Ten years ago this week, in the hours following the conclusion of Passover, this New York City native, then 34 years old, boarded an El-Al flight to Israel on an Aliyah voyage pregnant with challenges, hopes and dreams.

I am not an Israel-basher. Quite the contrary.



Like many olim, I'm in the midst of "the cycle." The sheer exhilaration of arriving in Israel has given way to disillusionment, anger, disappointment and profound questions about what Israel is becoming, where we as a nation are heading, and how we, as olim, fit in.


Don't get me wrong. I am not an Israel-basher. Quite the contrary. I come from a proud Zionist home, and by nature I am filled with optimism and hope.


But being inundated almost daily with news of Israeli corruption, terrorist infiltrations, shocking domestic crimes and the prevailing sense that genuine Israeli leadership is nowhere to be found, I am....being tested.


I find myself often recalling one of America's best-known television commercials, the one featuring actor Iron Eyes Cody, who, portraying an Indian, sheds a tear at the sight of a littered American landscape.


With all the promise Israel once held, its social, political and security landscape, too, is hopelessly littered and neglected, mired in decay.


I also often think of the tragic collapse the Versailles wedding hall in Jerusalem in 2001. Twenty-three Israelis fell to their death and some 380 guests were injured when a large portion of the dance floor buckled. An investigation later blamed one of Israel's worst civil disasters on shoddy construction - and management's removal of a main supporting column a few weeks before the collapse.


For me, that disaster is a metaphor for present-day Israel.


In the seeming absence of coherent policy and policy-makers, and where problem-solving-by-patchwork is the prevailing form of governing, key pillars upon which our national and ethnic character and our security foundations are based are simply being removed.


Is it any wonder that Israel's standing, sense of security, and quality of life for many of its citizens has plunged, or that poor and desperate Israelis continue to drop precipitously through Israel's withering safety net?


Unlike Iron Eyes Cody, my tear ducts have run dry. But I feel compelled to do something. What is a profoundly

What is a profoundly tormented oleh to do?

tormented oleh to do?


On that emotional plane ride to Israel a decade ago, I remember clutching firmly my copy of Abraham Joshua Heschel's Israel: An Echo of Eternity. In its final pages, Heschel asks:


"What is the meaning of the State of Israel? It's sheer being is the message. The life in the land of Israel today is a rehearsal, a test, a challenge to all of us. Not living in the land, non-participation in the drama, is a source of embarrassment."


Each and every oleh participates in the drama; from working and paying taxes to army service, miluim, and raising families. Olim have also paid with their lives.


But with all that's going on in our busy lives, the drama playing out before us resembles more a tragedy-in-the-making. On the anniversary of my Aliyah, I ask myself, am I actively, meaningfully, fully participating in the drama?


Ten years later, the odyssey, the challenge, is even more daunting.