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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