Hello from America !

I know I haven’t posted in a while, and I’m kinda truly sorry about that.  But I’m on my first visit to America since making Aliyah from here in March, and I’m using every minute to see people and buy shit, and I just haven’t had the time or energy for it.  But I am definitely getting loads of great material for G-Fish, and I think you will love the posts that eventually result from the experiences I’m having now.

Peeps I’m seeing over here are always asking me So, how is it over there? and Do you think you’ll stay there forever? and Why did you move there?  This post is about my answer to that third question.

I was explaining to someone my decision behind making Aliyah for probably the thousandth time, and an analogy spontaneously came to me, so I went with it:  You know how it can be really uncomfortable trying to save too many seats for your friends on opening night of a really hot movie, when the theater is packed?  Four friends are off getting popcorn, or still en route to the theater, or peeing, and you’re stuck all alone defending these four seats with only sets of keys or matchbooks on them, saving them for your friends.  Every five seconds, another person enters your row and tries to sit there, and you have to say No, I’m sorry – these are saved.  And it keeps getting harder and harder to do the closer it gets to showtime and the more filled up the theater gets.  Maybe saving one seat wouldn’t be so hard.  Or maybe if you had 2 or 3 people with you helping to save them, it would also be a lot easier.  But one person saving four empty seats on opening night, Friday 8pm show of like “Lord of the Rings” – it’s practically impossible.

This is why I made Aliyah.

There are approximately 5.4 million Jews living in Israel, out of a population of around 7.1 million.  The rest of Israel’s citizens are Arabs, and though it’s hard to find consensus on the specifics, it is believed they have a higher birthrate than Israel’s Jews do.  An op-ed by Benny Morris I read in the New York Times, Why Israel Feels Threatened, says that if the discrepancy in Jewish vs. Arab Israelis’ birthrates persists, Israel could no longer be a majority Jewish state by 2050.

So that’s what I’m doing in Israel, quite frankly.  I moved there to fill up another seat and to help save the country seats so that Israel remains a Jewish state.  The worlds 8.5 million (approx) diaspora Jews can’t remain far away just expecting Israel’s Jews to keep Israel a Jewish state for them.

Yo! World’s Jews:

If you want Israel to remain your homeland, ya gotta be there.  ‘Cause if you’re not, or unless at least some of you move here, it’s gonna be harder to for those of us that are here to “save all the seats” and keep it a Jewish state.

Dig?  Just sayin’.