You’ve Got A Friend In Me

A strong bond of friendship can overcome

Author Tamar Benus, at right, and her Israeli friend Limor Butnaro enjoyed hanging out at the beach in Tel Aviv. Israeli teens stay out late at night and “have the most strength of any teens I have ever met,” she wrote.

by Tamar Benus

You know those people that you are really close to and whenever something happens when you’re together you begin to laugh? That is how I am with my friend. My mom calls it “giggle-it is.” Every time we look at each other another round of giggles begins. It has been happening since we were one year olds and has continued until this very day. It’s like a secret language we have with each other.
Once we were deciding what color to paint our nails and I held up my hand in front of both of us, which resulted in five consecutive minutes of tittering. Laughing usually connotes the feeling of happiness and joy and that describes my relationship with Limor Butnaro, my friend from

Israel.
Last summer I split my time between an organized tour in Israel and a few weeks in Tel Aviv with Limor. I couldn’t wait to meet up with her; we hadn’t seen each other in three years.
“At zocheret et ha-zman ...” and before my best friend who lives all the way in Israel finished her sentence I cut her off and responded, “of course I do.” This wasn’t just a one-time thing. It happened every time we were together.
Let me back up. Limor isn’t just some friend who shares the same taste in clothing as I do. Our mothers grew up as best friends in Borough Park, Brooklyn. We knew each other since day one of our lives. She was three years old when she made aliyah and we get to see each other every so often when her family comes to New York or I go to Israel.
She and I come from totally different backgrounds. I am shomer Shabbat, I go to a Hebrew day school (with a dress code) and I daven in the morning. She, on the other hand, only says “boreh pri ha gafen” on Friday nights, was surprised when I began to say shema before I went to bed and can go to her local public school wearing anything but underwear.
She also doesn’t look Israeli. She has pale white skin, light blue eyes and blonde hair. Then there is me—I have an olive complexion, brown hair and brown eyes. Our appearance isn’t the only thing that makes us complete opposites.
Our differences never really bothered me. We never actually brought them up; it was sort of like a side point in our relationship. We were the type of friends who used to take baths together when we were two. We really didn’t care about anything else except being with each other. So my mind was solely set on the idea that we would spend two full weeks together laughing, joking around and enjoying each other’s company. I was expecting to sit on the Tel-Aviv beach, meet her friends and buy souvenirs to take home. I didn’t think anything else would happen.
The first few days with her was exactly what I expected they would be. We made fun of how our parents looked in their 1978 Yeshivah of Flatbush High School yearbook. We talked about music and Johnny Depp, Ryan Gosling and Jake Gyllenhaal. We even spent one night playing Twister. I couldn’t be happier.
Then I began yearning for the beach and some other activity besides walking around the mall or sitting at home watching Israeli soap operas. I wanted to experience what she did. I didn’t want to go home and tell everybody I spent my summer in Israel eating ice cream and sleeping. I convinced her to take me to the Tel Aviv beach.
We spent all day there till about 11 p.m. If I was back in New York and at the beach until 11 p.m. I would face some serious consequences when I got home. As 9 p.m. came around I started to get worried that her mom would be upset or that we would be in danger. But she had no problem. She told me she usually stayed out later then that. We finally got home and slept till noon the next day. The lives of Israeli teens are so very different then New Yorkers. During the summer her time is spent at home and mine is at camp.
I finally got to meet her friends one night. She and her friends have the most strength of any teens I have ever met. Her friends were so supportive about one of my life goals, which is to make aliyah. Even though I go to a Zionist day school and my dad has mentioned that he wouldn’t mind if I became a solider in Tzahal, I have never been pushed to make aliyah till I was older.
These kids told me about how they feel so safe in Israel. That nothing bothers them. That Israel teaches you life experiences that no other place can teach. These kids are not even scared to hold a gun. I, on the other hand, jump a little when I see guns on TV. I thought that because we watched the same movies and listened to the same music we would have loads of things in common. But I was wrong.
There was such a huge difference between the way I see the world and the way she and her friends see it. It isn’t that they are carefree, but they know how to make the most of a situation. They take what they can as opposed to picking at little details that don’t have much importance.
None of them are religious and it made me slightly uncomfortable when they asked if I wanted to hang out on Saturday. I didn’t want to offend them and say no, but I didn’t want to not keep Shabbat. I explained my thought process to them and they totally understood. On motzei Shabbat we went to a movie.
The biggest difference between my friends back home and my Israeli friend wasn’t that me and my friends are religious and she isn’t, it was the way they portrayed their connection and love for Israel. The majority of my friends see going to Israel as a vacation spot just like Florida or California. These Israeli teens would never move from Israel. They don’t wish anything in Israel would be different about how they live their lives though they have hopes for peace. Israeli teens have a pride about being citizens of Israel. They appreciate everything in the land.
Since I was 10 years old I wanted to make aliyah. I feel like I have a connection to Israel, one of which I am proud of, but I will never feel the same way my Israeli friend does about living in Israel. They feel so privileged to live there.
I realized that I don’t think twice about how great it is to live in New York. I don’t appreciate the fact that I am basically living in the center of everything. I learned that in order to make the best of a situation (such as bombs falling a few blocks from your home) is to be proud of where you come from.
Despite major differences, we were all pretty much the same. We were typical adolescent girls who are growing up. We all wished our lives could be scripted like a movie with a perfect happy ending, with a prince charming, with success and laughter. We all agreed that ice cream is by far the best feel-good food. And we all knew that it didn’t matter if we were religious or not. We learned things from each other — like pop culture in America versus pop culture in Israel — as well as the importance of being proud of who and what we are.
Tamar Benus is a sophomore at Ramaz Upper School in Mannhattan.

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization