Telling People That I'm Going To Israel

I've had this blog in mind for awhile but took a very long time to get started actually writing it. Summer vacation is here and now I have time. How appropriate then, that we decided to spend over a month this summer in Israel. 

At this point in my life, there are very few people (Jewish or not) with whom I interact outside of a Jewish context. The security guards at our school, for example, are wonderful, but I don't find myself worrying about what they are thinking of wondering if there is any way in which I need to be careful what I say. They have already shown they accept us. 

The one non-Jew with whom I have regular long interactions (and whom I don't know what he thinks of my identity) is my tai chi teacher. I see him once each week for a private lesson.  

I told him a few weeks ago that I'd need to take a break over the summer. I didn't intend to tell him more than that I would be away. People hear "Israel" and make judgment faces. Playing through possible scenarios in my head I even wondered if he'd stop working with me, that he would think himself morally obligated to cut me off because I support Israel. 

Paranoid? Maybe... but when I share this fear with other Jews they understand. 

"I'll be away until August," I told him.

"Going anywhere interesting?" he said.

("Don't tell don't tell don't tell," I told myself.) "Israel."

He made a face, but I didn't know what it meant. Was it a "that's a bad place" face? Or was it an "aren't you worried about a bomb dropping on you" face? I wasn't sure and my heart started to race a little. 

He looked away from my eyes and tiptoed verbally.

"Kind of volatile. Do you have family there?" he asked. 

"Lots of friends," I said, "and we are going to support them."

Funny how my words couldn't obey my brain to NOT tell where I was going, but they knew to steer towards the technique of resting in my own experience. No one can deny that I have friends in that place, that that place is a hard place to be, and that I am going to support them. 

So those were the words that came out.