On route to Israel, the Yom Kippur war broke out. My mother was in England at that time, deciding to make a stopover and visit her father in London. With news of the war, it was assumed that my mother would cancel her plans. Undetermined, my mother pressed on.
I remember hearing a story about being on the plane - from London to Tel Aviv. The passenger beside my mother asked if she was a journalist, as the Press and soldiers were the only other people on board. When she revealled that she was "just a tourist", the guy announced this to the whole plane and everybody clapped. I guess they thought that my mother had "chutzpah" (yiddish for "a lot of nerve") to a visit a country during a war.
Yesterday, when I was talking to my mom on the phone (she's 80 now), I asked her if she would take on a project for me. I asked her to record all the places that she visited during her first and/or second trip to Israel. When I go down to visit her in May, I am going to go through her photographs and scan some of them in.
I think that it's always interesting to walk in the footsteps of others. To take a moment when you visit a place and try to envision it at another time - through the eyes of someone else. It's kind of a great way to connect with other moments in time.
