Anatot

This is my second day in Anatot. Back for the first time since May of 1994, when I told all my friends that I was going with my family on a "vacation" back to America. I should have known that, being we were so broke, it was not going to be a vacation.

So yesterday, 16 years later, I have returned.

Out caravan is no longer there, but the cement blocks on which it once sat still remain. Like the ruins of an ancient Roman Temple. The neighboring caravan that Dad used to work in is still here. Vacant. Yossi joked that the offices would not allow anyone else to live in it, figuring it was cursed. People were apparently very sad we left. Perhaps it is becomes it reflects badly on them, that they did not do enough to help us, to make sure Israel welcomed back their prodigal children of the diaspora. Then again, there is too the fact that these people were quite fond of us. That they loved us, accepted us for who we were - people like themsleves and their parents who came to this land to build better lives.

I realized these last few days, after coming here and speaking with some of our old friends, that the latter was very much the case. We were not the only family to leave. Maybe not the first and certainly not the last, but we were one of the most memorable...