Yesterday there were two flags hanging outside my parents’ house in Israel: the American flag and the Israeli flag. It was the Fourth of July, which is already a strange and beautiful thing to celebrate from here, and somehow the whole day became a kind of family map.

My father has always said, “America is my home, Israel is my destiny.” I have heard that sentence for years, but it sounded different yesterday under those flags. My father is a former Marine, and his patriotism has never felt ornamental to me. It is tied to duty. It comes from a belief that if something has given you a home, a language, a life, a shelter, a set of obligations, then you owe it something back.

My mother’s American story is different, but no less real. She was born and raised in Israel, moved to America, fell in love with the United States, married my father, and became an American citizen. Her favorite holiday is Thanksgiving, which makes perfect sense to me. My Eema brings a phenomenal warmth to everything she does, and Thanksgiving is, at its best, a holiday of warmth: food, gratitude, welcome, family, abundance, the table as a form of belonging. Even after moving back to Israel with my father after all these years, she is still proud to be American. Her love of America is chosen, practiced, hosted, cooked, played on the piano, and brought into rooms.

I know something about layered belonging from another side too. I served as a combat medic in the Israeli military. I wore the uniform of one country while carrying the passport and love of another. I do not experience that as a contradiction to my American-ness, or to my patriotism. If anything, it has made the word duty feel less abstract. Countries are not loved only in theory. They are loved through what they ask of us, what we are willing to carry, and what we refuse to abandon when love becomes complicated.

That is the part of patriotism that is easily lost when people speak about love of country as if it must be either blind loyalty or moral embarrassment. There is a patriotism that refuses to see a country’s wounds. There is also a sophistication that can only see the wounds and calls that sight wisdom. Neither feels honest to me. Love of country, if it is going to mean anything, has to be more........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)