I get at least one email a week encouraging me, as a young Jew, to return to my homeland. They’re usually brightly colored and sprinkled with phrases like “the Jewish People,” “Exile,” and “Return.” They generally have many exclamation points and several photographs of tanned teenagers floating blissfully in the Dead Sea.
My weekly greetings testify to the idea that Jews living anywhere but between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea are in exile. Deleting the messages, I consider my stance on the matter.
As we have for thousands of years, Jews today are thriving outside the Land of Israel. The American Jewish community (if we can refer to the multitudes in the singular) is teeming with resources and ideas. We are integrated into society in the vast majority of areas where we live and, for better or worse, have joined the top echelons of many.
We therefore must reconsider our tradition’s age-old liturgical longing for another place. In this era of global conflict, unprecedented mobility for the upper classes, and natural disasters that send millions running from their homes, we must ask ourselves: Can home be any place but the place we live?
As I study images of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita survivors pick through the wreckage of their homes and mourn the stuff of their lost lives, I wonder what it means to wish oneself elsewhere. I know the adage about homes and hearts as well as the next American, but I think there’s more to it. Home isn’t just where the heart is; it’s where the life is. And, as a cab driver once told a disoriented friend of mine, it’s is where the furniture is.
So as American Jews sit in their kitchens and dorm rooms, eating hummus with friends and declaring themselves far from home, I can’t help protesting. The United States will never feel like home if we don’t admit that it already is.
This was the sentiment that guided me through The House & Home Issue, New Voices’ first attempt at bridging the gap between Jewish thought and interior design. The three feature articles explore the constant difficulties—and occasional value—of being an outsider, even in one’s own community. Taking us from inner city Chicago to the streets of Gaza, Jerusalem, and New York City, the pieces speak to our collective immigrant past and our hopes for the future.
So as you settle into fall semester and we at New Voices into our first post-college jobs, let’s be mindful of our homes, neighborhoods, and cities, even while studying theory and dreaming of escape. Instead of making the desert bloom, let’s try the community garden. Because no matter what our emails might tell us, home is here; home is now. And it’s our privilege to act like it.
