I have always lived in London. Grew up near Baker street, went to school in Camden. Even when I went to College in Kent, I lived in Islington and a train to get to school. Five years ago, I moved to Belsize Park and lived here in this most pleasant place of all, where I happened to live. I didn’t plan to stay here forever, wanted to see the world, but my father died, and mother said that she wants me around. She said this with a tremor in her voice, and I left. London lives in my heart, it’s in my blood, but the wind has changed as Mary Poppins, and he probably will blow me away from this city and bring in tel Aviv.
About moving made me think it is not the result of the referendum, it was only a drop in the ocean. I no longer feel at home here. Maybe I spend too much time on Twitter, but what people say about Jews and Israel, causing me aback. They are so reliable feel, in their hatred, and, even worse, probably, for them it is.
Among the people who hold right-wing views in London, spread now of the opinion that Israel is to blame that he was responsible for all the Palestinian troubles, all the sorrows of the Middle East. If not Israel, they say, the world would be safer. If you are invited for dinner, you can hear the phrase, common in Germany in the 1930-ies. These people say that they hold “anti-Zionist” views, but to be anti-Zionist is to be anti — Semitic. It is impossible to be “anti” towards any country. Nobody doubts, for example, the right to exist of Iran.
I voted in the past for the labour party, but recently members of the party often say that Jews have large noses that they control the media or was behind the attack on the world trade center. Israel, they say, they are behind ISIS (banned in Russia as a terrorist organization). At mass rallies, people holding posters that say that Hitler was right. I quote these words verbatim. Many of the labour party is no surprise.
If only critics of Israel, the haters of the Jews knew what it meant to hear their hate, to live in London and hear that the Jews are the puppeteers of the world that in disaster areas Israel only helps in order to take people’s organs. My father knew what it was. He was serving in 1940-e years imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps because he was a Jew. His parents and sister were killed for the same reason.
The father would have felt the same eerie chill he could recognize where you may lead all this blame and hatred. If you think I’m exaggerating, then tell me where all this leads? Maybe it’s just the first nasty whisper from the idiots, but it does not stop.
I have been to tel Aviv four times in five years, and, in my opinion, it is the concentration of positive moods: hope, investing in our future, strength, patience and wit. So I think about moving.
Much of the city was designed by immigrants from Europe who studied at the Bauhaus in the 1930-ies. It was those architects who are lucky enough to leave Germany. Buildings, often with rounded balconies, rarely exceeds three or four floors. The streets pleasant to walk, in particular due to the fact that close to each other planted exotic trees, which throw cool shade.
For many years in the country there was a movement for planting trees. Remember, as a child I collected in tin cans detail on “Trees in Israel”. Is there a better symbol of the future prospects?
On Monday I had an interview at the immigration center in Israel. I still can’t get over the generosity towards people who intend to live in this country. Israel is as open to immigrants as Britain opposed them. They organize language courses, pay you tickets. There are benefits and privileges available to you in a few years. You give — I swear to you — new SIM card upon arrival at airport Ben Gurion, where you will have to wait for a taxi that will take you to your new home. There is even a national holiday in honor of immigrants.
All you need to do is fill out the papers to pay £ 50 to take pictures for the passport and to show proof that I am a Jew. Enough even membership in the synagogue, but I don’t have it. The rabbis did my own investigation: the names specified in my birth certificate, checked the names in the so-called ketubah (marriage certificate) of my parents. The Rabbi is a short letter, and proof ready. At the first interview, the immigration center Moran asked me if I profess Christianity. I do not profess. It turns out that it would be an insurmountable obstacle. Everything you need to get done in six weeks, if you are more prepared and organized than I am.
I started this process. I jumped into the water, the current carries me away from London to tel Aviv. This is for warm. I’m not going to resist.
