The Iran War has reaffirmed Israel’s unique approach to life.

When I came to Israel on a Fulbright post-doctoral fellowship, I really had no plans. The program had funding for 12 months with an option for another 10 months. I did not come with an idea to either stay or go after the fellowship ended. During the ten-month extension, I met my wife and we have lived in Jerusalem since. I miss a lot of my friends back in the US and we treasure each opportunity we get to visit the States. Right now, El Al is running one plane with 50 people out of the country, once every hour. They are having fits and threatening to “reevaluate” their relationship with Ben Gurion Airport, their main base of operations. So, we’re not planning to go anywhere right now, though I do hope that we make it back to the US sometime this summer.

Most people do not go to a store for no reason. If a person gets dressed, jumps in a car and drives for some period of time to get to a store, he probably needs or wants something. This was my approach to citizenship in Israel. There are many who see taking citizenship as a Jewish act, and I think that it is wonderful. I stayed on my various work visas until the Ministry of Interior said—against the law, by the way—that they would simply not issue them any longer. Time to put up or shut up. So I asked what was on the menu and they said that there was citizenship or permanent residency. I asked what the difference was. With the latter, there was no army duty (which at my age at the time was not relevant anyway) and I could not vote in national elections. Sounded good enough to me, so I have been a permanent resident for the past 20 years. It makes for a bit of a headache on flights back to Israel as I don’t have an Israeli passport and the folks at the various international airports don’t know how to make heads or tails out of the Hebrew-language visa glued into my........

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