Mayim Bialik Update from Israel: The Flight, The Kibbutz, The Family

By Mayim Bialik for Kveller

Well, my children have adjusted great to Israel. I, on the other hand, have adjusted about as well as my mother says I adjusted to daylight savings as a baby which is to say horribly. My “worst case scenario” for them for the first night actually became my own worst case scenario, with me sleeping only a few hours before darting awake, unable to sleep and armed with the energy to take a jog or make a cake, neither of which I can do in the kibbutz apartment I am in. My boys snored quietly and rhythmically in a cold room, warm under blankets and content in their dreamy homeland.

Leaving aside politics and religion (because that’s the best way to come to Israel: leaving those aside if you can), this is a rare beauty, this Israel thing.

There is nothing like El Al. We flew El Al, which is the national airline of Israel. My sons could not believe the security screening process, whereby hansdome and dashing suited Israeli agents of both sexes grill you on your plans, your packing, and how you got to the airport. They are looking not only for suspicious answers but for suspicious behavior, and even I with nothing to be nervous about, found myself a little hot under the collar as the agent explicitly explained that there is a concern that someone might use any family to try and hurt people and that that is the basis for the questioning. Gulp.

There is nothing like the community feeling of Israel. I have traveled to a lot of places in my life: extensively throughout the United States (covering about 40 states I’d say), Canada (east and west), a dabbling of Central America and Mexico, a healthy dose of Western Europe, and two crazy days in Cairo. There is nothing like feeling like you are on a plane or in a country with your extended family as there is in Israel.

Strangers become instant friends and buddies, discussing their plans… “I’m coming to look for an Israeli girlfriend,” one nebbishy first-time traveler on my flight declared to a handsome brawny Russian Jewish hunk on his aisle, adding, “but girls only seem to want guys who look like you.”

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