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Postcards on an American-Jewish identity in Israel

Andrew Lustig, a Jewish spoken word artist, wrote this piece intending it to be performed — to be spoken. It was first performed on stage at a ChaiPowered storytelling event at LimmudUK. Illustrator Lon Levin created the artwork in collaboration with Lustig.
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May 15, 2015

Andrew Lustig, a Jewish spoken word artist, wrote this piece intending it to be performed — to be spoken. It was first performed on stage at a ChaiPowered storytelling event at LimmudUK. Illustrator Lon Levin created the artwork in collaboration with Lustig.

I am 16 … 

Eating breakfast with my father 

each of us reading a section of The New York Times. 

My father reads about Nazi hunters in Argentina. I read the sports scores. 

“Before you die what’s one headline you want to see on the front page of the paper?” I ask my father.

Without hesitation he answers, “Israelis and Palestinians make peace.”

“I knew you were going to answer something about Israel,” I say. 

“Something, for once, not about Israel. What about something that could be on the front page of the Science and Technology section?” 

And so he thinks for a second. And as he answers, he uses his hands to envision the headline in bold, black ink letters with a comma he can’t help but add before a clause he can’t help but include: “I’ve got it,” he says: “Cancer Cured: Israeli Scientists Lauded.”

I am 18 …

I have permission from my Israel trip leaders to spend the day with my Israeli family. 

I’ve never met Aunt Edna but since I’ve been in Israel she’s called me every day … to remind me to wear sunscreen. 

We plan to meet at a junction right outside the kibbutz my group is staying on. 

Right on time a car pulls up, and out of the back seat an older woman walks out and waves goodbye to the driver. 

I run to the woman and throw my arms around her. In the half biblical, half slang Hebrew I know from Torah services and teenage soldiers, I let her know that I’m wearing sunscreen … but she is stiff in my embrace. Doesn’t hug me back. Doesn’t respond to me as I tell her how good it is to finally meet her. 

From the driver’s seat, Aunt Edna rolls down the window and shouts at me: “Nu? … Get in. You’re hugging the hitchhiker. She’s not related to you.”

I am 20 …

My Israeli friends “don’t get” why I’m enrolling for a year at a yeshiva in Jerusalem. I’m not sure I do either. 

I sit down on the 21 bus across from a cute girl dressed in all black. Wearing Converse sneakers. A red streak in her hair. Nose ring. 

She’s reading a book. And it’s in Hebrew. And I’m so excited. 

To see someone who looks cool and secular like me reading a religious book. Finding meaning in Jewish text. 

I’m so curious about what she’s reading. If it’s the weekly parsha or something Chasidic. It must be something mystical. 

So I ask her, confidently: “Excuse me … Is that the kabbalah?” 

Kabbalah? She responds. “My book? Lo. Ze … ‘Fifty Shades of Grey.’ ”

As she gets off at her stop, the woman next to me looks up from her book of tehillim and warns me: “In this country, everything, even the pornography, is in Hebrew.”

I am 22 … 

Wandering through the alleyways of Nahlaot in Jerusalem, looking through the windows for a Kabbalat Shabbat service I’d feel comfortable in. 

As I’m about to give up, I hear a faint echo of Lekhah Dodi, and I excitedly follow the sound of psalms into a heavy steel door and down a staircase into an underground shul … 

disappointed to discover the prayer is separated. 

Men in front. 

Women tucked into a corner behind a curtain. 

I decide I will leave but first I ask a group of women, sitting, talking on a couch, if there is a bathroom. They point.

“Is this men’s or women’s?” I ask, confused. 

As I watch a woman walk out of one stall and a man out of the next. 

“It’s both,” one of the women says, rolling her eyes. “This is Israel, you know? This shul is in a bomb shelter. There’s not so much space down here that we can just separate the bathrooms by gender.”

I am 24 …

On a bus in Tel Aviv. It’s Friday, January 3rd. 

Early afternoon. Only hours before Shabbos. 

The first Shabbos just after New Year’s. 

The bus is crowded and slow and I’ve been sitting silently for an hour across from an old Israeli man who reminds me of my grandfather. 

As my stop approaches, I want to say something, so I smile and say, “Chag sameach.” 

And he responds 

throwing his head back 

Ma chag? What holiday?” 

“New Year’s,” I say. 

Ze lo he chag sheli. Ani Yehudi. It’s not my New Year’s,” he insists. “I am a Jew.” 

Taken aback, realizing I’ve offended him, I apologize. “Slicha. Ani mitztaier. I’m sorry. Achi, my friend. Shabbat shalom.”

And as I walk off the bus, I hear him yell after me: “Ma Shabbat? Do I look religious to you?” 

I am 26 … 

teaching at a Jewish summer camp 

standing in the back of the beit midrash as the participants listen to a lesson plan we’ve improvised …

because war has broken out.

I watch the Israelis in the room. 

I wonder if they’d like me less if they knew how liberal I was.

In my head, I label the 3 murdered boys “settlers” and I feel guilty for doing it. 

I am already afraid for Gaza.

In response to that thought, my father pleads, “Andrew, you’re too young to remember.” My grandfather reminds me to “never forget.” Aunt Edna dismisses me: “You don’t know what it’s really like to live here.”

I am a mistress. At my lover’s funeral. Watching from afar as the family members cry by the casket. “Who is he?” they wonder. “Why should he cry?” 

As I turn to wipe away a tear, I notice a book titled “Moses: The Outsider.” 

Moses. Who felt voiceless. 

Almost left forever 

Me anochi key A-lech

Who am I? 


Andrew Lustig is a Jewish spoken word artist and writing workshop facilitator. Contact him at iamandrewlustig.com or lustig.andrew@gmail.com.

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