not exist in the beginning when everything is new, including behavioral morays, and established emotional connections are lacking. However, over time, a new location becomes a new home, with physical and emotional connections to the place. Not only that, immigrants eventually adopt some of the routine habits and manners of the locals, becoming one of them. In the case of Israel, I expect people to talk loudly and argue and enjoy having a large lunch but a small dinner. Even if the Israel of today is quite different than that of when I first arrived, I aged with it and maintained the connection. When asked where I am from, my first answer is Israel.

This adaption is, of course, only partial. Depending on the age of immigration, newcomers may not have not experienced many of the bonding experiences locals did, such as school or army service. Foreigners often consciously reject many local behavior elements, including clothes and manners of address. Certain phenomena will also seem incomprehensible. However, unless a person chooses to live in a total ghetto, immigrants are at least partially culturally assimilated into the population. I remember visiting a store in Los Angeles with my mother and be surprised that my mother was upset by the rudeness of the salesperson when I did not even notice it. I had already developed thick skin, apparently. Thus, immigrants, regardless of how many years they have lived in a country, are neither 100% native or foreign.

This foreign status is not necessarily negative. Seeing a society from a different point of view provides a critical, in the both positive and negative sense of the word, perspective of a society. I enjoy and appreciate many aspects of Israel that native-born Israelis take for granted or even dislike. I enjoy the openness and honesty of daily discourse, even if it is not pleasant at the moment. I appreciate the high value of life and the sense of public welfare that guides private and public behavior. Immigrants, in opting to live in a country, generally actively choose to be part of a different society, somehow creating a greater commitment to the country.

Thomas Wolve wrote You can’t home again. In one sense, he was completely correct. Once a person leaves home, an ever-increasing distance is created as the two are no longer evolving together until one day home is no longer home. On the other hand, it is possible, with sufficient will, effort and time, to create a new home where a person’s hearth and heart are. Granted, it may be quite different from the original. However, for those that never felt at home where they grew up, it is a far better place to be. That is how I feel about Israel. To paraphrase the old expression, home is dead, long live home.

* Picture captions allow the blind to access the Internet.

Picture credit: Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/jaymantri-362084/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=405876">JayMantri</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=405876">Pixabay</a>