Israel Trip – Day Three: Anu. We Are All Part of the Story.
Before we turned in for the evening yesterday, Avi, our amazing guide, messaged us that if, by chance, we were to hear a siren in the night, we were to go downstairs to the level just below the lobby into the parking garage. I didn't give the message much thought. At 3 AM, our third day in Israel began when the siren went off and we were startled out of a deep sleep. I consider myself an organized, prepared person, but apparently, I had given very little thought to what I would actually do in the event of a middle-of-the-night rush to the hotel shelter. What should I put on? What should I grab? How quickly do I need to move? I'll jump to the end of the story and tell you that it was a false alarm. But at 3 AM, it was quite an experience. So much for a solid night of sleep!
After a somewhat disrupted night, we headed to Tel Aviv's ANU Museum of the Jewish People. And as it turned out, there couldn't have been a more meaningful place to spend part of our day.
Our docent began by explaining the significance of the museum's name. It was formerly called Beit Hatfutsot, generally translated as the Museum of the Diaspora. But the Hebrew word hatfutsot comes from a root meaning to scatter or disperse. In other words, it described the Jewish people as those who had been scattered throughout the world.
The museum's new name, ANU, means "WE."
That one little word carries an enormous message. Our docent reminded us that even when we are alone lighting Hanukkah candles, we say the blessing in the plural: She'asah nisim la'avoteinu – who performed miracles for our ancestors. We speak as part of a collective. We are never simply individuals; we are part of something larger. Whether we live in Nashville, Jerusalem, Caracas, or Curaçao, we are all part of the same Jewish story.
The museum is organized around three ideas: Mosaic, Journey, and Roots. On the Mosaic level, we encountered Jewish families from around the world, each with their own traditions, surroundings, and understanding of what it means to be Jewish. One of the most interesting parts of the exhibit featured 21 people who were all asked the same question: "What does it mean to you to be Jewish?" Not one gave the same answer.
And isn't that exactly the point? There is no single way to be Jewish. We are a mosaic of different experiences, beliefs, traditions, languages, and identities. What holds us together isn't that we are all the same, but that we are all part of the same people.
One statistic our docent shared really stayed with me. Jews represent approximately two-tenths of one percent of the world's population. Think about that. We are an extraordinarily small people, and yet our history, contributions, influence, and presence in the world are remarkably outsized. Our docent challenged us to think about what accounts for that. Education? Our commitment to learning? Something else? It's a question worth taking home.
As we moved through the Journey level, we explored the history of Jewish life beyond the Land of Israel, including the communities of Babylonia and Alexandria that helped shape what would become modern Judaism after the destruction of the ancient Temples. We also encountered the story of Theodor Herzl and the Dreyfus Affair. Our docent made a particularly poignant observation: before the Dreyfus Affair, Herzl was simply a young journalist covering a story. Witnessing the antisemitism surrounding the case profoundly changed the direction of his life and ultimately helped inspire his vision of Zionism.
Her point was that we never know what might emerge from even the darkest moments in Jewish history. We cannot predict who will be inspired to lead, what ideas will take shape, or what extraordinary contributions might come from moments of tragedy. That doesn't erase the pain of those moments, but it reminds us that the Jewish story has never been finished.
We ended on the Roots level, exploring the foundations of Jewish life: our calendar, Shabbat, our sacred texts, and the traditions that connect generations of Jews. Among the treasures highlighted was the Codex Sassoon, one of the oldest and most complete surviving Hebrew Bibles, which was purchased for $38.1 million. It was a powerful reminder of just how much our people have invested in preserving our texts, our learning, and our tradition across more than a thousand years.
I found myself thinking about the contrast between the night before and the day we had just experienced. At 3 AM, the siren reminded us of the very real and immediate challenges of living in Israel today. At ANU, we were reminded that the Jewish story is so much bigger than any one moment, any one crisis, or any one generation.
We are a small people with an extraordinarily long story. We have been scattered, displaced, challenged, and threatened, and yet we have continued to create, learn, teach, build communities, and find ways to remain connected to one another.
And perhaps that is why the museum's name is so important. Not they, the Jews scattered around the world. Not them, the people who live somewhere else. But ANU. WE.
And after everything we have seen and experienced on this trip, that feels like exactly the right word.
#IsraelTravel #ANU #JewishPeoplehood