10 | JUNE 9 • 2022
opinion
I Left Israel to Give my Kids the
‘American Dream.’ Is This It?
O
n the day when the
shooting happens, I
finally unlock what some
say is the most vital part of the
American dream. My husband
and I have a house in the suburbs
now, big trees tow-
ering above — no
picket fence, but
a wide expanse of
green and room for
the pattering of tiny
feet. As we sign the
paperwork, we each
take turns rocking
our baby on our legs.
This house is for our children.
We say it over and over again. If
it were just he and I, we would be
content with the walls of a small
Brooklyn apartment, with the city
streets as a backyard. Instead, we
chose to give them rooms to grow
into, a shingle roof, manicured
lawns and a garden to plant and
grow together.
Like so many of the families in
Uvalde, Texas, I am an immigrant.
I came here to this country with a
dream to give myself and my chil-
dren a better future. As we drive
home, our baby sleeping in the
backseat, we hear the news of 21
dreams extinguished by an AR-15.
Just like the shooter at Robb
Elementary school, I got my first
rifle at 18 — it was borrowed, not
bought, and a few weeks later I
returned it, along with magazines
full of bullets, to an army ware-
house. It scraped against the fabric
of my coarse olive green uniform,
pushed against my core as I slept
with it under my army-issued
mattress. As I shot it at a dusty
military range, I couldn’t help but
think: I am too young and too stu-
pid for this.
When I was young, not much
older than my oldest son is now,
I was promised that maybe I
wouldn’t have to go to the army
when I grew up. When I moved
away from Israel to the United
States, I found comfort in the fact
that this was one false promise
I wouldn’t have to make to my
children. But instead, I find myself
with a much more harrowing false
promise to make. Each day I send
them to school, I’ll have to tell
them they are safe when I know
they are not.
I grew up in a country where
the faces of fallen soldiers greet
you every morning at the entrance
of schools, with a memorial wall
for the soldier alumni who per-
ished. And yet I knew that I was
safe in the walls of my classrooms.
I come from a place dubbed the
Holy Land, yet I cannot fathom
how one could value thoughts and
prayers over actions to protect the
sanctity of the lives of our school
children. I come from a land
known for such violence, yet it has
never treated the life of its young
with such callousness.
I come from a place known for
occupation and war, shelters and
bombs, missile fire and violent
attacks in the streets — for all
those reasons, I’m glad my chil-
dren are growing up somewhere
different. And yet, it’s also a place
of gun control — it’s very hard to
obtain a permit for a weapon in
Israel.
Once, someone tried to par-
tially blame school shootings on
America’s militarization, and I
attempted to refute the argument
by saying that I come from an
even more militarized place. They
scoffed at me, but it was true —
school shootings don’t happen in
Israel.
The week before the Uvalde
shooting, I talked to Jewish come-
dian Michael Ian Black about his
book A Better Man, an open letter
to his son about boyhood and
masculinity which is bracketed by
school shootings. I was distracted
during our interview — my son
was terribly ill, and being faced
with your child’s mortality is a
haunting, terrible thing. I told him
how his book feels just as relevant
now, two years after it came out,
especially after the Buffalo shoot-
ing that had taken place the week
before. As we ended our call, he
told me that this would not be the
last time his book feels pertinent,
the last mass shooting.
It’s an awful thing to be right
about this week. It’s an awful thing
that these shootings feel unavoid-
able. It’s an awful thing to, once
again, be faced with our children’s
mortality this way. I return, over
and over again, to a satirical Onion
headline: “‘No Way To Prevent
This,
’ Says Only Nation Where
This Regularly Happens.
” I come
from a country that prevents
this — so many other immigrants
in this country do, too. The 21
victims of the Uvalde shooting
should still be with us.
Yes, in Israel, we send children
to defend our country, in uniforms
and guns — but at least they know
they’ll be in danger.
Every day, the children of this
country get drafted to be part of
a war, one that they didn’t sign up
for — a cynical war waged by pol-
iticians and gun lobbies. Almost
every mass shooting involves an
AR-15, and yet we refuse to outlaw
them; so many shootings are com-
mitted by young, angry men, and
yet we don’t restrict their access to
guns.
Too many men and women in
power send us the message that
guns are more important than the
lives of our children and of their
teachers, who are meant to foster
their growth, not shield them with
their bodies.
I had my children in this coun-
try hoping, in part, to protect
them from violence. But when I
see images of 10-year-old Alithia
Ramirez and teacher Irma Garcia
— all the Uvalde victims and
their families, another community
devastated by this same gun — I
recognize that’s an American
dream that, for now, I cannot give
them.
This article first appeared on Kveller and
was distributed by JTA..
Crosses sit outside of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas,
after a gunman killed 21 people inside, May 24, 2022.
YASIN OZTURK/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES
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