Rebecca Honig Friedman is Senior Writer of Jewess, a blog about Jewish women’s issues; a regular contributor to the Lilith blog; and a producer for The Jewish Channel. She loves blue-and-white frosted cupcakes with Israeli flag toothpicks stuck in the top.

When my husband and I decided to go to Prague and Israel after we got married in the summer of 2005, we had a romantic vacation in mind, not a honeymoon-heritage trip. As it turned out we got a little of both.

We’d heard Prague was beautiful, it was relatively affordable for Europe because the Czech Republic’s not on the Euro, and neither of us had been there before, so we could experience it together for the first time. My husband and I do both have Eastern European roots and thought it would be interesting to see that part of the world, but the Charles Bridge and Pilsner Urquell held more attraction than Holocaust remembrance.

Israel was an obvious choice. We’d both been before — David had lived there for two years while I had spent a five-week summer tour as a teenager — but neither of us had been back in years and never together, so we thought it would be nice to re-experience a place that was meaningful to both of us, together for the first time.

Prague was beautiful.

And hot.
“It’s never been this hot before, EVER,” the manager of the hotel told us, in broken English. (Did I mention neither of us speaks Czech?)

And crowded.
Just our luck, we chose the same week to be in Prague as some sort of international music festival and about a gazillion tour groups.

We arrived on Thursday. On Friday morning we went to the local Chabad to sign up for Shabbat meals.
“Sorry, we’re all full,” the rabbi told us, “there’s three Jewish tour groups in town.”
“All full? But you’re Chabad. You’re supposed to be welcoming to everyone.”
“Sorry, try the Jewish community center.”

So we tried the JCC. “Sorry, all full, there’s a bunch of Jewish tour groups in town.”

Lucky for us, Prague has one kosher restaurant where you can pre-buy meals for Shabbat — the most expensive schnitzel you’ll ever eat, but at least we had wine for kiddush, some challah, and we didn’t starve.

Before dinner we went to the city’s one still-operating synagogue for Kabbalat Shabbat. At least I think it was Kabbalat Shabbat. I couldn’t see or hear anything from the overcrowded side-room that served as a makeshift women’s section, where I sat with all the women from those tour groups, craning our heads to pick up something of the service through the open door.

Did I mention it was hot?

Did I mention the pork knuckles?
Every joint in town claimed to have the crispiest but I can’t vouch for anyone in particular. If you keep anything resembling kosher and don’t want to have every meal at the one vegan restaurant or the extremely expensive kosher restaurant, there’s not a heck of a lot to eat in Prague.

After much deliberating, we did go to Therezienstadt, which is now a small town where people live and work and play, around the buildings dedicated as a museum to the concentration camp that the town once was. The barracks, the train tracks, these were things we were expecting. But nothing was more depressing than the Memorial Cafe in the center of town.

“I dedicate these crispy pork knuckles to the memory of all the Jews who died here.”

We hopped on a bus back to Prague as soon as we could. And then we got off at the wrong stop, conveniently situated off the scope of our tourist map, and spent the rest of the day finding our way back to the map and exploring some of the more unsavory parts of town.

Don’t get me wrong, Prague wasn’t all bad at all: There was the early morning walk over the Charles Bridge (before the stampede of the crowds), an amazing production of Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni” in the theater where it had originally debuted in the 18th century; the delicious gelato place next to our hotel. And just walking around with each other.
But when our week was up, we were ready to move on.

And arriving in Israel, for the first time in years for us both, to a landscape that had changed more than we expected, felt more like coming home than I ever imagined it could.

Though I grew up going to a Zionist school and spent a very formative five weeks in the Holy Land as a teenager, I’d never considered making aliyah. The idea of Israel had always been important to me, but on an experiential level it felt very far away, a place to visit on a pilgrimage once every ten years or so, hallowed ground rather than home turf.

But now, after having been such a tourist in Prague (and not a very successful one at that), after feeling the extreme foreignness of the place that in fact had been home to my own ancestors for generations, coming to Israel with my husband who had lived there for two years and had considered making aliyah felt right, like a return. Israel fit.

We got off the plane and we actually understood what people were saying. (We do speak Hebrew.)

We stayed with family and friends who were actually happy to see us and made us feel welcome. “Make yourselves at home,” they said and gave us a key to the house so we could come and go as we pleased.

Sure it was hot. But it’s supposed to be. So we went to the beach!

Sure it was crowded, but it was crowded with people we knew!

And the food! We could eat it! Did I mention the kosher McDonald’s?
I don’t think I will ever eat a Big Mac again, kosher or not, but it was worth it as a once-in-a-lifetime celebration of being able to do so.
(Some food for thought, why are Israeli restaurants obsessed with sweet potatoes?)

On Friday night, for Kabbalat Shabbat, we went to Shira Hadasha, where not only was there an actual women’s section–the same size as the men’s section–and not only could I hear everything that was going on, but a woman actually led the service!
Surely the keepers of the old synagogue in Prague were rolling over in their graves, but I was on cloud nine.

For nine days, we wandered across the state of Israel as we pleased — on foot, train and bus — without a map or guidebook, without particular tourist destinations in mind, just wandering Jews experiencing the country without “EXPERIENCING” it, enjoying the freedom of being a bit homeless but not being tourists, just living, in our homeland, as we prepared to make a home together back in New York.

Because despite the threat of terrorism, the turmoil of the disengagement from Gaza that was soon to take place, and the unstable economy, we felt secure in a way we didn’t in Prague and in a way we wouldn’t had we been traveling around America, certain we’d always have somewhere to stay, something to eat, someone to talk to.

That is why I love Israel.