"Don't feel too comfortable, this is not our home," my dad, Shmuel Eliyakim's Schwartz, drilled into my four sisters and me when I lived in the United States.
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As a "problem child" who was sent away from his large Hassidic family back in Hungary, I understood his deep yearning for home. His family couldn't handle Shmuel Eliyakim's wayward ways. Today, he would probably be diagnosed with ADHD, but back in the 1930s he was deemed too difficult to be at home.
So, off to New York he went, where he fell in with a group of ex-convicts who said joining the military would be a straight line to a stable income and US citizenship.
My father wasn't just any soldier – he enlisted in the 82nd Airborne Division 504th Infantry Regiment as a paratrooper and fought in the most harrowing battles in the European theater including the Battle of the Bulge. He should have died many times over. After all, most of the men in his unit didn't survive the death defying jumps.
However, Shmuel Eliyakim had a greater purpose.
On May 2, 1945, after he'd already witnessed countless atrocities and held the bodies of his fellow soldiers who had died in battle, my father saw the unimaginable and unspeakable.
It was a warm sunny afternoon when his division came across a concentration camp which had been used as a dumping ground for Russian prisoners of war and displaced Jews. There was little to no food. Food was scarce, and desperation had let some prisoners to resort to cannibalism. Most of them didn't weigh an ounce over 60 pounds. Among them were a thousand dead bodies, one of them being my uncle.
When my father told me that the Diaspora isn't home, I imagine he thought back to those hundreds of dead bodies who may have survived had they truly been home. He likely envisioned those emaciated, tortured, and hungry individuals, whose lives were hanging on a thread because they were unlucky enough to be a born a Jew in a place where that was forbidden.
While he lived most of his life in New York and Los Angeles and served the US with honor, it was clear that this country was not his home.
Finally, after his three oldest daughters were married, he convinced my mother to make the move to Israel, where he lived out the rest of years. He is now buried with his father and my mother in Har HaMenuchot.
He left for his five daughters his army jacket which was heavily decorated with dozens of medals and patches noting his exemplary service. For the sake of keeping things fair, my sisters and I decided to have a lottery to decide who will keep this priceless artifact representing his bravery and act of service.
I was lucky enough to win the lottery.
That jacket now sits in an exhibit at the soon-to-be opened Museum of the Jewish Soldier of WWII in Latrun. Despite the museum having been completed with all the exhibits in place when I approached the curator about potentially displaying the jacket she rearranged the entire layout of the North American soldier wing within two weeks and placed it front and center. Not only is the jacket a representation of my father's legacy, but rather of all American Jews who put their life on the line for fellow members of the tribe.
My father deserved nothing less.
Last month, I honored my father yet again by upholding his wish for me to live here in Israel. With my husband by my side, I made Aliyah with Nefesh B'Nefesh on my 72nd birthday and I know that he'd be proud to see I'm finally home.
While I plan to be very involved in my community in Netanya and to spend quality time with my eight grandchildren and six great grandchildren, I hope that now, at last, I can finally allow myself to be comfortable.
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