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ONE EVENING THE summer before last, in the fourth week of the war between Israel and Hezbollah, I had dinner at an Italian restaurant in Jerusalem with my cousin, Ronit, and her husband, Aryeh, a commander in the Israeli army. Aryeh had just returned from Lebanon, his second stint there. The previous day, he had attended the funeral of one of his childhood friends, who was killed in the fighting. Somehow, the conversation got around to a topic about which Jews seem to be perennially obsessed, particularly in stressful times -where, in a world full of danger, it is best to live.
"You know," said Ronit, "if I could leave this place and live somewhere else, I would do it."
The statement struck me as perfectly understandable. Ronit was pregnant, had a two-year-old son at home, and had spent many sleepless nights over the past few weeks worrying about her husband's safety. Like many Israelis, she looked into the future and saw more wars, more conflict, more suicide bombings, along with the moment when she would have to send her children into the army. If offered the choice to avoid all of this, who in her situation would not be tempted?
But Aryeh was having none of it: the only place where Jews could feel a true sense of belonging, he insisted, is Israel. Only in their own country could they control their own destiny, and thus feel genuinely secure. I mentioned to him that the Jews I knew who resided in the United States, where I lived, did not feel that they were excluded, much less under threat. "But do you think you're really accepted?" he pressed me. I told him that I did. He smiled in a manner suggesting he was not persuaded. I tried another tack, pointing out that the chance I might be the victim of an anti-Semitic attack in New York, or, say, Portland or Seattle, was extremely remote, whereas the possibility an Israeli citizen might be killed or maimed by someone harboring ill will toward Jews in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem was very real. Shouldn't this be taken into account?
"Okay," he finally conceded, "so you can live well in New York. But you live for yourself."
It was...