Why I Had to Go to Israel
by Anita Lurye Silver
(Editor’s note: Anita Lurye Silver has been a member of Bet Shalom since 1984. Her extensive involvement has included being an usher at services, Religious School teacher, Children's Choir (Shir Tzair) director, Board of Trustees member, Secretary of Board of Trustees, Co-chair of Raffle Dazzle Fundraiser. She is the mother of members Alyson Weiss and Andrea Champaloux, and grandmother of current Bet Shalom students Micah, Bobby, and Jonah. She says, “I’m always trying to set an example.”)
My first actual memory of the word “Israel” was when I was two years old and attending nursery school in Duluth. We were singing and dancing to a song – the lyrics were “Achshav, Achshav, B’emek Yisrael.” That means, "Now, now in the valley of Israel!” It is a song of hope sung by the chalutzim, or pioneers, who turned the country from malaria-infested swamps into fertile and productive farmland.
This was 1953, eight years after World. War II ended, and only five years after the State of Israel was established. There was Zionist fever throughout the worldwide Jewish community.
As a young girl, I remember on Friday nights before our Shabbat dinners, or upon safe return from a trip, that we would put a few coins in the pushke, or the blue tzedakah box. The money collected was to go to Israel; how it got there I didn’t know. I also remember as a kid buying trees to plant in Israel. It was an abstract place to me since I had never been there. I just knew it was important to my family and other Jews.
But then I started spending weeks every summer at Herzl Camp. My mother had been a counselor the first year the camp was established. I was a camper there, and later I worked there as an Ozo. My children both attended Herzl Camp for years, and now my oldest grandson goes there. Herzl was where everything about being Jewish was cemented for me, including my commitment to Israel, just like in many similar camps across the United States. I wished I could go to Israel someday and hear those songs being sung. It’s no coincidence that the camp was named for Theodor Herzl who was the father of the Zionist movement.
I worked with the children’s choir at Bet Shalom for many years, singing the songs of Israel, prayers for Israel and music about Israel and the Jewish people. I wrote a play about everyone who captured and controlled Israel, from the Muslims to the Christians to the Ottoman Empire to two groups of Crusaders and to the British. And then back again to the Jewish state.
But I had still never been to Israel.
The first time I went to Israel was in 1995. I walked off the airplane and got down on the ground and kissed the earth. Not so much for myself, but for the generations that preceded me. The generations who only knew Israel as a dream. The generations who declared “Next year in Jerusalem!” every year at the Passover Seder. The generations who lost so many members due to racism, xenophobia, and hatred. The generations who were lost both before and during the Holocaust.
After I returned, when friends asked me about that trip, they noticed me referring to Israel as home. I hadn’t even realized that I was doing that.
The next time I went to Israel in 2010, well after both of my children had gone there as teens, was right after my husband Tom died. The trip tied me to the past, and it soothed me. I saw Israel through different eyes. I felt as if I were home.
Throughout my life, the manta of “never again” was to be believed. And then October 7 happened. It was a day that shocked the world, a day our Jewish brothers and sisters across the globe started to rally around taking care of our each other.
When I have a catastrophe in my home, I need to go home. I traveled to Washington DC on the day of the record-breaking numbers of Jewish people singing Hatikvah. I gave with my checkbook. But I needed to go back home to Israel... so I did. I gave blood, sweat and tears and lent my eyes and ears. When I was there, I met a soldier who was older than most. He said he was 72, my age. I asked him why he was doing this, and he said, “Because I have to.” When I’m asked why I went to Israel at this time, my response is the same as his.
The reward of being there cannot be adequately described. It was life-changing for me in 1995 as it further developed my sense of homeland to the extent I was calling it home. It affected me in 2010 because roaming the streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Tzfat, and Jaffa felt like stepping in the footsteps of those who came before me. But this time it was a changed Israel.
I met courageous Israelis who previously had not had to demonstrate courage. I saw areas that were ravaged to smithereens in the aftermath of October 7. Family members and friends had gathered at these tributes, as well as Jews from across the globe. I saw and felt conviction and compassion, strength and vulnerability. I worked in agriculture, compensating for the loss of workers who had been called up to the IDF. I worked at a distribution center, boxing up clothing, household items, diapers, etc. for people who had lost everything. I brought 700 pairs of socks with me because I heard that they were needed by the soldiers. I saw people carrying on their daily lives, one eye always focusing on the potential for unknown.
I say to you: if you have any opportunity, go there, to our home. Achshav, Achshav, B’Emek Yisrael!
Now, Now to the valley of Israel.
Am Yisrael Chai!