For most first–generation Americans, the story of how their family came to America is one in which a couple or family decides to migrate to a country where they can provide their family with a better future. My family’s journey is more complex, because both my mom and my dad came to America for different reasons, from different places and even at different times. Had my parents not met when they did, this would probably be a different story.

Seven years after the Yom Kippur war (1973), my mom went to the US for a sabbatical from the Israeli air force. Before coming to New York she went to Brookline, Massachusetts, where the rich people live. As a vacation job my mom was a family caretaker for a very important family who was a family friend. In her job my mom was exposed to American culture, as well as the preferences Americans had with regard to food, taste, and fashion. One experience that my mom is very proud of from that time was that she was that she cooked for Senator Kennedy.  She vividly remembers that he told her that she was the first person to serve him a bowl of couscous. He then asked her if she would like to work for him but she declined because of her loyalty for the other family. From then on, my mother has been bragging that Senator Kennedy liked couscous. As a form of gratitude to her, the family she worked for assisted her in obtaining a social security card, which led to her receiving American citizenship. After the family moved away, she decided to go to New York and visit some of her extended family who had moved to New York. She lived with her sister, and planned to return with her to Israel after a month or so.

My dad’s story is quite different. When my dad finished his mandatory army service, he began working for Israel’s national water company, Mekorot.  There he made a good amount of money. His dad (my grandfather) told him that he should go to America and become a millionaire like his brother (my dad’s uncle). So my father obediently moved to New York with the money he saved from his job at Mekorot. In New York he bought a taxi medallion, then got married to his fist wife and had twin girls (who were technically my half sisters who I never knew about). After his first wife had the twins she left him and took the taxi medallions for child support, which left him quite poor and psychologically broken. To get my father out of feeling bad his aunt took him in and cared for him and got him back to health.

Before my mom left back to Israel my mom was introduced to my dad.  When she saw him she apparently was the one who made the first move. As she told the reason she was curious about him was that she liked that my dad was smart and tall. When my mom went to meet my dad’s aunt she was warned that my dad was “broken”. When my mom heard this from his aunt she thought that was being pushed away. My mom thought that his aunt did not want her to marry her nephew due to the fact that she is a Sephardi (non-European Jew) and did not fit in the family. My mom introduced my dad to her parents, who also were against the marriage, and then they got married to spite everyone. After they got married they returned to New York and moved into my dad’s apartment (where they live in to this day). Shortly after, they had their first child together, David, and since then my parents both agree that they made a terrible mistake, which they continue to pay for every day of their life.