I Was Uninvited To Israel

Oct 8th, 2023 I wanted to go, volunteer, help, be in solidarity with my people who were just brutally attacked, held hostage, executed… (The terrorists also slaughtered 60 family dogs. Yes, there are videos of everything.)

I didn’t go.

3 years later my cousin Stacie said to me, “You want to volunteer with me in Israel? It’s for people between the ages of 50 to 75. It’s subsidized. There’s just a small fee.”
She had me at “Israel”, I fit the age group, and with “subsidized” I was in.
She texted me the link, I filled out the application and submitted.

Some of the questions-- “Are you Jewish?... Is your husband Jewish?... Parents?… Grandparents?... Dog?” I checked all the boxes.

I overwrote the application like it was a college essay. I told them about my volunteering with Stand With Us, educating people on the facts about Israel, I’ve participated in several Israel rallies since October 7^th, I go to Torah study every Saturday, I bake Challah every Friday for my hubby even though I’m gluten free, I’ve even been called the K-word. I’m official. Please let me in, I am worthy!

Within a few days I received an acceptance letter. I clicked the link and paid the fee.

The next email to me had this subject line, “You’re Confirmed Spot—Destination Israel”

I didn’t judge the grammar, but I knew it meant I was approved.

They needed more info. I began the process and cringed at the health form.

My issue list is long, but you would never know by looking at me. I’ve been to doctors who glanced back and forth at my chart and my person and said, “You look fine.” Or, “I would have never guessed….”

Ie:
I have low blood pressure, but I don’t faint.
I have kidney disease, but I don’t have diabetes.
I have an auto immune disease of hypothyroidism but I’m thin.
My digestion was always a problem until I figured out which foods to avoid but my bowels are another story.

I listed my allergies and intolerances. But not all of them; I didn’t want the organizers to think I was high maintenance. So, I wrote-- no gluten, dairy, corn and soy. “No sugar” frightens people. If I turn down dessert at a dinner party, I get a horrified look as though I just ran over a family of turkeys that are always holding up traffic here. Turning down Babka in Israel might send me to a Jordanian clink.

My middle sister finally gave up asking me, “How do you look at a croissant and not want a bite?”

I explain to anyone who asks that all I have to do is think about the stomachache after, the gut punch position I’ll endure for the rest of the day and the inevitable extra trips to the bathroom. Thus, I have no desire.

My mom tells me to just take a Tums or a Nexium. I’ve tried. They don’t work. I’ve even tried NAET, a special acupuncture that’s supposed to rid the body of intolerances. After 8 weeks I was thrilled. A twenty-year-old plantar wart on my foot went away but I still couldn’t eat cheesecake.Aren’t you afraid to go to Israel?

This is the typical question any time I tell someone I want to return or when I went through a phase last year of wanting to move there.

“I am more afraid to wear my Jewish star around my neck in Somerville, Cambridge or Medfield Massachusetts than I am going to Israel.”

(Meanwhile, there are many many many more anti semitic towns—but I still wear my star. Some Jews have gone into hiding since Oct 7 but more have come out of the Levant closet.)

What scares me the most about going on a volunteer trip to Israel aren’t the constant rockets from Lebanon and Syria. Not the car rammings at a bus stop. Not a stabbing at a mall. Not even terrorists with machine guns. No. The thing that scares me most are my bowels. They have a mind of their own. They’re like royalty. They wake up leisurely and explode with demands. This is why I purposely make an appointment with a Doctor, haircut, etc. in the late morning. If it’s during rush-hour and I’m stuck in traffic that is exactly when my bowels wake up: Inevitably.

One of my fondest memories was this exact situation with my mother-in-law. We were in San Francisco stuck in traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge headed to Marin and Queen Lower Intestines did not like the breakfast I just ate. I pleaded with my mother-in-law to pull over the second we were off the bridge. I scanned for any restaurant that might have a toilet. Alas, we found one and she pulled over, and unlike Paris, where they don’t allow you to use their bathroom unless you’re a patron, the hostess took pity on me. She saw my ashen face, my twisted body and pointed me in the right direction. I probably tipped her $10 afterward and said thank you 100 times. Back in the car my mother-in-law asked, “Is everything all right?”

“Great now!”

I picture myself on a bus in Israel at eight in the morning on our way to work on a farm. Everyone singing Hebrew songs, clapping, and bam my lower intestines suddenly resent the falafel from the night before. I make my way up to the bus driver.

“Can we can pull over? Maybe there’s a pita stand?”

And the bus driver in broken English-- “What you see?? Desert. No pita. We eat later.”

“No,” I say. “I need a bathroom. Shairutim!” (The first word I learn when traveling to a foreign country is “toilet.”)

I point to my butt and pantomime going to the bathroom.

“Ah, shairuteem.”

“That’s what I said.”

The bus driver, the leader of the group and one of our security guards simultaneously say, “Ahhh.”

They know exactly what I’m going through. They are Ashkenazi Jews, they know about food intolerances, the “crappy” stomachs we’ve been dealt with in our DNA. But there’s no bathroom. All I can do is hold my own hand, hold in an urge and pray.

Two days after the acceptance letter

I notice a refund on my credit card from Destination Israel. No email. No reason. I write to them, “Why was I uninvited?” (Is it because of my bowels?)

Apparently, “You’re Confirmed Spot!” doesn’t mean I was accepted. I had to press some other link by the June 19^th deadline. I looked over the “confirmation” email 22 times and could not find this “other link.” Because of the time zones, our back-and-forth emails took five days. I still didn’t understand why this was their subject line and email, yet I wasn’t actually “confirmed.”

They said I could try again—Re-apply.

The application looked different this time. I called my cousin who added her bestie to the call, who was also going on the trip. In a heavy New Jersey accent, her bestie said Destination Israel is very disorganized. I was relieved I wasn’t the only one having problems with their process. I learned this volunteer trip for us oldsters is new this year. Destination Israel is linked to the established Taglit Birthright1 organization, so the three of us agreed this newish travel company is still getting their bearings. I also learned that cousin’s bestie lives with Queen Indigestion too!

With this new application I had to upload my passport.

Where’s my passport???

We just moved. In our rental and every home prior I kept my passport in the junk drawer in the kitchen because what burglar would look in a junk drawer for something valuable unless they really wanted dead batteries and keys to who knows where? It was always safe.

When we packed for this recent move, I threw everything from the junk drawer into a box except my passport. It went into my secure purse. Once we began to unpack, I cleared out my purse, figuring I wouldn’t need my passport… and now I can’t find it.

I can remember our phone number from 1977, but I can’t remember where I put my passport a month ago.

It’s not in the junk drawer or basket of bills or locked with my jewelry. Hubby Jeffrey even looked in Big Mary— a grand antique cabinet left by the former homeowner that needed a name.

Stay tuned. Will Carissa find her passport? Will she be confirmed/accepted/invited to Israel? Will her bowels behave?

P.S. After my mom relayed a similar lost passport experience then finding it after checking the same drawer for the fifth time I was inspired.

I found it! It was in our new junk drawer.

****I’ve never had to add rules here but these days the world is blaming everything from climate change to migrants to an ingrown toenail on Israel and the Jews! Please be nice in the comments or you will be uninvited.****

Here are links to a few fun facts— there is no genocide, no apartheid and no colonization.

I’ll also throw in this brilliant video of Joan Rivers from 12 years ago and nothing has changed.

Let’s have a nice chat…

1. 213-986-7768 What was your phone number?

2. Have you ever been uninvited somewhere?

3. Have you ever lost friends for weird, silly, pointless reasons?