I am Israeli and will probably identify as one for as long as I live. It's in my blood, heart and accent.
My kids however, are Canadian, born and raised. Weird, I never thought I would have Canadian kids.
They were both born here in Toronto. Snow is nothing new to them. Eve sings the national anthem ("O Canadaaaaa"), Tom loves broccoli (this would never happen in Israel!), they take part in Christmas, Halloween and Thanksgiving celebrations. We speak Hebrew at home but English is their first language. They're getting Canadian education, and among many other Canadian things, they use the words "Sorry" and "Excuse me" daily. Oh, and they have citizenship from day one.
My kids are Canadian, but I am Israeli.
So how do you deal with the desire to let them grow 'quietly' in their natural habitat on one hand, and the need to root some 'Israelism' in them on the other? I guess the question then becomes "What does being Israeli mean?"
I struggled with this question soon after Eve was born, but then I came to a realization that many things I considered to be 'Israeli' are in fact directly related to Judaism. I saw them as Israeli because I was born and raised in Israel, where the majority of the population is Jewish, so almost naturally, I looked at Israel and Judaism as one instance when in fact they are separate.
In other words, I made peace with the fact that my kids will never be Israeli like their parents, simply because, well, they were not born there :) However, they are Jewish and should be raised as ones, and if the two are so similar and I raise them good enough, they'll have some Israeli characteristics that will make their Israeli mama very proud.
For now we focus on Hebrew, Shabbat, talking about what Israel means to our family and celebrating the Jewish holidays. Eve added the words 'Yalla' and 'Sababa' to her vocabulary, she loves Hummus and has been acting super Israeli when encountering other Israelis, so I would say it's working pretty well so far.
Another thing to think about in this regard:
I always wonder what it would be like if we decided to move back to Israel one day (calm down, there's no such plan at the moment). For us it would be moving back, sure. But for our kids? they will be full-on immigrating. People will make fun of their accent, they will have to learn how to read and write in Hebrew and they'll be wearing summer cloths all year round. How will they handle such a big change?
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