What is home? Does the place where you are born and raised automatically become your home? Are you born into a home or do you make one? When you hear the word “home,” what comes first to your mind, the people or the place? There is no right or wrong answer.

My parents were born and raised in Ukraine, but they never felt at home. Ever since they met at the age of 16 (imagine yourself living with one person for that long) they dreamed of Israel. The land that they were walking on was foreign for them, the streets they were crossing never invited them to stay.
So they built their “home” with people who shared the same dream of home. They listened quietly to the Israeli radio station, and read books about Israel before hand-copying them and passing them between their Jewish friends. It was unsafe to be a Jew and Zionist in Ukraine in those days, but this was what made my mom and dad feel at “home.”

Many years passed and yet my parents still dreamed of “home.” And, even though my grandparents resisted the urge to make Aliyah and live in Israel, my parents never gave up. September 28, 1990 was an extremely hot day, my parents and I didn't speak any Hebrew, we didn't know anyone and didn't even have our luggage, or even a place to stay. But, we felt at home.

Our first year in Israel was very difficult for my parents; known as great musicians in FSU (Former Soviet Union) they became nobodies in Israel. And still, nothing changed their minds. They loved the country they found themselves in even more than they had loved the imaginary place those many years ago. Ima and Aba always told everyone that I was born at the wrong place, that I was a natural Israeli, who grew up in a small town in the northern part of central Israel. Everyone knew each other and each other's business. I was the only Olah (immigrant) in class, and while everyone knew, they never let me feel different.

I had only Israeli friends and Hebrew quickly became my primary language instead of Russian. Being accepted put the ingredients of “home” into one big mixture: the people, the place, the language, the culture, the food, the smell of dew at the beginning of every hot summer day, all made me feel at home. After years of running barefoot on the grass at my school, it was time to put on the uniform and go into the army. There was no prouder person in the world than me, but I never expected that the meaning of “home” would change as a result of my service.

When we’d just arrived in Israel, my dad immediately went to volunteer in the IDF, but was rejected as “too old.” So when I joined the army, I wasn’t just doing it for myself. I was doing it for my Aba, as well. I spent the first year of my army service teaching Hebrew to soldiers who were Olim Chadashim (new immigrants) in Israel. My army base was 40 minutes away from Eilat, the southernmost city in Israel, and it took me 7 hours by public transportation to get there from my house, and in those 7 hours I transformed from daddy's little girl who played the clarinet, to teaching soldiers who were “playing" with tanks.

All of a sudden, the dessert and the tanks became the most romantic things in the world for me. At that point in my life the meaning of home changed for me once more. Home was now the sand that covered my country. Home was the steel wheels that rode on that sand and protected my parents and friends, back home. Those wheels were also a nightmare for so many of the parents whose children were ridding those tanks at night. But that was home for me.

Unlike the average Israeli, I went from the army directly to the university and eventually became a Hebrew literature teacher. In my eyes, both the kids I was teaching, as well as their families, were the face of my country, and since my country was my home, those kids were my home as well. I dealt with a lot of criticism but ultimately, this was my family.

Today I am a Shlicha, a young emissary for the State of Israel in NJ. I am far away from the grass I sat on in high-school. I am far away from the tanks I used to watch, and I'm far away from my family, friends, and everything I knew before. I don't speak Hebrew every day and sometimes I even dream in English. And yet, I feel at home. In a way, I feel like my parents did when they were young – Israel is everywhere in my classrooms, in my kitchen, in my dreams, in my hopes, and especially, in my community. So I ask again, what do you call home?

By Natasha Gluzman