Hittin' the Holy Land

This weekend, I am gathering and organizing myself for a long-awaited trip to Israel. I was a wee-little thing the last time I visited and to give you an idea of my sad recall of the experience.....all I can recite are the ice cream flavors I tasted.

My mother has volunteered to be my video assistant (without even having to be asked!) and I am so happy to have her support as I attempt to interview around 17 former members of the Jewish community now living in Haifa, Tel Aviv, Ashdod, and Jerusalem (amongst other places). To balance out my bad Hurricane-Katrina-when-I-was-trying-to-run-around-Miami luck, I was fortunate to find out that the Salvadoran Embassy in Jerusalem is hosting a reception to celebrate Salvadoran Independence Day the Friday after we arrive. The Ambassador was also gracious enough to provide me with a complete list of people associated with Salvador. About twenty souls in all of Israel.

My ultimate goal is to record as many life histories as possible but I realize time constraints/scheduling/geography will make this an even greater challenge then it already is. Even so, my academic priority is to record/understand the various reasons why these individuals left Salvador. Civil unrest of the 1980s, marriage, educational/professional opportunities, the dream of living in a Jewish state? Why did they arrive in Salvador in the first place? To journey from one complex and unstable state to another? How did being a Jew in El Salvador contribute to their Israeli identity? Do they even feel Israeli?

I cannot say I know the stories of even half of those I hope to interview...which makes the process all that more interesting for both the interviewer and the interviewee. Even though I have been studying the topic for awhile, my identity as insider/outside will help me to convince interviewees to start their stories at the very beginning. The very, very beginning.