I have been meditating recently on the word homeland, envisioning how contemporary Israel can authentically merit that title. To become a Jewish homeland as opposed to just a Jewish state, I believe Israel must find a way to embody the life-affirming tradition at the heart of Judaism. To me this begins with the core biblical imperative to honor the stranger, and in today’s world that means honoring Palestinian as well as Jewish aspiration, welcoming the very one who stirs deep fear and alienation. Tikkun has wisely expressed that healing transpires when “both sides can tell the other side’s story with compassion and conviction.” Whatever potentially just solution we advocate for the future of Israel/Palestine on a political level, on a human level until I can walk the path into the seeming stranger’s story, I will not find my own way home.

The image that guides my search for a common thread is of certain early twentieth century Jewish settlers arriving in Palestine before arbitrary boundaries had scarred maps of the land, who cultivated olive and lemon trees within sight of their Arab neighbors amidst the echoes of biblical history, and felt at peace knowing that this relatively small land was too spiritually large for any one people to claim. If that moment of consciousness seems impossibly remote in light of post-1948 political realities, consider instead the image of Arabs and Jews working in a Magen David Adom volunteer ambulance crew, responding to emergencies across East and West Jerusalem: the birth of a child, a heart attack, a terrorist assault. When the preservation of human life becomes paramount, those who might otherwise suspect each other become like siblings. These volunteers are everyday people, but they have created an inter-ethnic bonding which provides an oasis of hope for the future. They remind me that to save an Israel/Palestine in mortal danger will require two peoples together to heed history’s siren call.

Israel has generated so many life-bearing accomplishments: the arid soil irrigated to yield citrus groves, a Hebrew language once confined to synagogues and religious texts now alive in the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the sanctuary offered Holocaust survivors, and Ethiopian, Iraqi, Soviet, and other Jews persecuted in their home countries. But these expressions of Jewish humanity have become so overshadowed by militarization, the settlements carved into Palestinian lands, and the separation wall, that the collective Israeli psyche now mirrors the geographical wounds of the disfigured landscape.

While skilled political analysis and statecraft are clearly essential to build a just future, political work by itself will not suffice to bring Israel home. A true aliyah deconstructs a psychological as well as physical barrier and brings to view the vast living landscape belonging to a once invisible neighbor.