I am sitting in John F. Kennedy International Airport surrounded by a group of strangers and ready to depart from everything that is familiar to me. Standing in line to get my baggage checked, I nervously try to make conversation with the people around me. I am asked questions. I ask questions. They are all the same generic curiosities of people who have never met each other, but anticipate spending a great deal of time together.

“Where are you from?”
“So, are you in 11th grade?”

After what felt like hours of waiting in line making awkward conversation, our group of 33 teenagers boarded the plane that would take us to our home for the next four months—Israel. That happened almost five months ago.

My name is Jake Bleiberg. I am a 17-year-old Jewish teenager from northern New Jersey, and for the past four months I have being living, learning and rediscovering myself while on the NFTY-EIE High School in Israel program. For the last four months of my life, I’ve lived on Kibbutz Tzuba, where I did everything from study Hebrew to climb through the ruins of a Crusader castle.

Tzuba is a fairly large kibbutz located in the Judean Hills, about 15 minutes west of Jerusalem. My life there was a rich combination of education, fun, wonder and, of course, Judaism. My normal day there consisted of one-and-a-half hours of Hebrew and three hours of Jewish history in the mornings, lunch and then my general studies classes in the afternoon (the courses that I would have taken in my home high school—English, physics, history, etc.).

After classes ended I would eat dinner with those who live on the kibbutz. Afterward, our group would have an evening activity of some kind, which could be anything from studying Talmud to doing bad improvisational comedy skits. The group’s normal weekly routine was broken up with day trips at least once a week. These tiulim (“trips” in Hebrew) took us off the kibbutz and allowed us to see different places in Israel. On these trips we visited important historical sites such as Ammunition Hill and explored neighborhoods in various cities.

Beyond these day tiulim, once a month we took weeklong outings, which included spending seven days with the Israel Defense Forces in the Gadna youth program and flying to Poland to visit the sites of the Holocaust.

That’s an overview of how my time was spent while on the EIE program, but it doesn’t come close to describing the profound affect these accumulated experiences had on me. While in Israel, I learned a great deal about Judaism in general, from ancient history to modern-day politics. I have come to understand the significance of my own Jewish identity and the importance of Israel to the Jewish people.

I have come to the conclusion that Judaism is not merely a religion, but rather a people with a religion, culture and shared memories. This has helped me to understand our need for a home in our ancestral land, a place that’s the answer to our collective 2,000-year yearning for a haven. To me, Israel is that badly needed refuge. It provides our people—who have been scattered throughout the Diaspora for so long—with a homeland and national community. I now think of Israel as my home with the same degree of comfort and familiarity as the place where I’ve lived for 16 years.

My program in Israel ended several weeks ago, and I’m now back in New Jersey surrounded by the people and places I have known my whole life. I’m glad to be back with my family and friends. However, it should stand as a tribute to my feelings of connection to Israel that leaving Eretz Yisrael made me even more uneasy than when I left the familiarity of my American life.

Jake Bleiberg is 17 years old and returned to his home in northern New Jersey in December after living in Israel for four months. Jake is the Religious and Cultural Vice President of his temple youth group and an active member of the Jewish community. He’s also a member of the JVibe Teen Advisory Board.