Since this Tuesday I've been in Moscow. I came here to participate with my Moscow-born wife in an international summer school on typology and lexicon to start here today.
I don't think I have to confess explicitly that I have a very hard time getting along in Israel socioculturally, especially with one of its main sociocultural sectors. For this reason it occurred to me more than once to leave Israel, even for Japan and Russia. But having spent several days in Moscow again, which I like very much mainly because of its culture and civilized citizens, at least compared to their Israeli counterparts, I've been feeling that in spite of everything I still feel far more comfortable in Israel, which is a fresh and big revelation for me.
Every time I visited Moscow, including this one, since I met my wife, she accompanied me and spared me all the possible troubles a typical tourist here might have experienced. I've also realized that not only my practical knowledge of Russian but also my sociocultural literacy of Russia is insufficient to even start noticing sociocultural problems here. In short, I feel here as if I were a baby protected by his mother, if not by his grandmother.
I had to come to my beloved Moscow again to finally understand that after everything is said and done, I even feel more comfortable in Israel than in any other country simply because I feel at home in Hebrew than in any other language and am familiar enough with all the sociocultural problems of Israel than those of any other country.
I like Moscow very much and have been looking forward to this visit for quite some time. But nevertheless I find myself missing Jerusalem, our new apartment and our community there.