By Edwin Cooney
For over 50 years I've had a very, very, very special friend. I regard her as family more than as a mere friend!
On October 8th or 9th, her brother-in-law, his two daughters, one daughter’s husband and their four children came to visit them in New Jersey. Recently, they decided to go home and I, frankly, was quite surprised. After all, their home is an Israeli kibbutz near Jerusalem. They're a distance from the Gaza war zone, but there's still danger from Hezbollah in nearby Lebanon and eventually from Iran and even Syria. Hence, I asked my dear friend, "Why do they dare to go home?" Her response was as straightforward and practical as it could be. "They have jobs and it's important that the kids get back to school,” she said.
These are both practical and heartfelt reasons, consistent with their religious and cultural beliefs and connections. The head of the family was born here and could remain thus escaping the dangers in Israel, but he, too, traveled home and that's all there was to it!
Thus, the question: Could you or I go into a war zone even though a war zone is our home? Might we be willing to subject our families to uncertainty or perhaps endangerment?
You and I, since our childhood, have been taught to believe that we Americans live in "the land of the free and the home of the brave." Comparatively, doesn't 21st Century Israel require its citizens by its circumstances to be braver than we? Even more, are 21st Century Americans brave or are we just demanding?
Ironically, 21st Century Americans are sufficiently afraid of Central American immigrants who only want to come here to make a living. Due to politically criminal circumstances in their native countries they long for our individual freedom and safety. We could rethink and re-regulate our laws to accommodate these frightened people, but for both good and bad reasons we refuse to sympathize with their plight.
In summation then, here's what home is all about. To you and me, our home is a place with all its cultural imperfections that must be jealously protected from all that's immoral or nontraditional.
To the Central American immigrants seeking to escape the brutalities of drug lords, home has been transformed from a haven to a hell that rich, prosperous 21st Century Americans feel justified, for our own protection, to ignore.
As for both Israeli as well as Palestinian citizens who are willing to return to the uncertainties and dangers of an ongoing, imperfect saga which they personally didn't create but were born into, home is a dangerous and uncertain destiny worthy of the bravest of the brave!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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