Katamon

My family made aliyah when I was two from the States.

I grew up in Jerusalem, in Katamon.

I was a very excited 12-year-old about my bat mitzvah.

I wanted a big party.

And I can be there.

I can, you know, respect it and, and benefit from it, and still go back to Katamon and, and, you know, be a bit more broad.

I think the key factor is m- is what exactly you said, and I, I, I, I wish it wasn't as gendered, but I think it applies.

I'm a big boy, meaning learning how to feel at home in your own skin, in your own life.

... who do you think you...

And you have a thriving community, not in, not in the boondocks, not in some, you know, desert small.

In Katamon, which is, like, prime real estate.

I could list 20 rabbis who spend the- like, I would dream.

And then you have the, uh, UN resolution for the partition of Palestine, and fighting breaks out, and this is in very late November 1947.

And then about a month later, on the 4th of January 1948, there's a bombing of a Christian Arab hotel in the neighborhood of Katamon, and that neighborhood was directly next to my family's neighborhood, by the Haganah, and it murders, uh, about 26 people, primarily from two Christian Arab families.

And it happens in the middle of the night, and the force of the explosion makes my family's house, and no doubt many of the houses in the area, shake.

And they thought that the roof was gonna fall in.

... where there's no one who speaks English there.

You understand? You go to a- not, not, not, don't go to Katamon or, or what's it, Uhlavia in Jerusalem, okay? Which is, which is New York and the Bronx.

Okay? No, no, no.

I'm talking about go to a settlement somewhere, you know-