{"id":573,"date":"2013-04-09T09:26:32","date_gmt":"2013-04-09T07:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lettersfromisrael.com\/?p=573"},"modified":"2013-04-09T09:26:32","modified_gmt":"2013-04-09T07:26:32","slug":"story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kimdacosta.com\/?p=573","title":{"rendered":"A Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When I travel out of Israel, I see local people traveling, going to work, meet for coffee &#8211; the routines of life. In my heart I feel hope that one day I can walk in my home without fear, that within my home I will be safe, that no one would claim that my home is not mine.<br \/>\nIs my hope strange to you? We have no other country to live in.<br \/>\nWherever you go in Israel, you can find a piece of Jewish history: coins, scrolls, houses, synagogues&#8230;<br \/>\nA small region that has always been inhabited by the Jewish nation.<br \/>\nAlthough many argue otherwise, it is a proven fact.<\/p>\n<p>Everywhere else in the world we will always be strangers, not belong.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s sad to hear people discuss the situation in my country, and always choose one side..I&#8217;ll tell you a story, a true story:<\/p>\n<p>Many years ago, in a faraway land, there was a Jewish man, a father of seven sons. He had a croft &#8211; a small farm, but he was not a farmer.<br \/>\nHe was a Dayan &#8211; a Jewish Judge, who travelled from village to village.<br \/>\nHe was very important to the Jewish community. He would rule according to Jewish law in all sorts of topics: money, inheritance, and he also gave certificates for weddings, divorce.<br \/>\nMost of the time he was on the road, and his family saw him only five times a year.<\/p>\n<p>He told his sons about a land far away, of a great king who lived in a holy great city.<br \/>\nHe told them how his family was sent for a mission many, many years ago\u2026 and when they wanted to return their country was occupied and looted by other nations and all their people scattered around the world.<\/p>\n<p>He promised his children that one day&#8230; and gave them hope&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>One day our hero went away again, but he never returned.<br \/>\nSimply disappeared.<br \/>\nLike the story of Joseph from the Torah scroll, found was only his clothes, stained with blood.<\/p>\n<p>His wife and their sons decided to leave.<br \/>\nThey knew it was a matter of time until the neighbors would deport them and confiscate their property.<br \/>\nAccording to the law in that country, a widow was not entitled to own property and the children could be taken into slavery and convert.<br \/>\nThey reached the port city where they asked permission to board the ship to the holy land.<br \/>\nEveryone received approval, except the youngest.<\/p>\n<p>I can continue my story, but then you will need to read a whole book&#8230;<br \/>\nThe ending is a happy ending.<br \/>\nThe youngest son was my my great-grandfather .<br \/>\nHis &#8221;little&#8221; family currently includes almost 450 people, all born and raised in Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Lital<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I travel out of Israel, I see local people traveling, going to work, meet for coffee &#8211; the routines of life. In my heart I feel hope that one day I can walk in my home without fear, that within my home I will be safe, that no one would claim that my home &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/kimdacosta.com\/?p=573\" class=\"more-link\">Forts\u00e4tt l\u00e4sa<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> \u201dA Story\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[33],"tags":[269],"class_list":["post-573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letter-from-israel","tag-history"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kimdacosta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kimdacosta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kimdacosta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kimdacosta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kimdacosta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kimdacosta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kimdacosta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kimdacosta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kimdacosta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}