At a recent meeting in support of Israel, I was struck by a question posed by one of the active participants as he pontificated from his podium. “What kind of patriot are you if you’ve left Israel, and live in America?” What are the motives of people who leave their country? What traces did Israel leave on them and their lives? Do they feel guilty, that in such difficult times they’re so far away from their second homeland? From these questions come the following interviews with former Israelis.

Boris Gurichev, 30, San Diego, Calif.

Why did we leave Israel? My wife and I wanted to become self-sufficient as soon as we could. There’s no question that doing that in America is exponentially simpler. But we consider ourselves Israelis, living temporarily in another country. We hope to return there in a few years. Our parents, sisters, friends from the army and classmates from university live in Israel. We love that country, although we can’t accept everything that’s happening there. For example, we can’t accept how much influence the religious institutions have. From the moment Ben Gurion signed the famous agreement with the religious parties, there’s been a problematic “status quo” preserved to this day. There’s no question that we support the Jewish character of the country with all our heart and soul, but it’s infuriating when, for example, the religious establishment considers soldiers “half-blooded,” and won’t allow their burial in in military cemeteries.

Maria Sher, 65, New Jersey

My husband and I arrived in Israel on February 7, 1991. The Persian Gulf War had just begun. Our relatives from the former Soviet Union were in shock. “How can you live there while you’re being bombed?” they asked. And we really survived the gas masks and air-raid warnings. In the night, we panicked several times, and burrowed into our bedding whenever we heard the sirens. So we don’t consider ourselves cowards or traitors. We had to live through many difficulties in the seven years we were there. But looking back, I can say with certainty: there was more good than bad. We love that beautiful country for its history, its natural beauty, its people. We learned Hebrew quickly, found work easily. And what amazing health care they have in Israel! So for us, Israel is our one and only love. This love is probably written into the genes of all Jews. That’s why it’s so painful to see everything that’s happening there right now: the acts of terrorism, deaths of innocent people, betrayal of many European countries...but we didn’t have a choice: like yarn through a needle, my husband and I stuck with our daughter. She took her family to Israel, so we followed her there. And we made it to America, thanks to her. Yes, we’re afraid, but not of Arab terrorists, but of loneliness in our old age. Israel is with us in our hearts. We’ll never give it up.

Alexander Babaev, 45, Brooklyn , N.Y.

The main reason that I left Israel is this: in such a small country, there are few opportunities to create a future for your children. There are other things that it’s hard to explain, but that I found really unpleasant. For example, the internal disputes between Jews—like how the Orthodox Jews believe that Israel shouldn’t exist until that time when the Messiah arrives. The whole thing got even worse after the incidents when they burned the Israeli flag. In general, there’s a genuine religious war. The Orthodox don’t accept the reformists, the reformists can’t stand the Orthodox. This is what I don’t like about Israel.

But other than that, there are a lot of things about the country that makes me love it. If it weren’t for my kids, I wouldn’t have left. People know how to live there. They don’t just sit around doing nothing, and aren’t concerned with such minor details like, for example, where to park their car. Every day is valued; life is really vibrant and full. We traveled a lot, saw our friends often. And my wife and I both had jobs we loved. She taught music in a school, and I worked as a television camera operator. We really were taking pleasure in our lives, and felt that, like nowhere else, we were home. We lived in Israel for 11 years. I really consider that country my homeland. And I’m certain that I’ll return there. And if that makes someone call us great patriots, then I’ll say that in general, I don’t love that word; it reeks of nationalism. I’ll do everything I can in order to help my country thrive. It’s possible to help, and not just when you’re in the middle of the country.

Liza Mixer, 40, New York, N.Y.

My relationship with Israel changed in direct proportion to how well I got to know the country. At the beginning, it was just really difficult to put down roots in another world, in another country. And the fact that it was so different was a constant reminder that I lived there. Probably it’s easier for Jews from eastern countries to get used to it. This was not my country in an internal sense. I couldn’t accept the mentality of the people, even the climate. It seemed like everything was unpleasant, at the time. But as I began to get to know the country, study the language, and meet people, bit by bit, it became my country. Many times I asked myself “why?” And I came to a sad conclusion: Everything in that long-suffering country goes in one endless cycle. War. A period of quiet. An intifada, or something like it, then a time of ostensible building of peace, and again war. It all gave me the impression that everything is connected to some kind of artificial education of the government itself. One of the philosophers said that you can’t step in the same river twice—sad thought. Jews had their own government a terribly long time ago. Someone decided to do it again. Truly a terrific idea. But with great sadness, we’ve got to admit that all the available data suggests that our timing is off. After the Holocaust, our people were weak, and you could say that a considerable part of the linguistic and cultural heart of our people really had disappeared.

As for more ordinary things: attitudes to Jewish immigrants aren’t too friendly. For me, any manifestation of xenophobia is unacceptable. I was raised a different way. It seems to me that the government can only win when educated, passionate people who can help improve the country come to it. But the government is the government. Life means conflicts with real people.

It’s well-known that the country receives a lot of monetary aid from America every year. Imagine any other government financing itself with foreign money. How can it be self-sufficient? From here, it seems like they’re pulling Sharon’s strings, and before that, they did the same with Netanyahu. And so forth. It’s hard to believe, but it’s a fact. It’s a double standard. And on the other hand, whoever pays the piper is the one who chooses the music. No one cancelled that reality.

I guess I just came to understand for myself that I don’t want to be a grain of sand that just gets brushed aside on the road...

Evelina Pasmanik, 37, Queens, N.Y.

I arrived in Israel from Odessa. If I had spoken Hebrew, then I would have used the verb “ascend” instead of “arrive.” It’s specifically this word that people use when the conversation is about moving to Israel. For nine years, my husband and son and I lived in that country. And for already three-and-a-half years, we’re here in New York. My husband’s family is here, and he has long wished to be closer to them. Each year he entered the green card lottery. And this year he succeeded. And all the tiniest trivialities turned into one overwhelming feeling in me—the feeling of love for Israel, for the land that hasn’t disappeared. It has stayed with me, and will forever. In the beginning everything in Israel seemed foreign. For example, the language. Not one word of Hebrew called up any associations with Russian. “Shesh, khamesh, mesh,” what’s with these words, this strange assortment of sounds? How can anyone learn or remember them?

And then there’s the strange climate—eight months without rain. A heat which invades every little cell in your body. Blue sky; again, blue sky. Not one little cloud.

Conversations of children through the window. Not understanding anything. The street closed to traffic. All vehicles stopped, passersby stopped and looking around, police everywhere. What is this, and what are they doing?

Unfamiliar smells of eastern food, a totally different kind of hunger, as though the shouts of goods in the bazaar are coming from your stomach.

I could talk about all this endlessly. Time passes, and the unpleasant things go away. You begin to understand something, and start looking at things through different eyes. After three years, I went back to Odessa to visit my relatives and friends. Thank you, Odessa, you helped me understand that I belonged to a different land.

A little more time in Israel passes, and suddenly you begin to notice now already obvious things. It turns out that you have holidays. Not Soviet holidays, and not foreign holidays, but your own. There is a history of your people. The word Jew is absolutely normal, and everyone pronounces it normally, not in a context like: someone looks like a plucked chicken, or simple taunts of “hebe,” or “kike,” – the way, as an insult, a classmate used to whisper at me behind my desk at school.

Israelis—whose mentality I thought I would never be able to comprehend—became close, like relatives. It filled me with a wonderful feeling to meet good, kind, intelligent people. I was happy.

Every person has to feel a sense of belonging to somewhere. I could never say “I’m Russian,” or anything close to it. But now I can say with pride, in Hebrew, “I’m Israeli, and I live in America.”