Thanksgiving in Israel, where they lose your turkey

It's more than a year since October 7, but we're trying to mark this holiday

It’s Thanksgiving Thursday, and I’ve gotten more than a few messages from people this week offering Thanksgiving greetings, or asking me if I celebrate Thanksgiving, and I keep thinking to myself, “Man, they must really not know me that well because I am QUEEN of expat Thanksgiving celebrations!”

Well, at least, I was queen. Or really enjoyed celebrating Thanksgiving in this land that for so long did not import cranberries, and required us to order our whole turkeys week in advance. (It may be 2024 and my very Anglo Jerusalem neighborhood butcher is more than accustomed to Thanksgiving celebrants, but they did misplace my turkey this morning, sending Daniel to the second branch of the supermarket to eventually find it.)

There was a time when I made not one but two Thanksgiving dinners, one on Thursday, because, tradition, and the second on Friday night, which is when many Israeli Anglos celebrate Thanksgiving since we don’t have Thursday off.

Some years ago, I started baking pies for Pies for Prevention, the Sharsheret bake sale started by

Adeena Sussman

and her sister Sharon in memory of their mom, Stephanie. Our group of pie bakers were Thanksgiving central in Jerusalem, baking around 80 pies for the expats.

At one point, I even wrote a children’s book about Thanksgiving, called “Not This Turkey,” based on the immigrant story of family friends whose father won a live turkey in a raffle and tried to make it part of his family’s first Thanksgiving.

Back when my boys were much smaller

So, yeah, Thanksgiving — I have loved it and its traditions. Still do, but this year and last haven’t been very Thanksgiving kind of years. Last year, we were still reeling from October 7 and last year’s Thanksgiving fell the day before 13 hostages out of a total of 105 captives were released during a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel.

So, no Thanksgiving meals or pies last year.

This year, more than a year after the start of this war, with remaining 101 hostages and so much death and destruction, I knew I wouldn’t be baking pies.

As for Thanksgiving on Thursday night, with our friends, it didn’t feel right either, and I wrote about that for Hadassah Magazine, already thinking it through a couple of months ago when they commissioned the article.

But as it approached, I knew I still wanted to mark this date, somehow and we found our way toward what works, for now.

Instead of turkey and all the fixings on Thursday, most of our extended family migrated on Wednesday night to my eldest niece Dena’s house, where she’s been making Thanksgiving for her kids and her cousins and now their kids for many years. It was great and the traffic is better than on Thursday.

Tonight, we’re just taking it easy and on Friday night, I’ll serve turkey and all the sides to another combination of family and friends, giving thanks simply for the ability to gather together.

I feel so grateful for the ability to cook the dishes that offer such warm memories and will fill the bellies and souls of my loved ones. I’ll read “Not This Turkey” to a gaggle of great-nieces and nephews and feel warmed by that as well.

And I will wish very hard for an end to all of this strife and war and hardship. May we all have happier Thanksgivings.