Five years ago, I left Israel for the United States. My career had brought me to Washington, D.C., but soon after my arrival, I met my wife. Our choice to build a family together was also my choice to make America my permanent home. Still attached to my original homeland, and to the family and friends I left behind, I remain committed to visiting Israel at least once a year.

With every visit, I find the Israel I’d left behind a bit changed. In America, I try to keep up with the country’s evolving atmosphere through frequent conversations with Israelis, social media, and the TV shows that I continue to watch regularly. However, only when I land at Ben Gurion Airport and begin my one- or two-week-long Hebrew-speaking journey through the country, I’m able to connect the dots and see how the home I left behind is actually doing. In Israel (as in America), I feel like an insider and an outsider all at once. While not without its challenges, it is a perspective I continue to hold onto.

My past visits to Israel always found a concerned, if not outright troubled, country and society. The first two were in the COVID era. I recall making any plans I had in the country on my first visit contingent on the results of the test I had taken upon........

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