Jews at 10

I am actually waiting for Jews at 10 to start, and am feeling only slightly ashamed for it :).
I have to say I sometimes find it surprising just how Jewish we are. I mean, obviously we are Israelis, and Jewish, and it's important to us, but usually when we think of ourselves it will be as Israelis, but not as Jews. You don't really think of the meaning of the Jewishism (I know it's not an actual word), and the difference between Jewish and other people. I was shocked at how many times I found myself nodding while watching the show, and how many times I said "wow. So that's a Jewish thing?". But Seriously, I had no idea that British people don't take Friday night dinner as a serious family meal. They go to the pub. And all those mummy issues. They are NOT only Jewish. Are they? and the constant critique of everything? Jewish? Really?
So yea, I have to admit I enjoy the show immensely, and am waiting for the last episode today about Jewish food.
One of the things I like the most is the fact that the show touches issues that for us as Jews who chose to live outside of Israel are important and relevant (even though, unlike many of the participants in the show, we are by no mean strict Jews, and the fact that we are somehow ended up organising a Halloween party tomorrow can attest to that).
The thing is, keeping a Jewish or an Israeli way of life and traditions outside of Israel is hard. It takes a lot of work, and some hard life choices that frankly we always said we won't make. I guess the thing is you have to move a bit more to the extreme in order to get what you take for granted in Israel. And as much as it was hard in Gibraltar, it just got harder with the move to London, mainly I think because of our decision not to live in a Jewish or Israeli community, together with the fact that the kids are getting older, the fact that the English and the British education system are becoming more prominent in our house, and the sad sad fact that local holidays (and no, not Christian, just local) are so much more... Well, fun.
When we moved to London our aim was to live somewhat in the north (as it is a known fact that the more Jewish areas in London are to the north), with an easy access to synagogues and Jewish facilities (like a Sunday school or shops) if we want, but without the suffocating feeling of living in an Israeli / Jewish community. What we ended up with is living somewhat up north, but by no means in a close proximity to Israeli / Jewish facilities. The fact of the matter is, in Ron's school he is the only Jewish child (I don't know about Yon's nursery. It's just that the head teacher told us about the school), and although I am quite sure we are not the only Jews in our neighbourhood, we have yet to hear Hebrew anywhere here. It's mostly fine with us, as it was after all our choice, but sometimes it's just weird. What is even weirder is that you get so used to the non-Hebrew state of things, that it takes your brain a minute to register the Hebrew when you hear it, and then you just can't tune it out like you can with the English. Last time we were in Israel it took us a few days to get used to it and stop listening in on everyone's conversations...
So we try to find our way to raise Jewish children in a non Jewish society. We are well aware that the kids will not be Israelis since they were so very young when we left, and I guess you are where you grow up, but we would like to keep the Jewish pride alive and well. To give them some sort of roots, of connection to their tradition, and maybe more than that - to us. This is our tradition, our history, our way of looking at the world. And we want them to have some of it.
But be that as it may, Judaism does not make it easy on you. Now I know I am an overprotective parent. Truly, I am aware of that. But I still don't like telling my kids about wars, death, Hitler, you know everyday life in Israel. And I know all the reasoning behind all the holidays, and I grew up like that and turned out fine (mostly), but even when I did live in Israel I found it a terrible decision. I am not ashamed to say I want my kids to stay kids. For as long as they can. To believe in good and in fairy tales for as long as they can. Before the reality of grown-ups destroys every shred of that belief. Combine that with the fact that I cannot, for the life of me, understand how I am supposed to say to a child that goes to school with so many kids from different countries - we hate all X nation because they tried to kill us, and we celebrate this holiday because Y nation didn't succeed in killing us, and so on and so forth. I don't really see it as a point of pride that most of our holidays are war related. That's why we try and soften the stories or make our own holiday explanations. It's nearly impossible in Passover but works fine with all other holidays with the kids. With the grown-ups we usually go for the (apparently very acceptable) explanation of "someone tried to kill the Jews. Didn't succeed, let's eat".
Because the food, the food is great. And I know I'm biased but it's true. The fact is, when we go to Israel we usually spend ALL of our time eating, when my parents visits us they bring food with them, and once a month we go to Golders Green to buy Israeli food.
The first time I went to Golders I was shocked. I was used to the two very small and not very well stocked shops in Gibraltar, I was not expecting to walk into a bizarre combination between an Israeli and a British street, filled with bakeries, religious Jews, Israelis, and supermarkets filled with Israeli food. I can't help it, my first reaction was checking that I know where the bus-stop is. That I have an escape route. I don't do that anymore, but that is just because I know where it is... Once you are inside Kosher Kingdom though, if you ignore all the Jewish pressure outside, it's like a heaven filled with all your favorite I-am-at-home food, at an almost reasonable prices. And we buy (that's why it's a once-a-month thing). How can you not? We missed the food so much when we were in Gibraltar (though I do have to say the Gibraltarian stores did improve over time), and though we did get used to the British food, there are things that just don't have a proper replacement. Like Hoummus. Or pitta bread. Or Cottage cheese. These things you can't even make at home. I mean of course you can, but the whole point is getting the authentic store-bought taste.
I have been to Golders four times by now, and even signed up for a loyalty card for Kosher Kingdom, but I still don't feel at home there. Truth be told, I don't feel particularly at home anywhere anymore, it is a price we pay for our way of life, the not belonging to anywhere or any place. I think that's why people live near others from the same place, keep or buy a house in the country they came from, and talk about going back all the time. We have none of those things. We don't have a house in Israel anymore, or plans to go back. We don't live in a Jewish or Israeli community. We don't even know if London (or the UK) is our last stop (probably not). Where does it leaves us? with trying to establish our own traditions. I think this is why it's so important to us that the kids will have some of our culture, so we try to merge our culture with theirs. That is why we insist on keeping the Friday night dinner (another great show by the way) tradition, including baking the Challa and lighting the candles, why we celebrate every holiday (okay, almost every holiday, but definitely more than we did when we were in Israel), and do it correctly (more or less), while adding the local holidays for the kids.
Identity is a weird thing, we don't even realise at first how much of it is related to where we come from, where we live. Somewhere along the way and the moves I guess we lost parts of ours, and as the kids grow up their identity is connected to a different culture, a different place. So we adjust, we try and build new parts, find new things to belong to, and fill the gaps that are developing between us and the kids.

I have no songs or words of wisdom with which to end this post. Every Israeli family we ever met outside of Israel struggled with these questions and difficulties. There are moments with the kids (different for everyone) that breaks your heart, that you feel like you are losing them to a different world. It was never a conscious price we chose to pay. But it is a price we pay anyway.