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The Chief Rabbinate versus the Jewish People

The Chief Rabbinate versus the Jewish People

Conversion on the dance floor - A weekly report by an Israeli in Berlin
By Amit Epstein | 29/04/2010

In the last week I've been unpacking the boxes I've left in a storage room at my grandmother's flat in Giv'ataim. Seven years they have been stored there, during this period I did not open even one of those many boxes, where my whole life until the day I moved out of Israel waited for my return.

True, I wouldn't have been doing that at this point unless the unfortunate circumstances that my grandmother is no longer able to be left on her own without help, so the room is needed for a (legal) foreign worker, yet I feel that is the reason but not the cause.

Photo: Amit Epstein

In those boxes I've folded my journey growing up, building up myself, my identity. It was a torture and a pleasure at the same time and hard as hell to separate the things to keep from those which must be given away.

My father's approach is that anything I have not used since seven years I do not need. The unpacking proved him wrong – I went through such an emotional rollercoaster in the process of selecting. All the formal papers were thrown happily without a single doubt; my grades were always good – it's boring to go through them. Many items found their way to charity or other hands, but more then a few not only were repacked but were laid in a bag designated to be sent home. That means, Berlin.

I guess the fact I did not have framed family photos hanged all around me – as I had when I was living in Tel-Aviv – doesn't make sense. I mean, one would think that kind of photos on the wall are much more needed once abroad. Still, for at least five years I was almost a minimalist, in my way of living. And I'm not a natural minimalist…in fact; I usually start with too much. Looking back at that period, five out of seven years is a meaningful portion, I assume it was a basic disbelief that I will survive. It took me a year, a full winter, to be convinced that an investment in a good winter coat is a clever idea – in that first winter I got ill repeatedly. I've actually did not buy a new mattress until a few months ago – I was sleeping on an uncomfortable mattress for six and a half years because each and every time I was about to do the did and purchase a new one, hoping my back aches will stop, I rethought it and decided it will be a waste of money, once I'll go back to Israel.

Now I'm repacking and reorganizing the objects and letters that constructed my life, and I'm choosing some

fragment I wish to have with me over seas.

A Pesach plate, for example; A classical Israeli craft item from the fifties;

Photos of me and my grandmother standing in front of the old design of the Dizengoff square on Purim. A cooking pot from the seventies style here.

Signs of the place I come from, traces it left on me, traces I've kept and relics I've adopted.

The National Social Security sent me a formal letter – I am no longer considered a permanent citizen of Israel. Although I'm going to keep my citizenship, I am no longer eligible for my rights there. The institute has phrased it for me; my suitcase shows they must be right.

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