Reina V. Kutner is a freelance editor and author living in Lakewood, California, with her husband Ari. She blogs for beachhillel.com.

As long as in the heart, within,
A soul of a Jew is yearning,
And to the edges of the East, forward,
An eye gazes towards Zion,

Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free nation in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.
-Translation of Hatikvah

When Israel was formed 60 years ago, a great fire of hope was lit inside the souls of the Jewish people. Two thousand years of exile preceded that, including the Holocaust three years previous to that moment; each Jew was like a little candle, being snuffed out one by one. Each candle left merged together to become that fire after the birth of our homeland. And yet, we have had to learn to be careful, as fire can be incredibly destructive.

Israel is an inferno within my soul that cannot be quieted. It drives me to tears, drives me to the edge, and yet saves me from myself at the same time. Like Jacob on the mountaintop wrestling with the angel, I continue to wrestle with every single emotion that comes up with my Israel: love, hope, anger, sorrow, joy, peace, confusion, understanding, bitterness, freedom and even the notion of forgiveness and birthright. It challenges me constantly, tries to get me to extend beyond myself and beyond the circumstances I have faced.

I only spent ten days in Israel in what was supposed to be a six-week stay. During my stay, I fell in love with the glory of Israel despite the fact I only saw a peek of it. But like many Jews before me, I was forced into exile into the Diaspora. Like the conquerers of Israel before, someone tried to snuff out my soul by taking me away from the one place where I felt the most rooted.

However, I was guided toward Jerusalem, which I first saw glowing in the setting sun of a clear July day. When I approached the Western Wall for the first time, hours before I was supposed to leave, I began to cry. My body shook as the women swayed and prayed to G-d at this holiest site. When I touched the wall, kissed it, felt its smooth stone against my skin, I knew that this place would never leave my soul. In my most desperate hour, I was reborn and my soul turned to a powerful flame.

It has been nine years since I left Israel, filled with happiness and sorrow, new life and death. More complex emotions feed the fire to this day. Although it is confusing, hurtful and sometimes crazy, there is a beautiful thought that has lingered with me: despite all the horrible things that happen to us or how we grow and change, there is an Israel. There is a Holy Land, a place for the Jews. The flame would never die, and no matter how much it hurts sometimes, it never should. It keeps us alive.

I know I am meant to return. I dream of Sfat and the mystics dancing in the fields before Shabbat, of playing in the mud at the Dead Sea, and of being in the glorious presence of the Western Wall once more. Despite everything, I have hope. No matter what happens, that hope cannot be taken away from me, no matter who tries. Israel may be a half a world a way, but somehow I will find a way.

When I talk to people who are about to go to Israel, I see it in their eyes: that little spark, the fire that is beginning to burn and grow. There’s only one thing in the world that can do that to a Jew. In our everyday lives, we find that spark of love, a love greater than ourselves that has spanned the centuries. No matter how many Hitlers come into this earth or anything that comes our way, they can never extinguish the great fire. We will continuously sing of our Israel, our Jerusalem, of our beloved Zion. And we will never go into the darkness again.

Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater is the spiritual leader of Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center. He serves as National Secretary for Brit Tzedek V’shalom, Corresponding Secretary and Social Action co-chair of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California and on the board of Jewish World Watch. He loves playing percussion, doing yoga and visiting Israel. He says, “Yasher koach to Craig for another brilliant creation!” Visit www.pjtc.net for more.

I dream about peace, it’s kind of an obsession. I dream about what it’ll be like one day when Jews and Arabs finally stop all of the ridiculous wars and hatred and learn to accept one another as human beings. Sometimes that dream is a nightmare, an absolute darkness, like that of the 9th plague. It is heavy, dreary and listless, unable to move from the frozen tundra of past wars, past lies, past deceptions and hurt. But at other times, in moments of heavenly light and bliss, my dream is light as air, full of hope, tikvah, such that I find myself elevating to places that I never knew existed.

Jerusalem, 1995: The sun was setting toward Shabbat, the sky purple and gold, as only it can be in Israel. One of my favorites things about Israel is the sunsets! There is a feeling of wholeness, of possibility, as if whatever we dream of might come true. As I meditated on that sunset, with its colors illuminating my heart, I began to cry. I cried for the lost lives, the lost loved ones, the innocent children who have been taken from us in the name of murder for God’s sake. Of course, there is no such thing, and that made me cry harder. And yet, in that purple sky, there was hope, a strong aura of hope, that a day would come when children would again play, would again laugh, would again emerge into the world, but without the horror of being cut down. I cried and I prayed, yet it was not morbid or sad, but propitious, buoyant. This is the spirit that Israel gives me; this is the spirit that I believe Israel can give the world. We must wrest back the hope from those who believe that killing and hatred is the only way to make peace. We must wrest back the hope from those who shun the sunset for the blood red sky of rockets and mortar rounds. We must wrest back the hope from all those who say peace is not possible. The sky in Israel that evening was singing the words ‘Hatikvah,’ a hope that springs eternal for the possibility of peace. The hope of Isaiah, the hope that believes in a day unlike today. Lo yisah goy el goy cherev, nation shall threaten nation, v’lo yilmadu od milchama, and neither shall they fight wars any more. I will never forget that night, that sky, that hope. It is what keeps me going, day after day, in our quest for peace.

Sometimes peace is a murmur, humming just underneath the surface. It is whispered, in a hushed and fragile voice, unable to get the attention of the masses. It is droned out by the drums of war, the call to vengeance, the slicing of hatred. And yet, there have been moments when it was a roar, bringing us close to the edge of success, only to drop us into the abyss of fear, leaving us to once again to climb the mountain, searching for that sacred top of shalom. And we must never stop. Ohev shalom v’rodef shalom — we are called upon to love and pursue peace. It is a joint effort, a team effort of ohev and rodef. We must love and pursue — one or the other will not suffice. Only through loving pursuit, seeking out the other with love in our hearts, will the shalom we crave come to pass. Others may not love us, but we must pursue with love. That was Aaron the Cohen’s message. Between murmur and roar, between faintness and overload, we return to the search, hoping to find a balance that will see us through to the final moment, the realization of what we so long for, pray for, dream about and believe to be our destiny. I love Israel, in large part, because of heroes like Amos Oz, David Broza, Yitzhak Rabin, David Grossman, Yael Dayan, and the voices of peace and hope. I love Israel for the courageous men and women, my brothers and sisters, who live in Israel, defend Israel and are the main players in the Jewish state. I love Israel because of the Torah, God and history of my people. I love Israel for Shabbat, chaggim and the rhythm of living on Jewish time. I love Israel for peace. I love Israel because of the sunsets.

The 60 Bloggers project is co-production of Jewlicious.com and the Let My People Sing Festival. It is published daily for 60 days to celebrate Israel’s 60 birthday.

Aaron Small blogs for Jewlicious as well as on his personal blog, Life in Samsonite. A veteran of the Jewish communal world, he inexplicably just can’t stay away from the Jews.

Israel. Land of bizarre advertisements and taglines, over stylized jeans my metrosexual cousin won’t even wear, cosmopolitan aliveness of Tel-Aviv, and center of a global conflict. For all the nice things I could say, let me start off with the bad - if we’re lucky, we’ll end up at some happy point where you’ll consider making aliyah.

Ha. Just kidding. I’d never put you in such an awkward position. (Unless you were my girlfriend)

My first few weeks in Israel were nothing short of euphoric: gelato, cafe beaches, the shuk, chocolate and pistachio halva, girls and the already-discovered-yet-still-profound realization that they were ALL Jewish (even the hot ones) and if I believed in the tenets of polygamy -hell, there’s only one I’m talking about- I’d be in heaven right now, the living breathing polluted space that is Tel-Aviv…Eventually though, the euphoria wears off, the masks are removed, and I started to see the other side of Israel, the side the outreach agencies fail to tell you about. And I was filled with questions.

When you’re in a club, why do Israelis feel it necessary to bump you with your shoulders, knocking your drink out of your hand, then looking at you like you got in their way? You see that I’m standing in line, waiting to pay for my Prigat juice. Do you really think you can sneak by me and pay first? We’re ALL getting on this bus! Okay Haredi: your pushing, isn’t helping now, is it? And of course: the Dizengoff bus over there, coming up now. Think it’s gonna blow up today?

When my family told me that living in Israel is hard, like an idiot I brushed all warning aside. And then one day, all the madness clicked. It is a struggle to live here. The pushing, the shoving, the competition, the fights over shekels, the adoni! can’t you see I need to move this refrigerator at 1 in the afternoon there is no other time this is why I need to block the entire street - I didn’t see the point in staying. For anyone. I went to the desert right as I hit my breaking point, and had a lovely time gardening, building with mud, playing with ideas of permaculture and sustainability, becoming a soldier in the eco-movement. I miss that place tons: the slowness, the quiet, the tranquility, the overall SIMPLICITY of everything. (If you want to read about it, check out life in samsonite and search the earth tag)

But after all the madness, there is still a yearning for that place, the bumping breathing space that is Israel. Israel truly is alive, and not like NY alive or LA alive or Amsterdam alive. It’s a breed entirely of its own, the fusion of Japanese restaurants, hippie festival goers, Carlebach evangelists, Thailand date pickers, nerve wracked taxi drivers, and teenage war heroes. If you find anything that comes close to that, send me the coordinates and I’m buying the ticket.

Till then, I can only say that Israel is Israel, and I love it.

The 60 Bloggers project is co-production of Jewlicious.com and the Let My People Sing Festival. It is published daily for 60 days to celebrate Israel’s 60 birthday.

Ariel Beery is a co-director of the PresenTense Group, and editor and publisher of PresenTense Magazine. He blogs at blogsofzion.com

And so it was that a month from yesterday a fight with my mother had broken out. My mother had insisted that I do something around the house, and I had requested for a break - for the opportunity to take a little time for myself. Interests clashed, truths were in conflict, and everyone went away dissatisfied. We yelled, we threatened, we criticized and we sulked. We even stayed away from each other for some time - I the son fulfilling her request yet demanding an apology; she the mother content that I had honored her wish but angry at my choice of words. And yet there was not a minute in which our love for one another faltered — even at the hottest moments of the fight, I would risk my life without a moments’ hesitation for her safety, as she would for me. That is love.

Accordingly, some Biblical scholars note that the Hebrew word for love — Ahava — did not have the romantic connotations that cling to the modern use of the term. Ahava — as in, v’Ahavta et YHVH Eloekha — was a word for loyalty, for obligation, for the feeling that one feels towards one’s father and mother and not towards one’s, ehm, “lover.”

Defining love as a feeling of obligation has a deep wisdom in it, one that recognizes the truths about life; which of us has not been angry at, disgusted by, or felt frustrated during an interaction with someone we truly loved? Only those deepest relationships with the strongest sense of obligation survive — and thereby enable us to live to our fullest potential; healthy families who know how to have healthy fights produce healthy individuals, ones who know that it is okay sometimes to fall, okay to stumble, okay to hurt and be hurt and make up and start again.

My fear is that our consumer-driven society has forgotten this wisdom, has been so very consumed by the notion of the romantic crush, self-gratifying cloud-nine love that we’ve forgotten that love means sticking by during the bad as much as the good, accepting the sting along with the honey. As such, our families are becoming ever-more fractured as children grow up in divorced family structures; our communities seek purity in action above all, seeking loyalty to the rest of People as long as everything is on our own terms; and our politics are mired by the yearning for the Knight in Shining Armor who will “change” instead of those who have experienced the Public’s highs and lows. This focus on the immediate and the pure leads to shallow relationships, shallow communities and shallow politics.

(more…)

Monica Rozenfeld is a first-generation Russian Jew who only recently fell in love with Israel and everything Jewish. Now she’s kind of obsessed and interviews people about their Jewish journeys on her blog, www.myjewspot.blogspot.com.

Last summer was my first time at the Kotel where the rumor was it goes one of two ways — You either cry your eyes out as you touch the stones of G-d, or, even more humiliating, you feel nothing at all. Your expectations are so high that you just get there and feel nothing.

My experience was a little different. It was nighttime when we arrived. I was on an organized trip and our incredible tour guide Tehila told those of us who have never been to close our eyes and hold hands until we are facing the wall. She played for us a recording of the 1967 war with bombs going off so loudly and the sounds of shouting from the soldiers – a passionate display that what I’m about to see is truly worth fighting for. And as we open our eyes, these stones, dimly lit brought chills down our spines. I was in awe.

Now I’m not sure why I, a girl who grew up unaffiliated without any feelings towards Israel, would be so lucky to walk right in and experience the Kotel firsthand when generations before me could not. But there was a reason I was there; a reason I was able to. And the reason I fell in love with Israel is because it made me stop and ask the deeper questions. Why are we here? What are we expected to do about it?

I went back to the Kotel four times that week. Each time with a new experience. On that Friday traveling to see it once more, my cab driver invited me over for shabbat dinner (to meet his son just out of the army, of course). And although I had to kindly reject his offer, it is still so beautiful the thought that there is a place in this world where I can trust a cab driver to take me to his home and gift me with a shabbat meal.

Israel offers a greater beauty, a greater meaning, than anything I’ve experienced outside of myself at home. Every time I forget what I’m doing, or why I’m not happy in this moment, I think of this one man I met in Sfat who owns this humble little pita shop. He invited us in to rest on his hookah lounge seating and shared with us his life story of when he was a London businessman, with money and women and the resources to travel the world. But, he said, I was never as happy as when I was in Israel. And so that’s where he stayed, physically and spiritually.

And although I can’t be there physically, I am always there spiritually. When looking for meaning, or direction, or making decisions right or wrong, I look to Israel and I trust that everything is beshert, meant to be.

The 60 Bloggers project is co-production of Jewlicious.com and the Let My People Sing Festival. It is published daily for 60 days to celebrate Israel’s 60 birthday.

Brian Judd is a recent convert to Judaism and is active in the Seattle Jewish community. He blogs with his unique perspective at almostkosher.blogspot.com and www.jew-ish.com.

Upon returning from my recent trip to Israel, the most common question asked of me was, “What was your favorite place you visited?” It appears the most typical answer to give is Jerusalem. While I loved the belly button of the universe, I found it a great struggle to exist in that intense space. I wasn’t prepared for its intensity and it completely threw me off. It wasn’t a particularly enjoyable experience, in the sense of pleasure.

Instead, the most pleasurable point on the trip was our visit to Sfat, the birthplace of Jewish mysticism. From the moment I got off the bus, I knew I was in a special place, unique from the rest. The hidden pathways through the town were amazing and the stories of a synagogue appearing after men fasted and prayed for three days and nights were inspiring. Imagine the hope and optimism a person feels if they truly believe a beautiful synagogue can appear from praying and fasting. Amazing, if you ask me…

Sfat was hit hard during the 2006 Lebanon war. The citizens have rallied, however, and are continuing to rebuild their community, putting the pieces together one day at a time.

The air is different in Sfat, as it is one of the highest points in Israel. A mystical presence fills the air there, and it changed a part of me that I cannot yet explain. I was also fortunate to find a beautiful tallis from a shop there, that I will wear for the first time at my Bar Mitzvah in June.

The 60 Bloggers project is co-production of Jewlicious.com and the Let My People Sing Festival. It is published daily for 60 days to celebrate Israel’s 60 birthday.

In honor of Israel’s 60th anniversary, Rabbi Yonah of the Blogshul and Jewlicious Festival fame was inspired (in part by Craig Taubman’s 60 hours of music for Israel) to create a blog (60bloggers.com) where 60 different Jewish bloggers would contribute a post that demonstrated the things about Israel that we love. For my contribution, I chose to share with everyone a love-poem that I wrote to Israel when I was taking the highly-controversial Poetry for the People class at UC Berkeley under the late poetess June Jordan. It was my first direct confrontation with anti-Zionism from the graduate-student instructors and Jordan herself that lead me on the path to become the pro-Israel activist that I was for the better part of my college years. But I digress. With no further adieu, here it is:

---

Secret Admirer

Haifa

Sapphire sparkling blue water polishing me

Tel Aviv

My old and new spring of buildings and ocean

Ha Negev

Wistful dry wind sanding my eyes

I love you.

Your cool green water pours me out

My eyes tear when I remember you

Eretz Israel, love me as your own son.

I know you.

You’ve met me before.

In salty-dry craters of rocky hills

Misty forests bursting with green

Sun-swallowed mazes of tents and bazaars…

I know that you have no reason to love me.

I never write

I never call

Not born beneath your Asiatic stars

Not born from dust in a land

Where holy men still kiss the ground

Jerusalem–

Years pass since last we met but

I don’t know how many more years will pass but

I don’t know what language to ask it in but

Love me.

Tomer Altman © 2000-2008

“Lo Que Debemos Que Decir”

Poetry For The People

Spring 2000

Cross-posted to Oy Bay!.

The 60 Bloggers project is co-production of Jewlicious.com and the Let My People Sing Festival. It is published daily for 60 days to celebrate Israel’s 60 birthday.

Esther D. Kustanowitz writes MyUrbanKvetch and JDatersAnonymous, among other things. She is also a contributor for Jewlicious and PresenTense Magazine, where she serves as senior editor. She lives in New York, visits California, and is spending most of the summer in Israel: attending the President’s Conference, staffing the ROI Summit for Jewish Innovators, and working on her book. More is always available at EstherK.com.

Writing about Israel and why I love it isn’t something new for me. Frankly, I’m tempted to just leave you with a list of links to my other blog posts on the subject until something really fresh or insightful comes to my mind. But Israel deserves better than that. (Plus, today is my assigned day–erev Shabbat Hagadol–so I can’t pass that up.)

I love all the regular stuff, sure: that Jerusalem attracts crazy hordes of tourists of all religious and political persuasions from all over the world; that Tel Aviv’s a center of industry and hi-tech, and that medical breakthroughs happen every day in such a small country; that Jews everywhere have a place to go; that history is integrated into every waking moment of awareness for those who live there; that street signs and neighborhoods tell a story for those who are inclined to listen.

But one of the central reasons I love Israel is because of the sheer existence of Hebrew and my ability to sometimes understand it. Because language is a central fascination in my life in general, and because Hebrew was always a value and an aspect to my education when I was younger, the fact that there’s a whole country that speaks this language that consists of modern extrapolations from Biblical words has always just amazed and delighted me. I love poring over Hebrew menus in restaurants and reading pop culture articles in Ma’ariv on the weekends, inevitably getting stuck on words that turn out to be English. In retrospect, even the non-comedic doctor’s visit contains elements of comedy related to language and comprehension. And I love the references to Tanakh that pop up in decidedly secular pop culture contexts. Bible, language, history–it’s all part of the cultural awareness and composite here, no matter where you go (or don’t go) to shul. And, admittedly, I love being enough of an “insider” that I hear ancient echoes in every word of Hebrew spoken.

I love the way Israel absorbs American culture, but changing it slightly: witness the proliferation of Israeli bands covering Britney’s “Toxic,” or the American-born hip-hop taking on a distinctly Israeli flavor. I love that the Aleph-Bet can be turned into a rap song, inspiring Israeli children to believe they’re hip-hop stars. And I love the way Israeli hip-hop, relentlessly contemporary in its very pulse, acknowledges and converges with the past (check out Subliminal’s collaboration with Gevatron, or Hadag Nachash’s animated take on Zionism).

I love Israel for its ability to inspire locally and from afar, whether it’s community support and outreach disguised as comic relief or publications and creative innovations that express the emergence of a new generation. I love that people I know are involved in changing the face of Israel inside its borders and (see eCamp Israel and Israel2020 as two examples) and abroad. I love that a new generation, gifted with Israel by mysterious benefactors whose identities they often don’t even seek out, is passing the enthusiasm to their parents’ generation, and generating new interest in Israel as a way to strengthen Jewish identity and family bonds. (On a related note, you can vote for finalists in the “Let My Parents Go” contest here.)

“Israel is real,” as the tourism campaign once announced. But Israel is also surreal. It’s the kind of place where you could go to a coffee shop in Jerusalem and see more Upper West Siders than in New York. You might find out that a new friend of yours knows your cousin. Your friends might even end up as graffiti, and you’re not sure how to feel about that, except like you’re part of a group of people that is making an impact. This is the place where all those moments of Jewiness past come back to haunt you, mostly for better, but occasionally for worse.

I love Israel when I’m there, with friends and family, as I will be — in droves — this summer to celebrate Israel’s 60th with an extended stay. I look to Israel for inspiration, hoping that my time there will enable me to close an important chapter of my life by writing many new chapters, both literally and figuratively. And I even love the fact that after I come home, I’ll think about being there and write additional pages in my denial diary.

When I speak Hebrew, I feel Israel on my lips and tongue, which–since clearly not yet cleaving to my palate–seems to be some sort of proof that I am still elevating Jerusalem to the top of my joy. When I take meandering journeys through YouTube, stopping for entertainment by the TACT Family, the Israeli sketch comedy troupe “Ktzarim,” or classics like Kaveret’s “Sippurei Poogy,” I feel Israel in my ears and in whatever place the collective unconscious of my culture resonates most. As a great-great-granddaughter of a founder of the town of Petach Tikvah–who made aliyah by walking from his native Hungary to Jerusalem–I think about my past 12 trips to Israel and my upcoming 13th, and feel my connection in my blood.

When I’m there, I’m aware that this is an Israel my ancestors never dreamed of. And I feel so lucky to be a part of it.

The 60 Bloggers project is co-production of Jewlicious.com and the Let My People Sing Festival. It is published daily for 60 days to celebrate Israel’s 60 birthday.

Harry Rubenstein is Publisher and Editor of Jerusalemite.net: The Jerusalem Culture guide and longtime author of The View From Here, a widely-read website notable for being one of the first English-language Israeli blogs. He also had a podcast with his wife Ziva. But they stopped that a few years ago after receiving some weird emails that freaked them out. He made aliyah in 1997 and has never looked back.

It turns out that Israel takes on different appearances depending on whose eyes it’s viewed through. An early twenty-something steps off the plane and sees through wide eyes a sun-kissed land filled to brimming with young olive skinned honeys filling out olive-toned uniforms in all the right places, deliciously greasy buckets of shwarma meat seductively rotating on their spits, glistening bottles of Goldstar and milky glasses of arak, and idyllic kibbutzim whose apparent main agricultural product isn’t exactly found in the SuperSol, all set to the exotic high-velocity throat music of modern Hebrew. A thirty-something longtime resident of Israel sees exactly the same thing, except it’s through the windshield of a somewhat sensible sedan as he drives his toddler to daycare. It’s all about perspective, and to understand how one perspective slowly but surely evolves into another, you have to understand how one falls in love in Israel and stays there.

• 1974. Was born.

• 1982. The son of my chazzan (cantor) visited my synagogue while on leave from the IDF. I was somewhat in awe.

• 1984. When I was ten a friend returned from a summer trip to Israel. I recall asking if there were any amusement parks there. She asked her father, and he said there was one called “Ferris Wheel” in Rishon Leztion. Israel had suddenly become an appealing place for me to visit. I enjoyed Dollywood, so I figured I’d enjoy Israel too.

• 1986. Mrs. Osmon, my Israeli Hebrew teacher at Hebrew school, had it in for me and became one of my childhood enemies. She did not endear me to Israel.

• 1987. Two Israeli students visited my Hebrew school and brought with them a cassette tape of Israeli rap. I ran like DMC.

• 1986 - 1990. Through my involvement in USY, my connection to and knowledge of Israel grew. Fought incessantly with leftist teachers at my high school about Israel. Digested every book possible about Israel to use as ammunition, Exodus included. Saw movie. Had crush on Karen Hansen Clement. Worried about Israel and was glued to CNN during the Gulf War. The chazzan from my synagogue went to volunteer. Was in awe.

• 1991. Visited for the first time as a participant on USY Poland Seminar/Israel Pilgrimage. Holocaust bad. Israel good. Refused to wear sandals. Drank a lot of Kinley. Was in awe of the IDF.

• 1994. Ms. Carmel, my Israeli Hebrew teacher in college, had it in for me and became one of my adulthood enemies.

• 1994 - 1997. Became heavily involved in pro-Israel activism on the campus of SUNY Albany. Many debates with Anti-Zionists and Israel-haters. By the time I left they were still Anti-Zionists and Israel-haters. Started to hate myself. Was in awe of all of friends who made aliyah and served in the IDF. Decided that I too want to serve in the IDF.

• 1997 -1998. Made Aliyah. Got drunk a lot. Ate kubbe soup for the first time. Rejoiced. Enjoyed hummus as a meal. Naomi, my Hebrew teacher at ulpan, did not have it in for me. Left ulpan early to be drafted into the IDF. Served in the Armored Corps. Learned to love, then hate and finally respect tanks. Got dirty. Wasn’t as a good shot as I thought I was. Spent Israel’s 50th anniversary on guard duty. Thought that was cool. Lost 30 pounds. Began a life long relationship with baby wipes. Gained perspective. Listened to Berry. Met my future wife.

• 1999 - 2007. Bourekas, majadra, meorav yerushalmi. Cremshnitz, za’atar, Golan apples. Lahmajun, sabich, samboosak. Hummus. Worked at a myriad of start-ups. All failed. Not my fault. Got married. Strong relationship. Worked in print journalism and then ISRAEL21c. Learned that Israel is hi-tech and cures diseases. Started business. Business succeeds. Had baby. Was in awe. Baby succeeds. Named her Tzofia after my favorite line of Hatikvah. Am in awe.

• 2008. Hate the politicians. Left and Right. Secular and Religious. Frustrated with the leadership. Demand change. Understand why they don’t but wishing our greatest minds would run this country. Love my family. Love my friends. Love my country. Want to help fix it. Hummus still delicious.

The 60 Bloggers project is co-production of Jewlicious.com and the Let My People Sing Festival. It is published daily for 60 days to celebrate Israel’s 60 birthday.

Shadai is the publisher and editor of Judapest.org, an online and offline community in Budapest aiming to uncover the relevant, the stimulating and the cool in the “Hungarian Jewish Experience”.

Hungarian Jews and Zionism: now that’s an explosive bunch! You see, we’ve been on the cutting edge of both fierce Zionism and vehement Anti-Zionism at a time. Two of the most important visionaries of Modern Zionism were actually Hungarian Jews: Theodor Herzl (né: Herzl Tivadar on the square in Pest where now the mighty Dohany Synagogue stands) and Max Nordau (né: Südfeld Simon Miksa), the Man Who Should’ve Won the Mustache Contest. Nordau and Herzl together founded the World Zionist Organization in 1897 and had a vision to establish not just a new-old homeland but also a New Culture for the Jews. On the other front, some other Hungarian Jews had also left a memorable imprint: Neturé Karta, the most notorious Anti-Zionist splinter-haredi group also have all their roots in Hungary. Their “forefather”, Chájim Joszéf ben Ávráhám Sonnenfeld was born in a small stetl in the year of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848.

So what came out of this mixed heritage for us, Hungarian Jews living in the 21st Century in a united and free Europe? And what do we have to say about Israel, Zionism and post-Zionism today? Well, our “radical” heritage has mostly mellowed out and today many Hungarian Jews probably share my perspective about “Israel at 60” which I should sum up in three points:

1. Most Jews living in Hungary (and I guess this goes for most Diaspora Jews) no longer feel that they are the lone sentinels working on behalf of a lonely and fragile Israel. We perceive Israel to be indeed strong: she is widely recognized, independent and economically very potent with a technological edge that places it in the club of countries that really count. Some conflicts and disagreements aside Israel is actually entering into ever greater partnership with the EU, which itself is a major stakeholder in the future of a successful Israel - in a successful region. Since the fall of Communism, Eastern Europe is also in active partnership with Israel - and not just in diplomatic arena (but also economic, cultural etc.)

2. Not only Israel but we have also become a lot stronger - after “60 years”: we don’t really need any paternalistic nurturing from Israel (or the US for that matter) any more. In many ways, Jewish culture in Europe is flourishing: we have not only successfully revived and reconstructed much of our heritage but we’re also becoming increasingly a future-oriented community. We have succeeded in transgressing our role of being the “guardians” of a static and finalized pre-WWII heritage. We have moved beyond the status of being the museum keepers of world Jewry. In gradual ways, many of us are able to create a relevant and forward looking Jewish culture that thrives on diversity and pluralism.

3. So I guess both of us - Israel and the European Diaspora - have grown up, in many ways. Therefore, our objective should be to create new “synergies” (even if it is such an overused buzzword) between Israel and the Diaspora. After all, many of the most wonderful and most lasting things happened to the Jewish people in the “Diaspora Experience”: the giving of the Covenant and the lasting miracle of Sinai, the Talmud and the culture of an ongoing dialogue, Rashi and Maimonides, Hassidism and Reform, Woody Allen and the Hebrew Hammer, and yes, even “Zionism”, this idealistic construction of faith, humanism and human will. It happened in the Diaspora.

So I believe that Israel can be at its best if it is in fruitful dialogue with the Diaspora: with a constant exchange of ideals, new concepts and most important, an ongoing dialogue on how being Jewish can be relevant and enriching to our lives.

Happy Birthday Israel: we’re really proud to see you at this age and looking forward to the next six decades! See you soon!

The 60 Bloggers project is co-production of Jewlicious.com and the Let My People Sing Festival. It is published daily for 60 days to celebrate Israel’s 60 birthday.