Young Judaea Year Course - Program In Israel - Genna Morton - "This is MY Country"

For about three weeks, I ended every telephone conversation with my mom with, "I can't wait to see you!" I was ecstatic because over winter vacation I was meeting my mother and sister in Europe. We were to spend one lovely week in Brussels and Amsterdam.

I hadn't seen any member of my immediate family in more than four months, so as the time got closer to winter break, my excitement rose accordingly. When I saw our youth hostel's empty halls, I knew that break officially started.

I took a sheirut (shuttle) to Ben Gurion airport, and soon enough I was off to Europe, where my mother and sister were waiting for me! I arrived in Brussels at night, haggard and tired, and took a cab to my hotel. Brussels was beautiful at night, the city shining with lights but not obnoxiously. It was quaint but still magical.

Seeing my mom for the first time in almost five months was surprisingly anticlimactic. It was almost as if I had never left, as if I'd last seen her only two days before. We sat and talked for a long time until she fell asleep, and I took a bath (and infamous if you're a calorie counter) Belgian waffles, and bought a few trinkets from the local crafts fair. We even strolled through a Christmas fair on Christmas Eve, and of course dined at a lovely Chinese restaurant to maintain our Judaism. Everything was wonderful, but something was missing. I just couldn't put my finger on it.

A few days later we were off by train to Amsterdam. After three hours of sleeping, we arrived in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Charming canals sprinkle the city while the architecture is captivating. We did all the touristy things in Amsterdam. We went to Anne Frank's house (wonderful, you should go), the Van Gogh museum (wonderful, you should go), a canal ride (wonderful, you should go) and the Red Light District (opinion cannot be expressed in this article, but it is being closed down anyway). I had an amazing time. It was fun, uplifting and relaxing, the perfect vacation. That's when I realized; it was a vacation.

While I was sitting in a café in Amsterdam, a little boy next to me handed his book to me to read. I smiled at him and didn't have the heart to tell him that in no way, shape or form did I understand Dutch (not that he would have understood me).

As wonderful as Amsterdam and Brussels were, they're not my cities, or in my country. I have no claim to them. I can spend a wonderful weeklong vacation there, but after that week, there is nothing to hold me there.

Israel is my country. I have a claim to it more than I have a claim anywhere else in the world. The people are my people. The language is my language. The religion is my religion. I might not make aliyah to Israel, but it is enough for me to know that I can.

Genna Morton, 17 years old, is from Roslyn Heights, N.Y., and is attending Washington University in St. Louis next year. She loves downloading even more music to her iPod and kicking back with a good book.