In my life as a journalist, I've been moved to tears three times. The first was in 1991 during Operation Solomon, when I saw my brethren, the Jews of Ethiopia, kissing the ground as they stepped off a Hercules plane that might have been the last to return from the mission.
A few months later, in the city Raydah in Yemen, I saw my brothers, Yemenite Jews with their long sidelocks, in the market. A few years later they arrived in Israel secretly, via Jordan, and once again, they kissed the ground, and I was moved to tears a second time.
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And the third time was yesterday, when a Jewish brother made aliyah after 35 nerve-wracking years. He kissed the ground, too.
This ground is something those of us born in Israel take for granted, but the same cannot be said for every Jew, especially one who had to work so hard to reach it. We call that gratitude.
The same gratitude brought me to the tears that fell when I was covering the secret flight that brought Jonathan Pollard home for Israel Hayom.
What hasn't been said about the man, including all the marginalized cynics who described him as an incompetent spy or even greedy.
Most of us see Pollard as a warm, Zionist Jew who had the good of the country in mind, and paid a heavy price for it.
He has spent most of his years in prison, and the thousands of books he read during the long time he spent in his cells did not ease his great suffering.
Jonathan – excuse me, Yehonatan – was released, and there is no greater freedom for a Jew than to live in Zion.
For that to happen, there needed to be a triad in place that included an American president who was friendlier to Israel than any before him; an Israeli prime minister committed to bringing Pollard home; and work by good Jews, some of whom I know, to bring the dream to fulfillment.
There were plenty of attempts in the past. There were already friendly presidents and good Jews who pressed for it, but there was also a prime minister who didn't really want it. Netanyahu, in one of the most challenging years of his time in office, absolutely did.
From the book in a store to Ben-Gurion Airport
A week ago, I was in a Tel Aviv bookstore near my parents' home and was looking for a book to read over the weekend. My eyes wandered to Pollard's book.
I knew that in a few days, when his wife, Esther, finished a course of medical treatment, he would arrive. I looked at his picture on the cover, and imagined his image leaving the book to take a walk through the streets of Jerusalem, wearing his big kippa.
But 2020 has been a roller coaster, a year of upheavals. Pollard didn't step out of the book, he entered quarantine. But what is a 10-day quarantine for someone who spent 30 years in prison?
An Israeli song says, "Yehonatan, come home," and now, Yehonatan is home. I, native-born Israeli, woke up this morning with the desire to kiss the magic ground on which we walk, like my brothers, the Jews from Ethiopia, my brothers, the Jews of Yemen, and like my brother Pollard.
We've been waiting for you a long time. Welcome home.
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