opinion
O n the day when the shooting happens, I fi nally
unlock what some say is the most vital part of the
American dream. My husband and I have a house in
the suburbs now, big trees towering above — no picket
fence, but a wide expanse of green and room for the
pattering of tiny feet. As we sign the paperwork, we
each take turns rocking our baby on our legs.

This house is for our children. We say it over and
over again. If it were just he and I, we would be con-
tent with the walls of a small Brooklyn apartment, with
the city streets as a backyard. Instead, we chose to
give them rooms to grow into, a shingle roof, mani-
cured lawns and a garden to plant and grow together.

Like so many of the families in Uvalde, Texas, I
am an immigrant. I came here to this country with a
dream to give myself and my children a better future.

As we drive home, our baby sleeping in the backseat,
we hear the news of 21 dreams extinguished by an
AR-15. Just like the shooter at Robb Elementary school, I
got my fi rst rifl e at 18 — it was borrowed, not bought,
and a few weeks later I returned it, along with maga-
zines full of bullets, to an army warehouse. It scraped
against the fabric of my coarse olive green uniform,
pushed against my core as I slept with it under my
army-issued mattress. As I shot it at a dusty military
range, I couldn’t help but think: I am too young and
too stupid for this.

When I was young, not much older than my oldest
son is now, I was promised that maybe I wouldn’t
have to go to the army when I grew up. When I moved
away from Israel to the United States, I found comfort
in the fact that this was one false promise I wouldn’t
have to make to my children. But instead, I fi nd myself
with a much more harrowing false promise to make.

Each day I send them to school, I’ll have to tell them
they are safe when I know they are not.

I grew up in a country where the faces of fallen
soldiers greet you every morning at the entrance of
schools, with a memorial wall for the soldier alumni
who perished. And yet I knew that I was safe in the
walls of my classrooms.

I come from a place dubbed the holy land, yet I
cannot fathom how one could value thoughts and
prayers over actions to protect the sanctity of the
lives of our school children. I come from a land known
for such violence, yet it has never treated the life of its
young with such callousness.

I come from a place known for occupation and war,
shelters and bombs, missile fi re and violent attacks
in the streets — for all those reasons, I’m glad my
children are growing up somewhere diff erent. And
yet, it’s also a place of gun control — it’s very hard
to obtain a permit for a weapon in Israel. Once,
someone tried to partially blame school shootings on
America’s militarization, and I attempted to refute the
argument by saying that I come from an even more
militarized place. They scoff ed at me, but it was true
— school shootings don’t happen in Israel.

The week before the Uvalde shooting, I talked to
Jewish comedian Michael Ian Black about his book
“A Better Man,” an open letter to his son about boy-
hood and masculinity which is bracketed by school
shootings. I was distracted during our interview — my
son was terribly ill, and being faced with your child’s
mortality is a haunting, terrible thing. I told him how
his book feels just as relevant now, two years after it
came out, especially after the Buff alo shooting that
had taken place the week before. As we ended our
call, he told me that this would not be the last time his
book feels pertinent, the last mass shooting.

It’s an awful thing to be right about this week. It’s an
awful thing that these shootings feel unavoidable. It’s
an awful thing to, once again, be faced with our chil-
dren’s mortality this way. I return, over and over again,
to an Onion headline: “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says
Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.” I come
from a country that prevents this — so many other
immigrants in this country do, too. The 21 victims of
the Uvalde shooting should still be with us.

Yes, in Israel, we send children to defend our coun-
try, in uniforms and guns — but at least they know
they’ll be in danger.

Every day, the children of this country get drafted
to be part of a war, one that they didn’t sign up for —
a cynical war waged by politicians and gun lobbies.

Almost every mass shooting involves an AR-15, and
yet we refuse to outlaw them; so many shootings are
committed by young, angry men, and yet we don’t
restrict their access to guns. Too many men and
women in power send us the message that guns are
more important than the lives of our children and of
their teachers, who are meant to foster their growth,
not shield them with their bodies.

I had my children in this country hoping, in part, to
protect them from violence. But when I see images
of Alithia Ramirez and Irma Garcia — all the Uvalde
victims and their families, another community dev-
astated by this same gun — I recognize that’s an
American dream that, for now, I cannot give them. JE
Lior Zaltzman is deputy managing editor of Kveller.

Crosses sit outside of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, after a gunman killed 21 people inside on May 24.

14 JUNE 2, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
Photo by Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
BY LIOR ZALTZMAN
I Left Israel to Give My Kids the
American Dream. Is This It?