Salome Rosenthal, that's my name. With such a moniker, I might as well have 'Jewish Broad' tattooed on my forehead. I was born in the City of Tel Aviv, Israel, to an American Christian mother and Israeli Jewish father. I was raised Jewish, though. My parents, Benjamin Rosenthal and Maeve O'Connell are divorced, have been for a decade. A lot of interfaith marriages end up that way but I grew up in a fairly normal household. Whose parents don't get into shouting matches at least some of the time, right?
For most of my life, Israel was all I knew. I mean, my family would visit places like Paris and Vienna during the summer but Israel has always been and will always be home. When I turned twenty, after completing my mandatory tour of duty with the Israeli Defense Forces, I opted to study outside of Israel. The Knesset was funding international studies for the growing number of Israeli citizens who wanted to attend institutions of higher education in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.
I honestly don't know why I selected the City of Ottawa, Ontario, over more popular destinations like New York City or London, England. Boston was on my list of cities whose schools impressed me. I was considering Northeastern University but the Chechen terrorist incident in Boston forced me to change my mind. It seems that the U.S. is as much a target for Jihadists as the State of Israel itself. Having had my fill of war and terror, I opted for greener pastures. Thus I ended up selecting a little-known school in Canada's Capital over world-famous institutions like Harvard University, Oxford University and the like. That's how I ended up at Carleton University.
I don't know what I expected of a Canadian university but Carleton definitely exceeded my expectations, whatever they might have been. At the colleges and universities of Israel, we have Israeli Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Berbers, Arab Christians, Arab Muslims and Druze along with people from the Baha'i faith. We also have a growing number of European and North American students attending our schools as well. Carleton's diversity amazed me. I saw many students from places like Africa, the Arab world, Latin America, the Caribbean, southeast Asia and the like. How about that?
While at Carleton, I met the two people destined to change my life forever. Bethlehem and Ammanuel "Manny" Birru, a pair of Ethiopian immigrants I ran into in the food court. We have a large Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel, and I learned Amharic from them. You should have seen the looks on their faces when I greeted the two of them in Amharic, then asked if I could join them for a quick bite. Beth and Many are brother and sister, I could tell just by looking at them. He's over six feet tall and willowy, with light brown skin, curly black hair and pale brown eyes. She's short and stocky, a bit darker than him but the facial resemblance between them was uncanny. Yup, family.
I sat down with Manny and Beth and we learned a bit more about each other while eating Shawarma sandwiches and drinking Pepsis. They were curious as to why a 'white' gal like me spoke their language. I proudly told them that I have a multitude of ethnicities in my family. My father was born in Israel to a Jewish father and Lebanese Christian mother. My mother was born in the U.S. to an Irish-American father and Puerto Rican mother. I have Irish, Jewish, Hispanic and Lebanese blood flowing through my veins. And I am proud of the beautiful blend that is me.
I'm five-foot-ten, curvy and sexy, with long black hair, light brown eyes and light bronze skin. Most people assume I'm Hispanic or Italian when they meet me. I always tell them that I'm from the State of Israel. People tend to stare at me when I reveal that, especially in North America. Yes, I am a citizen of Israel. The most unpopular nation on the planet. Even Zimbabwe with its dictator ( oops, I'm sorry, I meant democratically elected president-for-life ) Robert Mugabe and Iran with its Ayatollah are more popular than us Israeli Jews.
It's not cool to be from Israel these days, with everyone and their mama throwing out terms like Israeli Apartheid and 'nation for Palestine' like there's no tomorrow. With the Muslims poised to take over Europe from within due to their infiltration of all echelons of society and their high birthrate, the Americans, Canadians, Brits and other Westerners who are always whining about Palestinians rights will soon know firsthand what the Arabs do to those they hate once they acquire power over them. Won't be long before the Flag of Islam flies over British Parliament buildings and maybe even the U.S. Capitol building itself.
