Israel relationship status: It’s complicated

My first trip to Israel was when I was 11 years old, my pre-bat mitzvah gift was a trip to a country that I already loved despite never having visited. More than 20 years later, I can still remember the texture of that visit: my first view of the Western Wall bathed in the soft late-afternoon light, vending machines stocked with kosher food, climbing Masada and thinking about the people who had held out there under Roman siege and eating falafel that tasted fresher than anything I had ever eaten in Melbourne.

I fell in love with that version of Israel. Or more honestly, I fell in love with the way I experienced Israel at that age, uncomplicated, immersive, and entirely certain of its meaning.

I have been back to Israel many times since, usually for something significant, like my sister's wedding or accompanying an Australian parliamentary delegation as a staffer. I am not Israeli; I am an Australian-born Jew with a deep family history here. My family has been in Australia since the 1860s, and my mother's ancestors are buried in the Jewish section of the Ballarat cemetery.

And yet, when I arrive in Israel, there is a relief at not having to explain the basic contours of my Judaism. For once, I am not the "interesting Jew", as I am to so many of my non-Jewish friends and colleagues at home. I love being in a place where my religious practices require no translation, where kosher food can be assumed and where Shabbat is built into the structure of the week.

For a long time, I have found it easy to sit inside my dual identities. I am Australian, but I have a deep love of Israel. I speak Hebrew, I follow Israeli news, and I understand, at least in part, the national sensitivities that shape Israeli public life. Yet, despite this love, I do not want to move to Israel, and I feel culturally very Australian.