I’ve always carried two identities.
On paper, Los Angeles is my birthplace. That’s what my documents say. But in spirit, my story belongs to Israel – the place centuries of Jews longed for in exile, the place my parents dreamed of, helped build, and brought us back to after the Six-Day War.
Being an immigrant is never simple. I grew up with the awareness that antisemitism never disappears – it shifts, it adapts, it hides in new forms. My parents imprinted that truth on me from a young age: Jews can never take safety for granted. Not even in Israel.
Both were children of Jewish families who fled the pogroms in Ukraine. One family found refuge in Montreal, the other in Los Angeles – the lucky ones. Even there, they weren’t fully welcome. They faced antisemitism in schools and neighborhoods, often seeking safety only in the company of their own community. Yet instead of turning away from their Jewish identity, they embraced it. Inspired by a Jewish Youth Movement and shaped by the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust, they prepared for their Aliyah. In 1947, before Israel was a state, they arrived and helped establish a Kibbutz in the Galilee.
Their story is not unusual. It’s the story of countless Jewish families: forced out of one place, starting again in another, always carrying the same longing for safety, belonging, and home.
That’s why, when someone asks me, “Where are you from?” It’s a simple question, but for me, the answer is anything but. Am I American because I was born there? Israeli because I live here? Or am I something else entirely – a thread in the larger fabric of Jewish migration and survival?
Antisemitism has shaped that fabric at every turn – from the pogroms of old to today’s harassment, threats, and persecution of Jews, from exile to the hate that festers online. But resilience has shaped it too. So has the belief that being Jewish isn’t something you run from – it’s something you carry forward.
So perhaps the better question isn’t where I am from, but why I am here. And the answer is simple: because generations before me refused to give up on being Jewish – no matter the cost.