While The City Burned

August 3, 1997

My mother clings to my father and next to him with his towering height, she seems so much smaller as she tries not to cry. He looks at me, his eyes clear and his face resigned, while I wave goodbye, let go, leave the nest and fly—to Israel.

I disappear, dragged away by an escalator, my intertwined parents and I slowly lose eye contact, and I’m left alone in the artificial air of the airport with a red backpack on my shoulders and on my skin the exhilaration of someone taking off.

I’m eighteen and still have nightmares about my final high school exams. I drift over the airport carpet, through jewelry stores and past walls lined with cigarettes and perfume. I see people’s faces, clothes, suitcases, and feel the commotion. I don’t notice the weight of my backpack crammed with enough clothes for a year, only the excitement of an adventure.

“What are your plans?” a teacher asked me after my exams. “I’m going to Israel,” I replied enthusiastically. He frowned a little, raised his eyebrows—an almost imperceptible gesture—and ended my high school life with a dismissive “Good,” devoid of the slightest interest.

I’m going on vacation, more than anything it’s a vacation. A year off. To learn Hebrew, to learn about the Jewish State. I’m Jewish, after all.

There is a large photograph of the Western Wall in our living room. Jews (maybe they’re Sephardic?) pray without shoes. Heads veiled, the women’s faces brush against stones while the palms of their hands rest gently on them. I’ve looked...