Reflections from Birthright Israel
Written in the immediate aftermath of coming home early in summer 2019.
As always, it comes down to expectations versus reality.
What did I expect? What did I *actually* experience?
And what, crucially, is the difference?
Moments to notice and savour and remember.
Or just moments that I don’t want to forget?
Early on in the trip, crying in the evening at the hostel near the Sea of Galilee.
Sitting in a deckchair on the grass with strangers, wanting to go to bed but not wanting to miss out. Tears in my eyes. Overwhelmed with a pain that I couldn’t understand nor articulate. The sense of distance, disconnection, alienation — of being, at some level, profoundly unseen. If I was seen, nobody saw or understood.
There is, was, a void within me, something that neither I nor others could bridge. A gap, a lack, a deficit. A sadness. I felt naked, and shamed for it. Pain is provocative. Sharing and being so openly vulnerable is as unsettling for others as it is for the sufferer, but I couldn’t pretend. I had to strip myself back, if only because that was—is— who I am, and to deny this would just prolong and intensify the shame.Balmy evenings in the ghetto. Armed guards and plastic cups clinking with booze and fizz and wet lips and blood, sweat and tears interspersed with and amidst a small compound of greenery under the stars. This sense, gutteral and intense, of wanting to be touched. I want love, sex, magic. Bodily warmth and immersion. A real fucking pinch-me moment. Something to lose myself in, safe in the knowledge that I wouldn’t be able to hold on.
And all of us preening like peacocks, competitive despite ourselves — “what’s the goss?” Women can be their own worst enemies. I had the bitter self-control to know my best interests well enough to say no, but it got in the way.
I was desperate, frantic, dreaming and dancing on a podium. Bright lights, loud music and cut-off shorts in a Roman ampitheatre, gyrating away. I can get it on with the best of them, but I am not one of them.A guy from another group took a video of me dancing and asked for my Instagram.
The next morning, he messaged me to say that my Instagram wasn’t what he expected— he’d had to scroll back a few years to find any pictures of me. When I explained that I wasn’t really a selfie person (whatever the fuck that is), he said, “but you’re not ugly yet.”
Needless to say, he didn’t get in my pants, but I doubt that either of us were that bothered.
Sitting at the Western Wall in the heat of midday, face sodden with tears, pleading with my Maker to please help me to be strong, unsure whether I was having a Deep Spiritual Moment (DSM) or just exhausted and dehydrated.
A hand on my shoulder as my distress, visceral, led well-meaning individuals to (want to) intervene.
Screaming internally, I don’t need you to save me.
This is my pain and it’s the only thing that’s real right now and I am grateful for what I am experiencing because it makes me feel alive and connected and profoundly human and this, that, is all there is.
The things you cannot say.
The things you cannot do.
Be alone.
Need space.
Need time.
Have time.
Be different.
Be loved and accepted for it.
I cannot sit, subsist, in a skin that is not my own. I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t breathe. I have to be, live, love, feel. I have to let myself. I have to listen.
I don’t want Taglit babies or forced intimacy or false encounters or the delusion of feeling. I don’t know you or it or me and I could fuck you but it wouldn’t mean anything. And if all of this comes down to expectations versus reality and I know that I want, need, more then it’s pointless to entertain anything else; I know you cannot give me what I crave. I am complex and deep-rooted and gnarly and brittle and lustrous and flowering and resolutely hopeful and difficult to pin down or put into words. I am open armed, branching out, in a space of flux and exploration if not active transition, and I am swaying gently in the breeze, feet planted firmly in what I believe in.
I am and will be okay.
I have all I need.
Sometimes it felt like who I am, what I was, and what I wanted was wrong.
Sometimes it felt like I was the only sane one.
Plying people with alcohol and restricting their freedom under the guise of a ‘free trip’ is downright irresponsible. And sure, I knew what I was getting into. But does that mean that I, we, deserved it? Does that mean that I, we, should take it lying down?
Let’s change the context.
Consent: wearing revealing clothing may make it more likely that people will view you in sexual terms, with all of the connotations with objectification that —for better or worse— come with this, but it doesn’t mean that you’re asking to be assaulted.
Sexual harassment was officially prohibited, but at no point did any of the tour leaders discuss what that actually meant.
Once you sign up, though, you’re all-in.
There is no option of fooling around for a while before saying you know what, I’ve had enough, I need a break or, heaven forbid, a straight stop, I’m not comfortable. Stop now, no more, fuck all that’s come before — this is where I’m at, and I don’t want to go any further.
And, in this day and age, in the midst of where we’re at in the world, I find this policy distinctly regressive and (dare I say) problematic.
Is it fair or safe to expect people to sign their rights away months in advance?
Money talks, and there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Having bagged more than my fair share from the (free) breakfast buffet to compensate for the absence of regular mealtimes, perhaps I simply bit off more than I could chew. Perhaps I wanted more from this than was reasonable.
Perhaps, naively, I thought that I could have it all. (How millennial.)
When I came to the tour leaders with my concerns, they were more —not less— concerned about me. I had, unwittingly or otherwise, showed my cards; I had shared the truth of my experience in a way that couldn’t be excused —or tackled— retrospectively. Others had broken the rules already; I just talked about wanting to. If actions speak louder than words, what does this say? Yet words are weapons, and powerful with it; speaking out takes courage and a certain degree of conviction that ‘mere’ acts don’t necessarily denote, and I am no stranger to this. It’s harder to be honest. It’s harder to be real. It’s harder to face yourself. It’s harder to acknowledge and own your part, your role, your responsibility.
The simple truth is that at times I was unhappy and I didn’t, couldn’t, hide it.
I didn’t have space to.
And so, I bared my soul. And so, I felt my pain. And so, I sat with what is, what was, unapologetically, because this is part of life, too.
This is natural and normal and healthy.
I was sleep-deprived and overwhelmed and dealing with triggers and concerns and traumas that I didn’t necessarily feel comfortable discussing more broadly, in part because I knew that to do so would alarm others without providing me with the catharsis that I needed. It wouldn’t be worth it, and I knew this.
And watching how other people responded to my unhappiness was interesting, too: people didn’t know how to deal with it. It was unacceptable that this be a tolerated part of the —my— experience; my pain become Other to itself— let alone myself.
The idea that all I wanted and needed was space and time alone became symptomatic of something else: something deeper and more pathological.
I was flawed, tainted; the Director posited that I had some kind of ‘character or personality defect’. On the surface, being and responding to the stimuli of the programme authentically was —or appeared to be— encouraged, but in reality neither the trip organisers nor the day-to-day leaders wanted (or were equipped) to deal with the reality of this.
And so, I became Sad Girl. And so, I became a caricature of myself.
I can do it well, but at the expense of so much else: of bonding with the group, of really connecting with myself and the world around me, of sitting with and being present and truly listening.
Sad Girl is shame and shamed and an example of what and who I do not want to be, not because there is anything wrong with her per se but because I am not that person and I resent being put into that box and being labelled as such by people who quite plainly do not accept or understand me.
I am not Sad Girl. I get sad sometimes— end of. Don’t we all?
And at the Western Wall, the woman next to me, shrouded in shawl but still too much cleavage. Cover yourself, the nun barked, thrusting her hands over her, disgusted by the spectacle.
The woman flailed helplessly, attempting to adjust her dress accordingly, but there simply wasn’t enough fabric. Tanned skin poked through. The chest of a woman who, in other circles, would likely be deemed a member of the elite—all designer sunglasses and the air of confidence and sophistication that comes only with money and well-oiled connections— yet, still, she was reduced to this.
I saw her face. I felt her pain. Or at least, I thought I felt it, and that’s all you can do in these circumstances.
It was the closest thing to intimacy and I grabbed onto it.
Still crying, I whispered, I’m sorry.
I don’t know what I was apologising for but I wanted to acknowledge it and words felt inadequate. It wasn’t my fault but I was powerless to protect, prevent, stop.
And in that moment I realised that there is so much that I cannot and will not be able to do and change in this world.
In that moment, accosted by my own vulnerability, crying for everything I had ever known and lost and hoped for, crying for every disappointment, failure and betrayal, I realised that all we have is ourselves amidst one another. I was touched by her pain because I felt it mingled with my own.
And in that moment, it did.
We merged and became one and it was beautiful and pathetic and poignant all at once. The things we tell ourselves to make us feel. To let ourselves break down and embrace ourselves and our experience unequivocally: that bittersweet sense of solidarity. I see you, I hear you, I’ve got you. Precious for, not despite, its transience.
These are the things that I want to remember.
These are the things that I cannot forget.
When we fall in love, it starts slow, insidious.
Glances, daydreams, what ifs and make-believe.
We fall in love first and foremost with a fantasy.
We want but we cannot believe.
And then it snowballs.
And then we start to feel.
The Fall.
From grace or just the delusion of self-control?
This is my world and I am safe. Nuh-uh, darling. You wish.
And in an intense environment like this one, of course you fall.
You are almost encouraged to do so.
‘Almost’ only because love is a weighted term; love is a wrecking ball. We are afraid of love, and so we fuck. We are afraid to give and truly trust and so we laugh it off and pretend we don’t care, as if it doesn’t really matter.
Plot twist: it does matter.
Reality check: it never stopped.
Attachment is suffering.
Some things don’t change.
I wondered whether I could love you because I mistook proximity for closeness; I had limited options and wanted to make the most of the experience.
I wanted to live, love, feel; I wanted to open myself up and create something with another human being. I wanted to lose myself for a moment; I wanted to know what that was like. The intoxication, invigoration, immersion; I can remember but I cannot connect. All I know is that it sounds romantic. Sometimes we all want to be a heroine.
I didn’t love you. Of course I didn’t.
It sounds obvious but it wasn’t at the time.
It sounds obvious but it’s easy to be blinded.
I didn’t love you but I wondered if I could, and the question alone was enough for me.
I didn’t love you because I didn’t even know you, nor you, me.
I didn’t love you because the greatest test of love is time and I knew that we didn’t, wouldn’t, have enough.
I didn’t love you because the only test of love is time and I knew that we wouldn’t even have the chance.
I knew that the prospect was an illusion, circumstantial.
I knew that I was falling for a dream rather than a person, like a dog chasing its tail, here we go again emanating from every pore.
Relentless. And all of this under the hot sun, lips parched, iced tea and ice creams and bare-skinned back rubs. Just kids playing games.
Just people finding their way. I try not to judge what I don’t understand, and so I ask.
But I knew even before I opened my mouth that the answers wouldn’t be found here.
And I wonder where we will be this time next year and the year after, and perhaps in ten years time— or really in any place other than the here and now, fresh from the trip, in the immediate aftermath, high on life and love and the haze of something other to what we’re used to.
I wonder what will happen when things go back to ‘normal’, whether things can or will, if this trip is truly as ‘transformational’ as is posited, and what this means in practice.
I suspect, like most things, that this is relative; that meaning is defined by its maker and that what defines the experience is and has to be uniquely individual to at least some degree— hence its significance.
Yet is this way of being, this hyperconnected trip at odds with much of what we as ‘young professionals’ are or would be used to, the answer, means or tool for forming meaningful relationships in an increasingly disconnected world, or merely a symptom of the problem itself? Extremity, much like intensity, cannot last: we ebb and flow.
We study, we work, we live day-to-day.
Much of life is and has to be mundane. Are we setting ourselves up for failure by refusing to accept this— much less account for this? I don’t know.
And I am struck by how little I know.
And as I sat by the Wall I suddenly broke down in floods of tears. And I didn’t know or understand what I was experiencing anymore, but I was able to feel and it was beautiful.
Finally, I was able to feel and it was beautiful.
Rest in peace.
Three and a half years on, thank you for reading. There’s a time & a place for everything. This is mine.
Finally, I’m home.
Finally, I’m coming into my own.
I love you, always.
-Rachel Clifton
(24 November 2022)