Between Aleph and Tav

Next Year in Jerusalem

I hadn’t expected to cry at Ben Gurion.

But the moment the wheels kissed the tarmac, the Mediterranean light burst through the window like a second sun, and my throat closed. The heat was different here. Even the air carried memory. Salt and citrus and something older. Somewhere between memory and heat, I was a child again: barefoot in Herzliya sand, clutching a melting chocolate bar, sticky with sun and sugar.

Back when I thought I could grow into a boy.

Back when I thought Hashem would fix me if I just behaved.

Now I was back. But not as someone’s daughter, not as the little sibling trailing behind at Mahane Yehuda, not as the ten-year-old whispering into stone at the Kotel. Now I was here with my friends—Delilah, Eli, Noa—none of them ever having set foot on this land, their eyes wide, their Hebrew hesitant, their questions endless.

And with Lucy. My wife. My bashert.

She stood beside me in the arrivals hall, blinking under fluorescent lights, her light brown hair slightly frizzed from the flight, pulled back with a hair clip shaped like a pomegranate blossom. She looked up at me and grinned with that dorky girl-next-door expression that still made my knees weak, even after all the rings were exchanged, all the sheva brachot sung. Her suitcase was lopsided. Her Hebrew was adorable. Her love for me radiated like a second sun.

“Still surreal?” she asked, slipping her hand into mine.

“Only completely,” I said.

We stayed in Katamon, in my aunt’s apartment. I had the code to the gate, the key still worked, and she hadn’t responded to my email. I wasn’t sure if that was kindness or avoidance. But the beds were made, and there was instant coffee in the cupboard. Good enough.

Lucy perched on the windowsill in the morning light, sipping tea and asking about every bird call, every street name. My black tichel shimmered in the sun, metallic rainbow butterflies catching the light like little secrets. She reached out to fix the end of it, gently, with a look like I was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

Delilah sprawled on the couch in her usual black-on-black layers, green hair spilling across the throw pillow like ivy. Her nail polish matched—chipped, but still luminous. The sheet music tattoo on her arm caught the light when she stretched, a quiet rhythm always playing beneath her skin. She flipped through the TV channels and paused on a news segment showing soldiers dancing with kids in uniform.

“Oh my god,” she grinned. “Only in Israel would the weather forecast come with a montage of paratroopers and citrus groves.”

Noa rolled her eyes. “You say that like it’s a good thing.”

“It is a good thing,” Delilah said, stretching out luxuriously. “This place is alive. Even the commercials have opinions.”

Eli was already halfway through a bag of Bamba, texting someone back in Montreal about the prices of iced coffee here. He wore a hoodie that said ‘Jews for Jazz and Justice’ in three languages.

“I love this mess,” I said aloud. No one questioned what I meant.

The Seder in Rechavia was delightfully chaotic: card tables crammed together, folding chairs borrowed from neighbors, a child crying under the table, and four generations of Jews arguing about what charoset is supposed to taste like. Lucy wore a soft sage dress and carried herself like she was born to be there, even though it was her first time experiencing Pesach in the land that promised it.

Delilah read the wicked child with a theatrical sneer. Eli tried to speed things up and was shushed by three old ladies in unison. Noa got stuck on a tangent about chametz and class politics.

I led the blessings in a clear voice, my hand steady on Lucy’s knee beneath the table. Her eyes didn’t leave me once during the Maggid. I wasn’t used to being looked at like that while chanting ancient words—like the ritual itself was a love letter.

After Dayenu, I slipped onto the balcony, letting the cold air wrap around me, the city glowing gold and warm below. My fingers found the edge of my tichel, the thread of one butterfly wing caught on the wind.

Delilah joined me a few minutes later, cigarette lit, her voice soft. “You okay?”

“I used to come here every year,” I said. “Before I knew myself. Before I had the language to even be myself.”

She nodded. “Before I saw the Kotel as a girl, I thought it was just stone.”

“And now?”

“Now it’s a mirror.”

I smiled. “Yeah. That.”

At the Kotel, I stood back for a long moment. Delilah had already gone forward, her head bowed, fingers pressing her note into the cracks. Eli and Noa had gone off somewhere debating whether or not they could buy postcards on Shabbat.

Lucy stayed just slightly away, her arms crossed, not out of protest but respect. She caught my gaze and mouthed, “I’ll be right here.”

I nodded and stepped forward.

My heels clicked softly on the stone plaza. My black tichel gleamed with those tiny metallic wings—quiet pride, quiet queerness, quiet revolution. I reached out and touched the wall. It was cold. Ancient. Familiar in a way that had nothing to do with blood or land and everything to do with longing.

“Thank you,” I whispered, forehead against the stone. “For letting me return as who I am. As who I was meant to be.”

When I stepped back, Lucy was waiting, arms open.

That night, in bed, she curled into me and whispered, “You looked so strong at the Wall. Like—radiant.”

“I felt like I was ten and thirty at the same time,” I said. “Like I was praying for that little girl and finally answering her.”

She kissed my shoulder. “You did.”

I don’t know if we’ll live here one day. I don’t know if I want to. But I do know this: next year in Jerusalem sounds different now.

Next year, and the year after.

With Lucy.

Wherever we are, we’ll come home together.

— Chaya Feldstein