LAND OF MY FATHER
Ayelet Waldman

“The spring after I graduated from Wesleyan University I reported, as instructed, to the draft office near the Megiddo intersection, outside of Afula in the north of Israel. I had hitchhiked there from the kibbutz where I was living. These were the days when everyone in Israel still hitchhiked, even twenty-one-year-old American girls on their way to be given their induction dates for service in the Israeli Defense Forces.

I made some concessions to safety, hauling back my thumb when I saw the telltale blue or green license plate that indicated an Arab from the Occupied Territories, sticking it out more aggressively when the plate was acceptable Israeli yellow. By the time I arrived at my destination, I was thirsty, dusty from standing at the side of the road by the fields of feed corn and alfalfa, and chewing my nails with anxiety.

I was also excited, enamored of the romance of wearing a uniform and strapping on an Uzi (or—since I am female—more likely a steno pad) on behalf of the Israeli government, her people, and the ideal of a Jewish nation…”

Ayelet Waldman is the author of Daughter's Keeper, The Mommy-Track Mysteries, and the forthcoming Love and Other Impossible Pursuits. She lives in Berkeley with her husband and four children. She can be visited on the Web at AyeletWaldman.com.