My friend Martha and I worked together in the 80s at a video editing facility. She was my only married friend back then, with a real house and even a dog.

She stood by me as my Maid of Honor (guess that’d really be “Matron,” though the word has bad connotations) when Craig and I married.

Years later, we both found ourselves with baby daughters in our arms.  Imagine my dismay when my friend and her husband and the baby that matched mine moved to Israel.

I just couldn’t understand how she could choose a such dangerous country in which raise her daughter.

I had all the images in my mind from the news: teen boys, faces partially obscured by scarves, throwing rocks at cars; rockets shot into the desert; barbed wire; mourners following caskets; bombed buses and blown up cafes.

And the political situation, age old.  I pictured Arafat.  I pictured Rabin.  Broken treaties, broken hearts, dusty and sad.

How could she voluntarily move to a place of such endless and historic conflict?

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