#2 Staring at the waves

I made an emergency Aliyah together with my mom in the spring of 2022. We had never been to Israel before and knew very little about our Jewish heritage. We got our papers, spun the globe of Israel, and chose a spot - it was Haifa. We rented an Airbnb downtown and started to explore and search for an apartment in our new hometown.

It’s easy to be mistaken with Haifa: we wandered between the big industrial port, the downtown under major reconstruction, and a charming place called the “Russian ghetto,” famous for criminal activity. My mom was terrified. “Where did you bring me?” she wept. I was also frustrated. So, we went to the Haifa Art Museum, as we would do in any new place.

Housed in a three-story old Arab building, each floor showcased the works of a Haifait(e) artist. On the second floor, we discovered an exhibition by Anna Lukashevsky, an exceptional Israeli artist. After spending some ten minutes among her realistic paintings, my mom remarked, Okay, I can live around that.”

In this series, Anna predominantly portrayed immigrants in all their diverse forms. Her gaze was very present but not diminishing to them. It prompted us to view things from a different angle, seeing people with their sad, silly, and tragic stories. Few of these paintings had the sea and the Bat Galim beach. We forgot about the sea behind the long port. Only the sea at the time seemed to make sense. My mom started going to the sea every time she felt wrong. Sometimes she would go in the morning to swim, come back home, and in the evening go again and just walk alongside. Sometimes I would join her to find out that the Bat Galim beach is a special place: in the sea, the famous Jewish matchmaking would take place; in the big communal changing room, all sorts of health issues would find solutions; in a cafe, there were plenty of unsolicited advice from strangers; and many more wonders. The lifeguards would monotonously repeat standard warnings in Hebrew and Arabic and then suddenly with a thick accent say: “Malchik, idi domoy” (“go home, boy” in Russian). The absurdity of these anecdotes reminded us to laugh and accept life as it is, contributing to the healing power of the sea.

We encountered stories of women who arrived in the country at different times - some Israeli born and raised, some who came in the 90s, and others as fresh as we were. These were tales of making peace with one's fate, embracing a new life, and growing to appreciate it.

January the 14th

442 words

I sketched the text on my phone as early as Monday. But then sat down to write it the last moment possible - 21.30 on Sunday; and watched 4 hours of youtube videos with Emily Blunt. Apparently she is funny.